n an effort to relieve troubled borrowers, Freddie Mac, following in the footsteps of Fannie Mae, will be postponing a fee increase that was supposed to start in November. However, next year they will be raising fees for loans that are considered more risky, like for example mortgages that allow interest-only payments at the start of the loan. They will also require higher credit scores for piggyback loans; these are loans that let the borrower make smaller down payments, by taking out two separate mortgages. Fannie and Freddie will also hike a fee for all loans purchased by them next month, going from 0.5% to 0.25%. In the last few months they had also hiked fees for all borrowers with troubled credit, and have asked for larger down payments.

Several brokers, homebuilders, and Realtors have complained about those hikes, feeling that it is suffocating the market. Now that the companies have been taken over by the government, procedures are being reevaluated. The Exec. for Fannie Mae, Herb Allison, says that they are, "evaluating all of our risk-management, underwriting guidelines, pricing and costs." Freddie Mac also spoke on their new company developments, saying that these changes give "some relief from the challenges in the current market environment," and that these new lending practices are are "prudent and largely applicable in all market conditions." The director of the FHFA, regulator of Fannie and Freddie, said that the changes "reflect both safe and sound business strategy and attentiveness to the [companies'] mission."