While Capitol Hill talks about housing finance reform, Fannie and Freddie’s regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, is doing something. They have already repeatedly raised the guarantee fee borrowers pay to insure their mortgages are paid off should they default. Moreover, come 1/14 conforming loan limits for Fannie and Freddie mortgages may be reduced. These efforts are designed to reduce government’s oversized footprint in this market and attract private capital.
Tag Archives: housing finance
Finance Failure
While the House and Senate work on competing bills to fix our broken housing finance system, where 91.2% of new mortgages are government backed, reform is years away. A Congress that can’t pass a budget, an immigration bill, or an Agriculture bill, and that is hurtling towards yet another ruinous debt ceiling fight, certainly doesn’t have what it takes to reform housing finance and tinker with the beloved 30-year mortgage.