投资者可以借到4个以上的贷款了.

可惜我已经借了十个了

Fannie to Expand Mortgage Rules for Realty Investors (Update3)

By Jody Shenn

Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Fannie Mae, the mortgage-finance company under U.S. government control, will no longer bar real- estate investors from qualifying for its loans if they already own four properties as it seeks to spur housing demand.

The company will expand its limit for investor and second- home loans to as many as 10 properties per borrower, according to a Feb. 6 notice to lenders on Washington-based Fannie’s Web site.

“Bona-fide, experienced investors bringing significant equity to the table will play a key role in the housing recovery,” Brian Faith, a Fannie Mae spokesman, said today in an e-mailed statement.

Since their September takeovers, Fannie and competitor Freddie Mac have loosened some underwriting rules and set policies for their loan servicers to rework more delinquent debt to aid the slumping housing market and lower their foreclosure costs. The companies, which own or guarantee almost half of the $12 trillion of U.S. residential debt, also have tightened guidelines and boosted fees for some loans to reflect their higher risks.

Many of those fees exceed the loans’ dangers and are more damaging to the housing market than other steps taken by Fannie and Freddie to bolster demand, according to mortgage professionals including Ray Leone, a broker who runs Ray Leone & Associates in San Diego.

“Is it just me, or does anyone else see how upside down this logic is?” Leone wrote in an e-mail today. “The good borrowers are paying for the mistakes of the bad borrowers.”

Freddie Mulls Change

The expanded limits on investor properties, including rentals and houses targeted for profitable later sales, are intended “for borrowers meeting our eligibility requirements, which include a strong credit history and financial reserves,” Faith said.

McLean, Virginia-based Freddie still has a four-unit limit for mortgages to property investors, “but we’re looking at it,” spokesman Brad German wrote in an e-mail today. Fannie’s change was reported by the MortgageDaily.com Web site on Feb. 9.

In the past two weeks, Freddie told lenders it will match a 0.75 percentage point fee for condominium mortgages and other charges previously announced by Fannie, and Fannie said it will loosen rules for borrowers seeking to refinance loans whose default risks the company already owns.

Fannie, Freddie and Federal Housing Administration-insured loans now account for more than 95 percent of new U.S. home lending, following the collapse of the non-agency mortgage bond market and retreats by banks, Freddie Chairman John Koskinen said in a Bloomberg Television interview this week.

Bigger Reserves

In its Feb. 6 notice, Fannie also said it would require some real-estate investors to have more liquid assets to qualify, such as cash in the bank. Some buyers of one-unit properties had only needed two months of mortgage and other payments related to the homes in reserve; that will rise to six months.

Investors with five to 10 properties will need six months of reserves for their other properties, compared with two months for borrowers with fewer homes, according to the notice. Fannie also changed its definition of the payments to include homeowner association dues, cooperative fees and other loans secured by the properties, along with the first mortgages, taxes and insurance.

While Fannie and Freddie have boosted fees for some loans to borrowers with lower down payments and credit scores or those seeking condo units, the government has “worked with them on that to make sure it wasn’t excessive,” Federal Housing Finance Agency Director James Lockhart said in a Feb. 2 interview.

“What I told the two CEOs is I don’t expect them to write business at a loss but I don’t expect high-return business either,” Lockhart said.

The higher fees have pushed more borrowers into the FHA, the federal department that sells mortgage insurance to borrowers with down payments as low as 3.5 percent, he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jody Shenn in New York at [e-mail]

Last Updated: February 11, 2009 17:25 EST