Summary

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) home loan insurance approval procedures under the single-family mortgage insurance program.

GAO found that: (1) since 1934, HUD single-family mortgage insurance programs have insured about 14 million loans, of which about 6 percent have failed; (2) HUD relies on lenders to obtain and verify information bearing on loan risks and does not independently verify credit information; (3) weak internal controls may have contributed to the success of a fraudulent housing scheme in Camden, New Jersey; and (4) unlike HUD, the Veterans Administration (VA) independently verifies credit information in its mortgage insurance programs and attempts to determine why borrowers default shortly after loan origination. In addition, GAO found that HUD: (1) is implementing the Direct Endorsement Program, which is assigned to simplify and expedite the loan origination process by granting lenders the authority to issue HUD insurance commitments without prior HUD approval; and (2) will monitor direct endorsement lending to rate lenders' performance, but will not collect information pertaining to loan defaults or independently verify credit information submitted by lenders.