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Easing fears that congressional budget slashing would halt ++ efforts to build and renovate affordable apartments in Maryland over the next few years, lawmakers partially restored funding to a federal housing program late last week.The House voted Thursday to retain Federal Housing Administration mortgage insurance for multifamily housing, a turnaround from an earlier bid that threatened the construction, renovation or refinancing of up to 21 privately owned projects with more than 4,000 market-rate apartments.

State regulators said Wednesday that they have ordered a large mortgage broker to stop making loans to Marylanders after federal investigators alleged the company had violated lending rules. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced last week that it was no longer allowing Allied Home Mortgage Corp. to originate loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration because it said the company had played "fast and loose with FHA's standards. " The Justice Department is alleging mortgage fraud in a lawsuit against Allied.

DOES IT really matter if the appraisal on the house you buy is accurate? Is a little fudging a big deal? You bet. If your valuation is inflated to hit the contract price - a not-uncommon occurrence, according to appraisers themselves - you could end up with a mortgage that's larger than the market resale value of your home. Or if the appraiser ignores some key value-depressing features of the property, you could be stuck with thousands of dollars in unexpected repair bills. Now the federal government is weighing into this issue with a blunt new message to appraisers and the lenders who hire them: Don't play games with home appraisals.

State auditors have questioned $88,000 in claims paid to health care providers by the Family Health Administration in the last two fiscal years. The auditors said in a report made public Tuesday that the FHA, which provides health care services to at-risk communities, did not adequately make sure claims were legitimate. For instance, from January 2008 to July 2009 the agency paid for several medical procedures that were considered questionable because records show accompanying care, such as anesthesia, was not provided.

A transformation has been under way here that is changing the homeownership prospects - and choices - of thousands of first-time, moderate-income and minority families. It's also keeping more owners in their houses instead of facing foreclosure when they fall behind on payments. The Federal Housing Administration, long derided as the lending choice of last resort, has turned itself into what is arguably the consumer-protection leader in the mortgage industry, both for buyers and owners.

The federal government's biggest home mortgage program streamlined itself at the end of December, and that could be good news for buyers, sellers, realty agents and builders in 2006. In fact, the Federal Housing Administration's decision to eliminate or soften many of its onerous rules about property conditions and mandatory repairs should be a stimulant to the entire housing market this year. It could help open low-down-payment mortgages with no prepayment penalties to thousands of first-time, moderate-income purchasers who might have turned to higher-fee "sub-prime" alternatives instead.

In the current credit squeeze, if you have less than a 20 percent down payment, there's pretty much only one major source of mortgage financing available: the Federal Housing Administration, the Depression-era home loan insurance agency that still offers 3 percent down, 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with consumer-friendly credit standards, even on jumbo loans in high-cost areas. But there is a potentially troublesome problem looming for FHA: New loan volume is exploding - tripling in the past 12 months alone - and Congress just handed the agency the responsibility for virtually all the government's efforts to keep economically distressed homeowners out of foreclosure by refinancing their unaffordable loans.

Near the peak of the housing frenzy four years ago, 75 percent of homes sold in the Baltimore metro area went to buyers with conventional mortgages - loans not insured by government agencies. Now such deals are much fewer and farther between. Thirty-five percent of Baltimore-area buyers got conventional loans last month, according to Metropolitan Regional Information Systems. The share of buyers turning to Uncle Sam - particularly for Federal Housing Administration-insured mortgages - is way up in these post-bubble, post-subprime times.

Call it a banner week for home mortgage applicants. The nation's largest federal source of home loans for first-time buyers announced plans to cut costs for new borrowers substantially, and to pass on millions of dollars in savings to its current customers. On top of that, the nation's second-largest private source of mortgages rolled out several groundbreaking loan concepts, including one that eliminates the need for down payments from people who don't care to make them. The Federal Housing Administration produced the biggest splash of the week by reducing the cost of mortgage insurance premiums for future borrowers by a third.

THE 800,000 homebuyers who use the federal government's largest housing finance program every year appear to be on the verge of getting a level of consumer protection that other homebuyers lack: mandatory home inspections prior to purchase, with a three-day legal right to bail out of the deal.Under legislation heading for the House of Representatives, no one could buy a home more than 1 year old with a Federal Housing Administration (FHA) insured mortgage without first obtaining a detailed, professional inspection and report on the "physical structure and systems" of the property.

The situation in Ruxton is full of complexities ("Discrimination in Ruxton," April 25). If representatives of Sheppard Pratt Health System are to be believed, Ruxton residents are a bunch of elitist snobs with no moral standing. In reality, the personal issues surrounding this are just the beginning. Put aside the obvious name-calling and look at the more important legal issues. The heart of this issue lies around the misguided actions of Sheppard Pratt. Without question, Sheppard Pratt is a first-rate institution with exceptional staff and services.

A small paid notice in Wednesday's Sun announced the death of Anne Irene Ruth Salzman at Charlestown Retirement Community. She was 97 and "was preceded in death by her husband of fifty years, Sidney Salzman," the notice said. Missing was the rest of the story - how the Salzmans in 1941 fought the Federal Housing Administration for the right to live in a neighborhood of their own choosing. Much has changed since then, but studies suggest that each year millions of Americans still face similar discrimination - not by the government, perhaps, but by the real estate marketplace.

Great Oak Lending Partners, a Timonium broker, is being fined $11,000 for what U.S. officials describe as misleading advertising about Federal Housing Administration mortgages. The Department of Housing and Urban Development, which oversees FHA, said this week that its mortgagee review board found several problems with Great Oak Lending's direct-mail ads. In addition to the fine, the company will have to forward its advertising to the FHA for monthly reviews during a six-month probation, HUD said.

Great Oak Lending Partners, a Timonium broker, is being fined $11,000 for what U.S. officials describe as misleading advertising about Federal Housing Administration mortgages. The Department of Housing and Urban Development, which oversees FHA, said this week that its mortgagee review board found several problems with Great Oak Lending's direct-mail ads. In addition to the fine, the company will have to forward its advertising to the FHA for monthly reviews during a six-month probation, HUD said.

A Timonium firm is being fined $11,000 for "misleading advertising" about Federal Housing Administration mortgages, the federal government said. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which oversees FHA, said this week that its mortgagee review board found two problems with Great Oak Lending Partners' direct-mail ads. The Baltimore County company suggested that FHA's reverse mortgage was a government benefits program such as Social...

Clarification In a recent column on legislation to expand Federal Housing Administration mortgages to more potential homebuyers, the maximum mortgage amount under the bill would be the median home price for any metropolitan area, but not to exceed the Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac limit, which is adjusted annually. The current limit is $417,000. An unusual Capitol Hill alliance of liberal Democrats, conservative Republicans, commercial banks, real estate brokers, ethnic group lobbies, homebuilders and mortgage brokers is pushing for legislation that could give thousands of first-time home purchasers a better deal than they get in the mortgage market today.

Higher loan limits on Federal Housing Administration loans may become a reality after the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation Wednesday.The legislation raises the FHA's mortgage insurance limits for single-family homes to a higher range, beginning at $109,032 up to $197,620. The current range is $86,317 to $170,362.The Senate approved the FHA measure July 17 as part of its appropriations legislation. A compromise bill must be approved by Congress before it goes to President Clinton to sign into law.The Department of Housing and Urban Development wanted to raise FHA-insured loans to a single limit of $227,150, which would put it on a par with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loan limits.