A down payment measured in months of rent, not years of saving. Credit that's forgiving of the past. And every dollar of that down payment can be a gift. FHA is how most Michigan first-time buyers actually get keys — and as a wholesale broker, I shop your FHA loan across dozens of lenders instead of locking you into one bank's price.
Get My FHA Quote → Run My NumbersFHA isn't a consolation prize. It's a government-insured loan designed to put buyers with real lives — student loans, thin savings, a credit ding or two — into real houses.
FHA's minimum down payment is a fraction of what your parents told you it had to be, and it opens at a 580 credit score. Send me the price of the house you're looking at and I'll tell you the exact number.
Every dollar of your down payment can come as a gift from family. FHA doesn't make you prove you saved it yourself.
580+ gets you FHA's lowest down payment tier. Scores from 500–579 can still work with more money down. Rebuilt credit after a rough patch? FHA was built for that.
FHA lets the seller contribute up to 6% of the price toward your closing costs — double what conventional allows at low down payments. We negotiate it into the offer. See what Michigan closing costs actually cover.
Buy a duplex, triplex, or fourplex, live in one unit, and let the rent from the others help you qualify. One caveat on three- and four-unit buildings: FHA requires the property to carry itself, meaning 75% of the appraised market rents has to cover the full payment. Duplexes have no such test.
The FHA 203(k) loan wraps purchase price and renovation budget into one mortgage. With Michigan's older housing stock, it turns rough listings into right houses.
There is one number to know, and the good news is that it is the same number everywhere in this state.
For 2026, the FHA limit on a single-family home in Michigan is $541,287 — and it is identical in all 83 counties. HUD sets each county's limit as a percentage of the national conforming loan limit and raises it in areas it designates as high-cost. Michigan has no high-cost counties, so whether you are buying in Oakland County, Kent County, Grand Traverse, or Ingham, you are working from the national floor, which is 65% of the $832,750 conforming limit that applies to conventional loans this year.
| Property type | FHA limit | Conventional (conforming) limit |
|---|---|---|
| 1 unit | $541,287 | $832,750 |
| 2 units | $693,050 | $1,066,250 |
| 3 units | $837,700 | $1,288,800 |
| 4 units | $1,041,125 | $1,601,750 |
Sources: HUD Mortgagee Letter 2025-23 (2026 FHA forward mortgage limits) and the FHFA 2026 conforming loan limit announcement. Limits are reset each year and can change; I verify the current figure on every file.
For most Michigan buyers, the FHA limit is not the thing that decides the deal. Median prices across the state sit well below $541,287, so on a typical single-family purchase the limit never comes into play — your credit, your debt-to-income, and your down payment are what actually shape the loan.
Where the number starts to matter is at the edges. A higher-priced single-family home in places like Birmingham, Northville, or Ann Arbor can run past the $541,287 FHA limit while still sitting comfortably under the conventional limit, which usually makes conventional financing the better route. The multi-unit limits matter too, because FHA lets you buy a two- to four-unit property at the same low down payment as long as you live in one of the units — so a duplex or fourplex in Oakland or Washtenaw County can be well within reach even at prices that would look impossible for a single-family purchase.
If the house you want sits above the FHA limit, you are not out of options. Conventional financing covers you up to $832,750, and beyond that a jumbo loan takes over. Send me the address and the price and I will tell you within a few minutes which side of the line you are on and what it costs you either way.
Your credit took a hit and you've rebuilt. FHA pricing doesn't punish a 620 score the way conventional pricing does.
Savings are thin. FHA's minimum — which can be gifted in full — beats waiting three more years to save the twenty percent myth while prices climb.
Your debt-to-income is on the high side. FHA is more forgiving on DTI than conventional, especially with strong compensating factors.
You're past a bankruptcy or foreclosure. FHA's waiting periods are shorter — generally two years after a Chapter 7 discharge and three after a foreclosure, with documented recovery.
You want the seller to carry closing costs. Up to 6% in seller concessions gives us real room to structure your cash-to-close down.
You're eyeing a duplex. Owner-occupied 2–4 units at FHA's minimum down payment, with rental income helping you qualify — conventional asks for more down on the same play.
Eligible for VA? Stop reading — your VA benefit beats FHA in almost every scenario. Zero down, no monthly mortgage insurance.
Every FHA loan carries mortgage insurance (MIP). Anyone who glosses over it is selling you something. Here's the actual math.
You pay 1.75% upfront — rolled into the loan, not out of your pocket at closing — plus an annual premium of roughly half a percent, built into the monthly payment. With the minimum down payment, MIP stays for the life of the loan.
But "life of the loan" doesn't mean life. It means until we refinance you out. Once your equity grows — through payments, through improvements, or through the market — refinancing into conventional drops the MIP entirely.
You don't have to track any of that. Every FHA client is invited onto my Refi Watchlist — opt in and, when the numbers say dropping MIP saves you real money, you'll hear from me. That's the whole system.
Conventional usually wins when your credit is roughly 680+ and you have a real down payment saved — and its PMI comes off — you can request cancellation once you reach 20% equity, and by law the servicer has to drop it automatically at 22%.
FHA usually wins when your score is in the 580–670 range, your down payment is at FHA’s minimum, or your DTI runs high — FHA rates don't climb with lower scores the way conventional rates do.
You shouldn't have to guess. I run every buyer both ways and show you the side-by-side. You pick with real numbers in front of you.
Your credit and income are only half of an FHA file. The other half is the property, and Michigan’s older and semi-rural housing stock is where otherwise clean deals fall apart in the last two weeks.
FHA appraisals apply Minimum Property Requirements — the standard that a home be safe, sound and secure. That is a low bar in a subdivision built in 2015 and a real conversation on a 1948 farmhouse outside Hartland. Here is what actually comes up, and most of it is workable if you know about it before your inspection contingency expires.
On a pre-1978 home, the appraiser is required to inspect for defective paint surfaces — federal rules define that as paint that is cracking, scaling, chipping, peeling or loose — and defective surfaces have to be cured before the loan can be endorsed — unless a certified lead-based paint inspector determines the surface is not lead-based paint. Curing means covering or removing it, and the regulations specifically prohibit removal by machine sanding or open-flame torch. Porch ceilings, soffits and eaves are the usual culprits, and appraisers sometimes call outbuildings too. This is the single most common FHA condition call on older Michigan homes, and it is usually a few hundred dollars of work that somebody has to agree to do before closing.
FHA does not require a water test on every well, which surprises people on both sides of the deal. A test is required on new construction, when the appraiser reports a deficiency with the well or the water, when the water is known or reported to be unsafe, when the property sits close to a potential contamination source such as a landfill, industrial site or farm, or when the well sits closer to the septic system than FHA’s separation distances — one hundred feet to the drainfield or seepage pit, fifty feet to the septic tank. Those distances are written as new-construction standards, but on an existing home a short separation is what triggers the test, and your county health department’s own separation rules control. That is the trigger that catches people on smaller rural lots.
Where a test is required, the standard the water has to meet is set by the health authority with jurisdiction — your county health department — and only where no local standard exists does the EPA’s national drinking water regulation become the fallback. And the sample must be collected and transported by a disinterested third party: a lab, the health authority, a licensed sanitary engineer. Not the buyer, not the seller, not the agent, not me. Pulling your own sample to save a week is the fastest way to lose two.
Shared wells are financeable — with the right paperwork. FHA will accept one serving no more than four living units, where the properties cannot feasibly connect to a public or community system, with a binding shared well agreement in place, a shut-off valve on each home’s service line so one property can be worked on without cutting off the others, and enough yield to deliver at least three gallons per minute to each existing home over a continuous four-hour period. If the neighbors have been sharing a well for twenty years on a handshake, that needs to become a document during your inspection period, not during your closing week.
An existing onsite septic system is acceptable when it is functioning properly and meets the requirements of the local health department. Testing is not automatic. The appraiser has to examine the system for signs of failure and call for repair or further inspection if anything shows, and the lender has to obtain a health authority report where the local jurisdiction requires one. In practice, a county transfer inspection may apply regardless of what the loan asks for, and any buyer of a rural Michigan home should be getting the system looked at on their own account anyway.
If the property needs more than a weekend of repairs, the answer is often not a different house — it is a different loan. The FHA 203(k) rolls the purchase price and the renovation budget into one mortgage, which is exactly what Michigan’s older housing stock was built for. Send me the listing while you are still deciding and I will tell you which program the house will actually close on.
Property requirements above summarize FHA program guidance in plain English and are not quoted guideline text. Requirements change, and the health authority with jurisdiction sets the applicable water and septic standards for your address. This is not a commitment to lend and not a guarantee that a specific property will qualify.
I am a Michigan broker, but most of my FHA files land in the same four places — and each one asks a different question of an FHA appraisal.
Home base and where my Google listing is anchored. Village and township addresses tax differently, and that lands in your monthly payment.
Downtown’s older housing stock is where defective-paint calls and 203(k) conversations happen most.
Competitive listings and condo projects — project approval matters as much as your file does.
Wells, septics and private roads. This is where the property requirements above stop being theoretical.
A quote is free, there's no obligation, and we don't need to pull your credit to give you a realistic starting picture. Tell me your situation — we'll figure it out.
Get My FHA Quote → Call / Text (248) 491-8998