How long does it take to close a USDA Rural Development Loan?

This morning I opened my email to find that a home buyer in another part of the state was also concerned because her lender forwarded an email that had been received by the USDA service center where her loan application had been sent for compliance approval. The email stated:

“Please understand that we are acutely aware of the challenges created for homebuyers, lenders and realtors when we are unable to meet desired timelines but we are doing the best we can with the limited human resources we have. We are not uncaring, unconcerned or being bureaucratic. Our GRH Team is a group of dedicated and knowledgeable professionals who work tirelessly to provide homeownership opportunities to families living in rural areas, while diligently protecting the quality and risk of our portfolio.  It would be helpful to plan for longer application review times and to share that with your borrowers to minimize their issues with delays that simply cannot be avoided because of lack of human resources.”

This prompted me to call my local USDA Service Center hotline in Raleigh, North Carolina where we send all Wake, Johnston, Franklin, Nash, Durham, Chatham, and Harnett Counties USDA loan applications for final loan approval to find out how long they were taking to process USDA GRH loan applications…here’s what they said: