After hearing from REALTORS® from around the country, including a significant percentage of the Silicon Valley Association of REALTORS® membership, the U.S. Senate passed H.R. 3700, the “Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act of 2016.” This This legislation makes dramatic improvements to the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) rules around purchasing condominiums.

Changes include efforts to make FHA’s recertification process “substantially less burdensome” while lowering FHA’s current owner-occupancy requirement from 50 percent to 35 percent. The bill also requires FHA to replace existing policy on transfer fees with the less-restrictive model already in place at the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Representatives from the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) testified last year in support of the bill, which passed in the House of Representatives 427-0 in February. NAR initiated the Call for Action soon after and asked REALTORS® from across the country to contact their senators and urge them to pass the legislation.

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