HUD 9548 Mysteries And The Most Common Mistakes

Often when a real estate broker is selling a HUD home they don’t comprehend there are completely different contracts to fill out. Knowing this is imperative in equipping your buyer with the most efficient contract review process. HUD has specific contracts that are distinctive to your state standard forms.

How Will Your Buyer Be Taking Title? Line Item #2 on the Housing And Urban Development form asks for how your buyer will be holding title. While in the past this often could be left barren until your buyer reconciles, this has changed and the best approach is to analyze this with your buyer prior to submitting your contract and enter in to the agreement how they’ll be holding title. Common ways of holding title can by calling your local title .

Repair Escrows On Line Item #4 This is a commonly misinterpreted area. Most newly licensed brokers think this is the cost of escrow but it has nothing to do with the “cost of escrow” at all. I’ll make it basic. If using FHA financing you’ll need to check the HUDHomeStore website to see if the real estate you are bidding on requires a repair escrow. Repair escrows are necessary when using FHA lending. Any imperative repairs under $5000 require a 203b repair escrow. Any repairs mandated over $5000 are a 203k repair escrow. If you aren’t using Federal Housing Administration lending then the 203b or 203k area doesn’t apply. ONLY if you are using Federal Housing Administration financing do you need to fill this section out. Even if the property has a repair escrow on it and you are using non-FHA financing then you need not worry about this section. Check the box “seller is paying cash or applying for conventional or financing not involving FHA” and proceed.

Earnest Money Procedures on Line Item #12. This line corresponds to the processes and rights HUD to your EMD when your consumer fails to perform. The most misconceived part is that there are two lines on which call for initials and those lines are confusingly close to one another. Time and again, if there are married purchasers on the contract, an agent will have one consumer initial a single line and the other on the following line to the right. Wrong. Confusing for sure. Correct, no! One is a “buyers initials” line and the other is reserved for HUD’s “authorized agent”. Execute both of your buyers initials on the first line set aside for “purchaser”.  Be cautious as this will get your contract rejected if you fail to execute these lines properly.

What are some everyday mistakes you see other newly licensed brokers make?


Hi my name is Len Dietrich. Real estate is changing in to a social media MONSTER and getting started as a real estate agent or becoming a better one has never been more difficult. Find the the best HUD 9548 Contract Tutorial by visiting our site where we will provide a real estate one-stop-shop with reviews, how to outsource real estate tasks and recommendations for the tools you will need to improve your real estate marketing efforts.