Page "Federal Housing Administration" Paragraph 17

The creation of the Federal Housing Administration successfully increased the size of the housing market.

By convincing banks to lend again, as well as changing and standardizing mortgage instruments and procedures, home ownership has increased from 40 % in the 1930s to nearly 70 % in 2001.

By 1938, only four years after the beginning of the Federal Housing Association, a house could be purchased for a down payment of only ten percent of the purchase price.

The remaining ninety percent was financed by a twenty-five year, self amortizing, FHA-insured mortgage loan.

After World War II, the FHA helped finance homes for returning veterans and families of soldiers.

It has helped with purchases of both single family and multi-family homes.

In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, the FHA helped to spark the production of millions of units of privately-owned apartments for elderly, handicapped and lower income Americans.

When the soaring inflation and energy costs threatened the survival of thousands of private apartment buildings in the 1970s, FHA ’ s emergency financing kept cash-strapped properties afloat.

In the 1980s, when the economy didn ’ t support an increase in homeowners, the FHA helped to steady falling prices, making it possible for potential homeowners to finance when private mortgage insurers pulled out of oil producing states.