A Message from NAR President Gaylord

NAR Raises Concerns about Fannie and Freddie Policies
On April 11, 2008, NAR President Dick Gaylord wrote letters to Fannie Mae CEO Dan Mudd and Freddie Mac CEO Dick Syron to raise serious concerns about a range of Fannie and Freddie policies that, taken as a whole, are hurting the entire national economy, not just the housing and mortgage markets. Realtors think there has been an overreaction by the GSEs and others in the housing finance industry that, even in the short term and certainly in the long term, will cause harm to the organizations involved by delaying recovery of the housing and mortgage markets. Many small individual policy decisions designed to keep the enterprises financially sound, when layered one upon another, have created major impediments to healthy mortgage and housing markets. The letters address three main areas of concern:

1. A wide variety of higher fees and other underwriting standards that make mortgages much less affordable.

2. Policies reducing maximum loan-to-value ratios (LTVs) by five percentage points for homes in declining markets.

3. Extremely tight underwriting standards for jumbo conforming loans authorized by the Economic Stimulus Act.