IF HUD's projections for Denver and 49 other cities are correct,Denver will rank fourth in the country for loan volume and seventhnationwide for the number of loans. Chicago tops the list with aprojected 241,495 FHA-insured loans.

So far this year, lenders have made 17,904 loans for about $2.4billion in the Denver area. In the first 10 months of the year,40,690 homes have been sold in this area for a record $8.7billion.

During the oil and real estate crashes of the 1980s, FHA and VAloans accounted for more than half of the mortgage lending in themetro area. Peter Lansing, president of Denver-based UniversalLending, says HUD may achieve its ambitious goals over the nextfive years because the FHA's Homebuyers Savings Plan will reduceFHA's up-front insurance premium by one third to 1.5% of the loanamount. The plan also will eliminate FHA's annual premium of 0.50%(50 basis points) on all loans once homeowners build 22% equity inproperties.