Former FHA commissioner David Stevens, who now heads the Mortgage Bankers Association, says hiking GSE guarantee fees to fund an extension of the payroll tax cut is "bad policy," calling such a maneuver a "slippery slope."
In a new email to MBA members Stevens also predicted that a 10 to 12.5 basis point increase in Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac g-fees might soon become a reality.
“We have been very vocal on this issue, but it is moving through congress fairly rapidly and may end up being one of the few things that congress actually agrees to collectively,” he writes.
MBA is asking mortgage bankers to “weigh in by letting your members of congress (house and senate) know that g-fee increases should be used only to offset risks to the GSE's and that the GSE's should not be piggy banks for any arbitrary tax policy or government expenditure.”
If a G-fee hike is passed the money would go directly to the Treasury Department.
Mortgage bankers likely would not pay the increased cost and instead would pass it onto applicants.
