Issue #125, September/October 2002
Going Subprime
Will low-income homebuyers gain or lose when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac move into the subprime lending market?
By Allen J. Fishbein
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The recent foray into the subprime mortgage market by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has renewed the debate over their role in the affordable housing arena. The subprime market targets borrowers with credit problems or limited credit histories who do not qualify for cheaper, prime loans. Fannie and Freddie traditionally have purchased a small share of these loans, but this figure is expected to grow significantly in the next few years. Proponents say that the two huge intermediaries can bring better pricing for some subprime borrowers and help to curb predatory lending. Competitors and some analysts say they will only cream the least risky borrowers, making other subprime loans even more costly to borrowers who need them. Still others forecast that a bigger role in the subprime market may pave the way for making traditional prime loans more expensive for some borrowers.
Defining Terms
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are for-profit, privately capitalized government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) chartered by Congress to act as intermediary institutions for residential mortgages (at present that means conventional mortgages under $300,700).
By law, the GSEs must make affordable housing part of their business (see SF #80).
The GSEs do not make mortgage loans directly to individual borrowers. Instead they perform their “secondary market” function by buying mortgages from banks, savings institutions and other mortgage lenders. They either keep these loans in their own portfolios or, more typically, package the loans in pools and sell them to investors as mortgage-backed securities. These functions, in turn, provide lenders with the funds needed to issue new mortgages, thus bringing additional capital into the housing loan market. For the mortgages to be packaged and sold as securities, they must meet certain standardized underwriting criteria set by the GSEs. The combined purchases by GSEs in recent years have ranged well over 50 percent of all conventional mortgage activity and this year may hit as much as 71 percent of the market. As a result, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have a tremendous degree of influence over which types of borrowers have access to different types of mortgage credit and on what terms.
The overall conventional mortgage market (nongovernment insured or guaranteed) is comprised of two broad categories of loans, prime and subprime. Prime mortgages constitute the largest category, representing loans to borrowers with what lenders regard as good credit (“A” quality, or investment grade). Everything else is subprime – loans to borrowers who have a history of credit problems, insufficient credit history, or nontraditional credit sources. Subprime mortgages are rated by their perceived risk, from the least risky to the greatest risk: A-minus, B, C, and even D. However, A-minus loans account for 50 to 60 percent of the entire subprime market.
Subprime borrowers frequently pay higher points and fees and are saddled with more unfavorable terms and conditions, such as balloon payments, high prepayment penalties, and negative amortization. Lenders say the higher rates and charges reflect the additional costs and risks of lending to borrowers with less than perfect or nonconventional credit. However, research conducted by Freddie Mac suggests that the higher interest rates charged by subprime lenders are in excess of the additional risks these borrowers bear. Thus, increased competition would tend to reduce borrowing costs in the subprime market.
Going Subprime: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac consider the subprime loan market, by Allen Fishbein
