On Monday, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced that they will be attempting to reduce the amount of loans they purchase from investors. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are two huge, government approved, mortgage or loan funding/backing companies. Their combined owned/guaranteed assets, total about 2/5 of all U.S. home-mortgage debt. Recently both giants lessened their dividends and sold billons in special stock in order to help recuperate after major 3^rd quarter losses. Freddie Mac lost $2 billion, while Fannie Mae lost $1.4 billion.

To better reduce investor type loans, they will be assigning different terms for delinquent home loans they have guaranteed. At this time, they have had to put billions aside for bad or default home loans, due to low home prices, and many risky mortgages (due to high amounts or borrowers with low credit).

Fannie Mae has put a .25% fee on all new home loans, and both of the companies will be imposing surcharges on loans made to borrowers with credit lower then 680, or that are borrowing over 70% of the home’s estimated value.