REALTOR Magazine
The Federal Housing Finance Agency has announced a new mortgage refinancing fee that could cost homeowners about $1,500 extra on a $300,000 loan. The fee will apply to loans delivered to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac starting Sept. 1, which means it could impact current refinancing applications.
The fee is “the absolute wrong policy at the wrong time,” Vince Malta, president of the National Association of REALTORS®, said in a statement Thursday. “It directly contravenes the administration’s own directives for federal agencies to do no harm to homeowners during the coronavirus crisis. It is especially troubling, since the GSEs use their profits from refinances to support home buyers in underserved markets—meaning those communities already suffering the most will be harmed the most by this action. Home values and residential real estate are a rock for the American economy right now. We should do everything we can to lower costs for households during this crisis, not make homeownership more expensive.”
Read the full piece here: New Refinancing Fee Could Roil Mortgage Market
