FHA Single-Family Mortgage Gurantees Cost Taxpayers $15 Billion Plus Lost Savings Of $45 Billion For Total Of $60 Billion

FHA's single-family mortgage gurantees have cost the US taxpayers $60 billion, comprised of $15 billion in budgetary outlays and $45 billion in lost expected budgetary savings.

From Congressional Budget Office, "FHA’s Single-Family Mortgage Guarantee Program: Budgetary Cost or Savings?" posted by Chad Chirico & Susanne Mehlman:

Has FHA’s Guarantee Program for Single-Family Mortgages Produced Net Savings to Taxpayers?
No. Collectively, the single-family mortgage guarantees made by FHA between 1992 and 2012 have had a net federal budgetary cost of about $15 billion, according to the most recent estimates by FHA. In contrast, FHA’s initial estimates of the budgetary impact of those guarantees sum to savings of $45 billion (see the figure below). That swing of $60 billion from savings to cost primarily reflects higher-than-expected defaults by borrowers and lower-than-expected recoveries when the houses of defaulted borrowers have been sold—especially for loans made over the 2004-2009 period.

Source: CBO

Source: CBO