For the fourth time in five years, Ginnie Mae and its insuring and guaranteeing partners have financed homeownership for more than 900,000 first-time homebuyers. Fiscal year 2020 was the second highest total in five years at 965,115, coming just short of the 2017 high-point of 975,340 and significantly higher than the 888,437 initial buyers in 2019.
Ginnie Mae attracts capital for mortgage lending facilitated by four government programs: the Federal Housing Administration (FHA); the Veterans Administration (VA), the Rural Housing Service within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and lending under the Public Indian Housing (PIH) program within the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Measured by total loans within Ginnie Mae MBS, FHA was the most frequently used program by first-time buyers in FY 2020 with more than 636,000 mortgages. That is followed by the VA program at 228,148, USDA at 99,220 and PIH at 1,531.
However, as a percentage of each underlying agency’s program, 72 percent of all USDA loans went to first-time homeowners, followed by USDA and PIH each at 44 percent and VA at 19 percent.
