What percentage of people can still buy a home based on the new standards. Is anyone writing 100% financing loans anymore?
Kim Dicce, a Realtor in Tampa, where housing inventory is piling up, notes that lenders now seem to be requiring buyers in her area to put 15 to 20 percent down and have a credit score above 700. “Now we only have one third of the eligible buyers that we had before, and five times as many houses.” Higher-income earners with good credit haven’t been spared, as chastened lenders focus on making loans that they can quickly sell to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which buy mortgages only up to $417,000. Rates on 30-year fixed jumbo loans have risen in the past month from 6.625 percent to about 7.5 percent, says Michael Daversa, president of Atlantic National Mortgage, a mortgage broker in Westport, Conn. On a $500,000 mortgage, that’s an extra $4,375 per year in interest—a 13 percent increase.
