Under the FHA program you're buying with little down. This is possible because FHA insures the loan and you pay an insurance premium. The premium is equal to 1.5 percent of the sale price at closing (an amount which can be financed) and .5 percent per year for the outstanding loan balance. In other words, if you can buy with 20 percent down or with 80-10-10 financing you may want to skip the FHA program and avoid the insurance fees.

FHA also has a complex set of loans limits which means there may not be enough loan money to buy a property.

For instance, this year the conventional loan limit for single-family homes in the continental U.S. is $417,000. By law, the maximum FHA mortgage is 87 percent of the conventional loan limit, or $362,790 in 2006. However, this upper loan figure is only available in high-cost areas -- and in many high-costs areas FHA loans are simply insufficient to acquire typical homes.

If you live in a community with less expensive housing it's likely that the amount you can borrow under the FHA program will be lower. Larger FHA loans are available for two-, three- and four-unit properties, providing at least one unit is owner-occupied. Your mortgage lender can explain the amount of FHA financing available in your community for the type of property you want to purchase.

For the past few years there has been another factor which has made FHA loans less attractive than some other forms of financing, a factor which may go far to explain the loan's declining popularity.

Beginning in 1998, the FHA started something called the Homebuyer Protection Plan. The idea was to have appraisers examine homes for physical defects -- not a bad thought except that appraisers are qualified as not professional home inspectors.

Many homeowners thought they might save money because an FHA appraisal under the so-called protection plan sure sounded like a home inspection. It wasn't, but as a result many buyers decided not to get their property checked by a professional inspector.

HUD said that FHA appraisers who did not meet its requirements could be prosecuted under the federal False Claims Act. The appraisers then did what sensible people do: They raised their rates because of the new requirements or refused to appraise homes for FHA borrowers. Lenders, in turn, began advising borrowers to try other programs if only because it was easier to find an appraiser.

The HUD effort was not adopted by conventional lenders or the Department of Veterans Affairs. And one home approved for FHA financing in Detroit was found to have 181 building code violations -- perhaps not a world record but so embarrassing that HUD bought back the property from the owners.

On December 19th last year, HUD announced that appraisers would no longer be responsible for reporting "cosmetic defects, minor defects or normal wear and tear" including such things as leaky faucets, soiled carpeting, poor workmanship or trash in the crawl space.

What the new HUD appraisal standards really mean is this: If you want to buy a home with FHA financing, that's great -- just make sure you get both an appraisal and a professional home inspection. The appraiser can establish the value of the property and the inspector will check the property to determine its current physical condition.

This is as it should be for all homes and all forms of financing. An appraisal is simply not a home inspection and buyers are well-served getting both.

As to FHA loans, without needless and sticky appraisal standards you'll see more of them in 2006. An inherently good loan is once-again available to borrowers on increasingly-competitive terms.

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