Are you waiting to refinance? Higher loan fees on the way
Syndicated Columnist
WASHINGTON — Most major lenders already are pricing in the higher fees, effectively raising costs to consumers immediately and reducing the impact of housing-stimulus efforts from Congress and the Obama administration.
Under Fannie’s and Freddie’s new guidelines, even applicants who assumed their FICO scores would get them favorable rates will be charged more unless they can come up with down payments of 30 percent or higher.
For example, a buyer with a 699 FICO score who can bring a down payment of about 25 percent to the table will get hit with a 1.5 percent “delivery” fee at closing under the new guidelines.
A buyer with a FICO score between 700 and 720 will pay an extra three-quarters of a point. Even someone with a 739 FICO — once considered a platinum guarantee of the best rates available — will get dinged with a quarter-point add-on.
Applicants who want a condominium and cannot come up with a 25 percent down payment will be hit with a three-quarter point add-on penalty, no matter how high their credit score, simply because they are not purchasing a traditional stand-alone home.
Buyers of duplexes, where one unit is owner-occupied and the other is rented, will be charged a flat 1 percent add-on from Fannie, even if they’ve got FICOs above 800 and make 50 percent down payments.
Refinancers who take cash out at settlement will be forced to pay extra — as much as 3 points if they’ve got low credit scores and modest equity stakes.
Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac say they are tacking on these extra fees to counter higher risks and losses associated with certain loan products, buyer equity stakes and credit scores.
Declining home values in many parts of the country are intensifying losses for both companies when loans go to foreclosure. Though quasi-private enterprises until last September, Fannie and Freddie now are operating under the control of federal regulators and are bleeding billions of dollars of red ink.
Freddie spokesman Brad German said that some of the loan categories and credit-risk combinations targeted in the latest round of fees “default at four to eight times” the rate of other mortgages in the company’s portfolio.
“We have to manage these risks appropriately,” he added, and that means pricing them based on the probability of higher losses.
However, real-estate agents, mortgage bankers and brokers are incensed at the new round of fee increases, calling them counterproductive in an environment where housing needs help, not new impediments. They have begun lobbying Congress and the two companies’ federal overseers to scrap the latest add-ons.
Charles McMillan, president of the National Association of Realtors, complained in a letter to the Federal Housing Finance Agency — the regulator of Fannie and Freddie — that not only were individual fee increases unjustified, but that in combination they could seriously deter home purchases.
McMillan said “a borrower with a credit score of 670 making a 20 percent down payment for a condominium would have the fee raised from 150 basis points (1.5 percent) to 350 basis points (3.5 percent) — more than double” under Fannie Mae’s new schedule.
“They’re shooting themselves in the foot,” said Steve Stamets, a mortgage loan officer in Rockville, Md. With substantial down payments of 20 percent and more, Stamets said, “they don’t need to be that tough” on applicants even if home prices decline slightly more before the cycle ends.
“When consumers with 720 credit scores are being adjusted, there is something seriously wrong with the system,” said Harry Dinham, a Dallas mortgage-company owner and former president of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers.
As recently as two years ago, FICO scores in the upper 600s were enough to qualify any applicant for prime financing. Now scores of 720 to 740 are the bare minimum if you’re going to escape add-on fees — and still not good enough if you choose to buy a condo or a duplex.
Where’s all this headed? Absent congressional intervention or new marching orders from the companies’ regulator, the add-on fees are here to stay.
But there’s an alternative readily available for just about anyone who wants to avoid the fees: FHA mortgages, where down payments go as low as 3.5 percent and credit scores are not an issue for most applicants.
Kenneth R. Harney: kenharney@earthlink.net
Copyright © 2009 The Seattle Times Company
Jack and En-May
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