Fannie Mae might take 3% down

CHICAGO — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are close to allowing consumers to buy a home with as little as a 3 percent down payment and still have the mortgages backed by the two agencies.

More details are expected to be announced in coming weeks, but the move from a 5 percent down payment could increase the ability of creditworthy but cash-strapped consumers to become homeowners and help a faltering housing market regain its traction. Both agencies at one point had accepted 3 percent down payments.

“Through these revised guidelines, we believe that the enterprises will be able to responsibly serve a targeted segment of creditworthy borrowers with lower down payment mortgages by taking into account compensating factors,” said Mel Watt, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Fannie and Freddie's overseer, during a speech Monday at the Mortgage Bankers Association's annual convention in Las Vegas. “It is yet another much-needed piece to the broader access-to-credit puzzle.”

Watt announced other policy initiatives to make lenders more comfortable with the federal government's mortgage purchase guidelines in the hope it will loosen their purse strings.

“It's a very big deal,” said Dan Gjeldum, a senior vice president at mortgage lender Guaranteed Rate. “It will dramatically reduce the expense for a first-time homebuyer. The easier it is to do business with the agency, the easier it's going to be for consumers to work with mortgage companies.”

Fannie and Freddie do not originate mortgages directly to homebuyers. Instead, lenders sell mortgages that meet certain criteria to the two agencies, which in turn package them into securities and sell them to investors. The investments are guaranteed, which means that investors recoup losses if the homeowner defaults. Fannie and Freddie can force lenders to repurchase bad loans.

The upshot of those assurances is a more cautious lending environment.

Watt said the FHFA was taking steps to clarify the circumstances under which Fannie and Freddie could force a lender to repurchase a loan, in an effort to reduce lender confusion. “I hope our actions provide sufficient certainty to ... more aggressively make responsible loans available to creditworthy borrowers,” Watt said.

The average FICO credit score of borrowers is 744 for Fannie Mae and 742 for Freddie Mac, lower than at the end of 2013.

Borrowers who put down less than 20 percent on a home purchase typically pay mortgage insurance that continues until their equity in the home reaches 20 percent. Reducing the down payment requirement to 3 percent from 5 percent will require a longer period of mortgage insurance and benefit mortgage insurance providers.

Homebuyers with lesser credit scores and smaller down payments traditionally flocked to mortgages backed by the Federal Housing Administration that required down payments of only 3.5 percent. But the upfront fees have increased, keeping more first-time buyers on the sidelines.