In the event that you have a USDA loan in your pipeline or are writing up an offer using USDA for your financing type, please take note of the critical dates that may impact on-time closings in the USDA updates provided below:

AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR OUR LENDERS: To implement regulation-related conversion changes that will streamline processing and save you time and money, Rural Development will not accept new Single Family Housing Guaranteed loan applications from the close of business on November 21, 2014, through the start of business on December 1, 2014.

To prepare for the December 1^st conversion to the new 7 CFR 3555 regulation published almost a year ago, and to avoid greater disruption of our lenders’ application submission processes, we must eliminate as much of the conditional commitment backlog nationwide as possible. In some states the backlog is substantial and an undertaking of this magnitude requires that we assign all available staff resources to the project. We will focus on eliminating the backlog during the week applications are not accepted.

Once the conversion is completed, the turnaround time you can expect for loan approvals will be dramatically reduced. In addition, since the conversion happens to coincide with the automation of the loan note guarantee process, the electronic issuance of loan note guarantees will be much faster and simpler for those lenders that have signed up for the automated loan closing. (This will be discussed further in future listserv announcements.)