FHA will not work, now what?

[Anonymous]

We started our home search in march 2011 picked a builder and plans and signed a contingent purchase agreement for $310,000. Our house never sold and now the fha loan max has decreased to $271,000 in my area. Our middle fico score is 670 high of 677, we have a 5% down payment and about $50,000 total in cash to work with. What we are hearing is we can't do fha now and 670 fico is too low for conventional with 5% down. We could do it but we would get a 5.5% or highet rate and really high fees now what?? Any suggestions? We are in Rochester ny.

[ReBuildingAgn]

Hmm not sure if this will help at all, but it's worth a shot (maybe). Since you're in NY, I don't think you have a BB&T there. But they have a loan program called CHIP. You can do a search on the boards for more details, but it's 100% financing no PMI. Minimum score does have to be 680 now, however. It's basically their alternative to FHA. The max loan limit is $417K. Income restrictions apply, but it's based on your county.

Hope this helps 

[BGinVA]

Maybe I'm confused, but if you have $50K to work with, can't you just buy down the loan to the $271K limit? 

[Anonymous]

We want to keep $10k cushion and also have to take a $10k loss in our current home.

[MBOhio2]

UPDATE: After posting the below, I saw that you stated your city and state so I looked up your county (Monroe County) and yes, the limit is $271K for a single family.

Are you sure the FHA limit is still lower in your area? When the increased FHA limits expired on October 1, 2011, the loan limits went down in my county too. However, the government then restored the limits in November 2011 and the loan limits went back up to what they were earlier in 2011. I thought this was the case everywhere and the loan limits for all counties nationwide were restored to pre-October 1, 2011 level. Here is a link to the HUD website where you can look up your county: https://entp.hud.gov/idapp/html/hicostlook.cfm