U.S. Probes Awards of Housing Pacts : Investigation: Three contracts awarded to close friends of the Federal Housing Finance Board’s embattled director may have violated government regulations.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s inspector general is investigating three no-bid contracts awarded to close friends by the embattled director of a new agency that controls millions of dollars in housing money.

Inspector General Paul A. Adams, in a preliminary report to Housing Secretary Jack Kemp, said the contracts may have been issued in violation of government regulations, a HUD source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Thursday night.

Adams today declined to discuss any preliminary findings but said he hoped to make a final report to Kemp next week. Adams said he began the investigation of the Federal Housing Finance Board’s contracting procedures on Monday at Kemp’s request and has received full cooperation from the agency.

Kemp raised questions about the contracts during a lengthy meeting Thursday with Mary K. Bush, the housing secretary’s choice to head the new agency. The meeting was arranged after behind-the-scenes efforts by Kemp aides to exert influence over the independent agency became public.

Mary Bush has asked Peter Wallison, a former Reagan Administration attorney now in private practice, to represent her during the investigation, according to her spokesman. She is not related to the President. Attempts to reach Mary Bush and Wallison today were unsuccessful; both were reported to be out of town.

Joseph Slye, the spokesman for the housing board, confirmed that Adams had visited the agency earlier this week and taken several contract files. He said Mary Bush had asked the board’s own inspector general to look into the contracts after HUD officials raised questions about them last week.

Mary Bush awarded the three consulting contracts in question to three close friends with whom she had worked in the Reagan Administration.

The recipients included Wendell Gunn, Kemp’s former chief of staff at HUD, and Margery Waxman, who in 1988 represented Charles Keating in his then-successful effort to persuade regulators not to seize a troubled California savings and loan he owned, Lincoln Savings & Loan Assn. of Irvine, Calif.

Both Slye and HUD sources refused to provide details of Kemp’s meeting with Mary Bush. Also unclear was whether Adams got involved in the investigation at Kemp’s request, as suggested by the HUD source, or at the request of the finance board’s own inspector general.

The board oversees the 12 regional Federal Home Loan banks, which must give up $400 million of their profits each year to help pay for the bailout of the savings and loan industry.

Congress also directed the regional banks to put a percentage of their profits each year into affordable housing programs, starting with $78 million this year and rising to $100 million.