Sponsors (8)
The bill preserves short‑term mortgage price stability and lender operational simplicity while keeping risk‑based pricing tools in play, but it shifts risk and potential costs onto taxpayers and higher‑risk borrowers and raises the chance of disparate impacts without stronger oversight.
Homebuyers—especially those with low down payments and middle‑class families—avoid the higher mortgage pricing that FHFA's Jan 19, 2023 changes would have imposed, providing short‑term mortgage price stability.
Lower‑risk single‑family mortgage applicants benefit from continued ability to be charged credit fees that reflect their individual risk, which can help preserve access to mortgage credit for those borrowers.
Lenders, mortgage firms, and the enterprises retain pricing flexibility and avoid implementing new fee schedules and operational changes, supporting lender viability and investor confidence in the mortgage market.
Cancelling the fee changes shifts credit‑risk costs and reduces FHFA's ability to calibrate pricing to borrower risk, which could increase losses for Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac and ultimately impose costs on taxpayers or the housing finance system.
Higher‑risk borrowers (including many low‑income households) may face larger credit fees for single‑family mortgages, raising borrowing costs and potentially reducing access to homeownership.
Permitting risk‑based fees without specified oversight or limits risks disparate impacts on protected groups (if risk factors correlate with race or income), aggravating unequal access to credit.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Prohibits the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and the housing enterprises from implementing the single-family mortgage credit fee pricing changes announced on January 19, 2023, and declares those changes and the related guidance documents void. The bill also preserves the enterprises’ ability to set single-family mortgage credit fees using risk-based pricing, leaving them able to vary fees by borrower risk under existing authority.
Introduced January 3, 2025 by Andrew S. Biggs · Last progress January 3, 2025