I saw this on the Wall Street Journal -
Fannie, Freddie Strive to Serve Housing Market, Taxpayers "Fannie and Freddie over the past 18 months have gradually imposed larger surcharges on mortgage rates or fees for borrowers deemed high-risk. Real-estate brokers and home builders -- traditionally backers of Fannie and Freddie -- are up in arms. "It's appalling," Jerry Howard, chief executive of the National Association of Home Builders, said in an interview. "They're kicking people with relatively high credit scores out of the queue" for buying or refinancing homes."
"For a growing number of loans, Fannie and Freddie reduce the price they will pay (through a "loan level price adjustment") to compensate for what they see as higher risk characteristics. For instance, on a home-purchase loan involving a 20% cash down payment, a borrower with an excellent credit score of 740 or above could get a rate of about 4.75% with a 1% origination fee, said Lou Barnes, a mortgage banker in Boulder, Colo. But a borrower with a score below 680 would pay an additional fee of 2.5% of the loan amount or else accept a sharply higher interest rate."
"Fannie and Freddie had such surcharges in the past, but they were much smaller and affected a narrower range of borrowers."
"Burned by heavy losses in 2008, Fannie and Freddie have reverted to a focus on prime-quality borrowers with enough cash for sizable down payments. That has left a growing share of the market to loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration, which accepts borrowers with low credit scores and down payments of as little as 3.5%. While Fannie and Freddie now are criticized for being too strict in their credit standards, many critics fear the FHA is too lax and may face heavy losses eventually."
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