The Department of Housing and Urban Development has issued a final rule aimed at improving its single-family property disposition program and minimizing losses to the FHA Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund. The rule consolidates and reorganizes agency regulations pertaining to asset disposition to better reflect industry standards and enable HUD to get the greatest value for its real estate-owned properties. The goal of the asset disposition program is to shrink HUD’s REO inventory and at the same time reduce MMIF losses. The final rule mostly mirrors the proposed rule HUD published for comment in October last year. The department said it has made no substantive changes to the proposed draft. The codified changes include limiting the provision of settlement-cost assistance to owner-occupants. The final rule eliminates HUD’s obligation to pay the broker’s sales commission and clarifies that settlement-cost assistance is only available to owner-occupant purchasers and not investor purchasers. In addition, the ...