Time after bankruptcy for FHA loan?

[Jeff NA]

Pondering this aloud for a situation that a friend of mine has found herself in. Apologies if this would be better suited for another forum. I see some generic info online that states that one can get an FHA loan two years after a bk, although I am a bit skeptical.

Her case, for what it is worth, is a bit interesting. She filed for Chapter 7 in December 2010. She had flawless credit without ever having a missed payment to anyone, and only one credit card with a sizable balance. When the card raised her interest rate (as they did for many people following the bailouts), she was unable to afford the new minimum payments, and no amount of pleading or offering to continue making on time payments for the rest of her life would convince them to keep the rate at a manageable level. The rest of that story is predictable: missed payment raises the interest rate even more, and with the balance (around $26,000), she defaulted and filed for bk.

One other note of interest: While she now has her first real job, starting her out around $60k a year, she is a year or maybe 18 months away from completing her PhD in a very desirable field, and her earning potential is a realistic $100k+ on the conservative side. Now, with that advance degree comes the type of relationship to the Department of Education that one might expect. She won't even begin to divulge that number, but I suspect it is somewhere around $150k.

With all that being said, does anyone have an idea of how long it may be before she can realistically obtain a loan from the FHA for $100k-150k. I'm not interested so much in what the FHA says, but more in what they actually do so that I can help her chart her course over the next few years.