MBA Mortgage Action Alliance Issues Call to Action on G-Fee Bill

The Mortgage Bankers Associaton’s Mortgage Action Alliance issued a Call to Action yesterday, urging its members to support newly introduced legislation that would curb congressional use of credit guaranty fees, also known as g-fees.

Reps. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., and Brad Sherman, D-Calif., reintroduced the Risk Management and Homeowner Stability Act of 2017, H.R. 916, that would permanently prohibit Congress from counting increases to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac g-fees as sources of funding for unrelated spending. It is virtually identical to a bill they introduced in 2016.

“This bill simply ensures that guarantee fees can’t be used as a budgetary offset outside of their intended purpose, which is to provide stability for the mortgage market,” Sanford said.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac impose the g-fees as a means to manage risk.

In 2011, Congress increased g-fees for 10 years in order to pay for a payroll tax cut for two months. In recent years, MBA has led industry efforts to prevent Congress from appropriating g-fees for other budgetary purposes.

“Increasing these fees makes loans more expensive and increase costs for borrowers,” MBA said. “This increase has harmed homeowners and continues to do so every day. Using the housing GSEs as a piggybank to fund unrelated government programs is bad policy–plain and simple. H.R. 916 would prevent this from happening in the future.

MAA members have been asked to take action and contact their representatives to urge co-sponsorship of this legislation. For more information, click http://action.mba.org/mba/app/onestep-write-a-letter?0&engagementId=297293.