[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 33, Number 24 (Monday, June 16, 1997)]
[Pages 858-859]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Statement on the Mortgage Insurance Premium Reduction Initiative

June 12, 1997

    Today, we are making it even easier for thousands of young families 
to buy their first home. I am pleased to announce that the Department of 
Housing and Urban Development is reducing the FHA's up-front mortgage 
insurance premium by 12.5 percent. This reduction, coupled with two 
previous reductions and savings passed on to homebuyers because of 
better Government efficiency, will save families buying a first home

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a total of $1,200. Just last year, FHA premium cuts reduced the 
downpayments for 550,000 families across the country.
    In 1994, I called upon the Department of Housing and Urban 
Development to develop a strategy to boost homeownership to an all-time 
high--to produce 8 million new American homeowners by the year 2000. 
Through our National Homeownership Strategy, more than 2.5 million 
American families have already become homeowners. Today, more Americans 
are homeowners than at any time in history.
    We know homeownership is strengthening families and stabilizing 
neighborhoods. As part of that strategy, I challenged HUD to do what it 
could to remove some of the barriers young families face when buying 
their first home. Too often, front-end closing costs, not monthly 
payments, stand between a hard-working family and a new home. Our goal 
was to cut those up-front costs by $1,000; with today's action, we have 
cut those costs by $1,200.
    I applaud Secretary Cuomo for going the extra mile, surpassing the 
challenge I set in 1994 and providing the extra boost needed to make the 
dream of homeownership a reality for thousands more families.