FHA waives short sale waiting period?

FHA One Day Waiting Period After Short Sale?

FHA will waive the waiting period after a short sale, if you can meet some pretty strict criteria.

You can buy again, using an FHA loan, if you are only one day out of closing on a short sale IF:

  • You had no mortgage lates before your short sale
  • The loan that you short saled was NOT an FHA loan

This is pretty amazing right?  I mean, normally there’s a waiting period after a short sale (minimum of 3 years), but this opens a few doors.

Short Sale with No Late Payments

The real challenge here is finding a lender that will approve a short sale if you’ve never been late.

There are many homeowners out there that are struggling to make their mortgage payments now, or have a loan that will adjust soon.

With the economy what it is, there are furloughs, layoffs and pay cuts that can make it challenging to meet your monthly debt obligations as you did with a higher household income.

Responsible homeowners, that continue to make payments on your home even though you own more than what it’s worth, finally have something to look forward to.

Exceptions

While this exception sounds great in theory, qualifying is going to be tough.  FHA has never been easy to get an exception from.

Even FHA extenuating circumstances exceptions are very strict and difficult to qualify for.  The only acceptable reasons for an exception from FHA is the death, or permanent disability of a primary wage earner.

If you have had a decrease in income, or an adjustment in your payment, and no mortgage lates on a loan that is NOT an FHA loan currently – You may want to explore this option.

At the time I write this, I am told that FHA will allow it, and that as a Lender we can lend under these circumstances, but we have not yet processed a new a new purchase loan under these circumstances.

About the Author

Scott Schang

A 20+ year veteran of the Mortgage and Real Estate industry, I am passionate about educating and empowering consumers. I have been writing about consumer protection issues and making sense of complicated real estate and mortgage topics on this website since 2007

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  • Michelle says:

    Hi Scott,
    What wonderful news, thank you for publishing this. My husband and I were trying to get everything in order to move, because we knew the market had taken a turn for the worse. We figured, we would not be able to sell our house, nor rent it and qualify for both loans. We have a conventional loan (1st & 2nd) and we want to move. I had no idea this was a possibility. If this is a possibility for us, we are extremely interested. We’re in CA (northern) and have had major decrease in income, my husband takes home 7% less each month and I am not working ( I am home with our little baby). Total loss is over $40k. Can you please contact me with more information?
    Thank you again for this article.

  • Manny Fonseca says:

    Scott
    We have spoken several times but have yet to meet each other. I am a HREU graduate for Distressed Property. I like the education you bring to people and thought I’d share with you and your readers that there are a few more restrictions to the process of short selling your home and then buying again right away.
    There is only one company I am aware of (Mortgage company in San Diego) that has actually done one of these short sale and buy loans.
    I would like to talk to you about this process and see if I could be of service to any of your customers. I am in the process of negotiating a “strategic short sale” with the hopes of my client buying immediately after the fact. Again I like the education you bring to people and would like to place this loan with your office.

    • Scott Schang says:

      Thanks for the comment Manny. Our company can process these loans, but only recently, and we have not processed one yet. I would love to talk to you more about your client’s situation. I recommend that anyone considering a short sale because of some hardship that would not allow them to continue making their payments get approved with a lender before entering into a short sale negotiation. Any additional information you can share is always appreciated!

      Feel free to give me a call or stop by our office any time.

  • VIOLETA SCHMIERER says:

    We are interested to short sale our property and we are current in our payments. Due to furloughs and cut in my pay (co-owner), our income had been affected and we are now struggling in paying our mortgage of $2800.00 every month. Please advise how we can go about this in the most earliest way. We are also interested in purchasing a new property to replace our current one. Thank you.

    • Scott Schang says:

      Hi Violeta,
      I have your email address, I am going to have someone email you contact information to start looking into this. The first step is to get you prequalified for a new loan assuming you will not have the $2,800 payment. If you qualify for the loan, the next step is to get your home listed with an agent with the experience to negotiate a short sale with you not having any late payments. Many lenders are difficult to talk to if your payments are not late, but I have seen many cases where lenders are open and cooperative.