80 Groups Blast New GSE Pricing

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are abandoning their affordable housing mission by tightening lending practices and imposing new fees that will put homeownership out of reach for minority and low-income homeowners, according to 80 fair-housing and civil rights organizations that are urging the government-sponsored enterprises to reverse course. "We the undersigned are deeply troubled by the recent announcement of your intentions to raise the cost of low-down payment loans for all but the smallest percentage of homebuyers with near perfect credit," the groups say in a letter to the top executives of Fannie and Freddie. The new "pricing scheme" violates "your charter," the April 22 letter says, and it is "tantamount to both ethnic and gender discrimination." Fannie and Freddie have tightened underwriting standards and imposed new delivery fees on almost all their mortgage programs, including affordable housing products.