Fannie Mae Has New Guidelines

All My Sons of Jacksonville learned that Fannie Mae will be having tighter underwriting guidelines as of October 20th of this year. It will make it harder for people to refinance or even purchase a condo. These new guidelines are meant to reduce risk for Fannie Mae and encourage potential homeowners to shop around for their mortgages. One of the new guidelines suggests condominium unit buyers will have to fill out a 2-page condo when they're putting less than 20% down for their down payment. The old rule used to be documentation with 10% down. This questionnaire is in addition to other documents such as insurance policy and homeowner's association financials.


There will also be no more discretionary approvals except for Fannie Mae's Home Affordable Refinance Program. These used to help people with a less than perfect mix f loan to value or debt to income ratio, but with these new guidelines borrowers that are borderline so to speak are out of luck. The local Jacksonville movers learned that self-employed potential homeowners looking for a mortgage will have to provide two consecutive years of federal tax returns instead of just one. Borrowers also have to prove they're in the same business for at least two years. This means one bad year could derail the chance of getting a loan.

What do you think of the new guidelines? Would you be eligible if you were looking for condo mortgage?