In its latest Mortgage Monitor, Black Knight analyzes the impact the elimination of the 50 basis point adverse market fee from the cost of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the GSEs) refinances. The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) removed the fee, originally scheduled to go into effect on September 1, 2020 to cover some of the anticipated costs from pandemic relief measures, in mid-July. While the implementation was later delayed until December 1, the company says the September announcement began to immediately trigger increases in rate offers. From November 2020 through May 2021 refinance rate offers were nearly a full 1/8th of a point higher on average than those for similar purchase loans. However, within a week of the FHFA’s July 16 announcement that the fee was disappearing, the delta between the two types of loans was all but gone. By July 19, offerings on purchase and refinance loans were nearly identical and on July 20 refi offerings were 4 basis points below those for purchases for the first time since June of last year.
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