The HUD Multifamily Database: What Borrowers Should Know

HUD provides public access to multiple databases relevant to their multifamily housing programs, including the HUD firm commitments and endorsements database, the HUD multifamily mortgage database, and the HUD terminated mortgages database. Each of these may have value to multifamily investors in different situations. In this article, we’ll review HUD’s main multifamily data sets and how borrowers, investors, and others can use them to their advantage.

Overall, the other data sets provided by HUD include:

• Historical Production Tables

• Currently Insured Mortgages

• Maturing Subsidized Mortgages

• Database of Terminated Mortgages

• 202 Direct Loans

• Multifamily Assistance and Section 8 Contracts Database

• Physical Inspection Scores

• Limited Denials of Participation

• Section 8 Preservation Tool

• TRACS Tenant Characteristics Report

• Multifamily Property / Contract / Rent & Utility Allowance Datasets

All relevant public data can be accessed here, on HUD’s multifamily data page.

FHA Multifamily Firm Commitments and Endorsements Database  

The FHA Multifamily Firm Commitments and Endorsements Database provides information about recent firm commitments/endorsements issued by HUD. For prospective multifamily borrowers, this can be used to get a good idea on the exact types of properties that have actually been approved for funding, as it provides property name and location information, as well as exact loan types and amounts. It also provides the name of the lender that has issued each loan, so it may be also be helpful in locating a suitable HUD multifamily lender.

The HUD Multifamily Mortgage Database

The HUD Multifamily Mortgage Database is a record of all current HUD/FHA multifamily loans, and is updated on a monthly basis. The Multifamily Mortgage Database contains information including:

• FHA/HUD Project Number

• Project Name

• Project Address

• Amount of Units (for multifamily properties)

• Amount of Beds (for healthcare properties)

• Original/Final Endorsement Dates

• Loan Term

• Initial Mortgage Balance

• First Payment/Maturity Date

• Borrower Information (including name and address)

• Servicer Information (including name and address)

• Loan Type

• Monthly Mortgage Payments (principal and interest)

Terminated Multifamily Mortgages Database

The HUD Terminated Multifamily Mortgages Database contains information on all terminated HUD/FHA Multifamily mortgages. Much like the Firm Commitments and Endorsements and Multifamily Mortgages Databases, the Terminated Mortgages Database can be very valuable to a multifamily borrower, as it shows them which properties have prepaid mortgages, which properties have defaulted, and which ones have been reassigned to new borrowers. Properties whose owners prepaid or assigned their mortgages may be more likely to have been successful investments, as the original owners might have sold them at a profit. New borrowers may wish to take lessons from these deals, or, in contrast, may want to look at the defaults in order to understand more about how to avoid them.

In general, the Terminated Mortgages Database contains most of the same information as the Multifamily Mortgages Database, as well as additional information about the loan servicer and the reason for termination.

Limited Denials of Participation

The Limited Denials of Participation dataset provides a list of appraisers, HUD multifamily lenders, borrowers, accountants and others who have been disqualified from participating in HUD’s multifamily lending programs, generally for a certain number of years. Some disqualification periods are as short as 1 day, while others may last for several decades. Borrowers may wish to check this list to ensure that any of the service providers they are working with are not currently disqualified from participation. In addition to the Limited Denial of Participation list, individuals and organizations that have been permanently banned from participation in the HUD’s multifamily loan programs can be found on the Excluded Parties Listing System (EPLS).

Multifamily Assistance & Section 8 Database

The Multifamily Assistance & Section 8 Database is another HUD multifamily dataset that may be of interest to some investors, particularly those who are investing (or are considering investing) in HUD’s Section 8 program). As it provides detailed information on Section 8 properties and contracts, it can give investors and excellent idea of where other Section 8 properties are located, and, to a certain degree, how they are doing financially. By reviewing this data, investors may be able to use it to help model their strategies off of successful Section 8 projects with a high community impact, while avoiding costly mistakes.

It is important to note that this data set is listed by contract, not by property, so there will often be multiple contracts for the same property. “Assisted unit count” provides the amount of units per contract, while “property total unit count” shows the amount of units for the property as a whole.

In addition, every contract includes the average ratio of gross contract rents to fair market rents (FMR), incorporating the amount of overall units and the fair market rent for units, based on the size of bedrooms. For those who are unfamiliar, fair market rents are a statistic published by HUD used to determine rental payments for many parts of the Section 8 program. They are localized, and vary based on city and county. It should be noted that, while the ratio of gross contract rents to FMRs is helpful, it may not be fully accurate, due to calculation errors and the fact that gross contract rents for projects often change.

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