On May 19, it was reported that the FHA’s Office of Single Family Housing (OSFH) archived nearly 600 inactive mortgagee letters after determining that their inclusion on OSFH’s website caused confusion among lenders seeking accurate FHA Single Family policy information. The OSFH explained that since “[t]oday’s artificial intelligence (AI) tools are more efficient at locating and extracting information from vast sources of web content,” including from HUD’s active mortgagee letter policy directory and Handbook 4000.1, streamlining was necessary for improving accurate information retrieved from both manual and AI-generated searches.

The archiving initiative came after a review of single family policy documents on HUD’s Client Information Policy System (HUDCLIPS) revealed mortgagee letters dating back to 1978 that were expired or superseded by OSFH Policy Handbook 4000.1 but were still listed in the active policy directory. The outdated documents have since been moved to HUDCLIPS’ inactive or superseded mortgagee letters webpages.