Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, for the first time after 2009, are hiking up risk fees that they charge lenders on loans they buy for resale to investors. The mortgage majors are also adding risk fees to more loans given to people with stellar credit.

If any borrower wants avoid a fee or to get a discount, then the person has to have FICO scores of seven hundred and forty or better and has to make down payments of twenty five percent or more.

Lenders might well absorb the cost, but most are expected to add it to loan costs within days, if they haven't done it already, stated Cameron Findlay, an economist at LendingTree. The increases impact most loans with longer than fifteen-year terms sent to Freddie starting March 1 and to Fannie on April 1.

For instance, a buyer of one two hundred thousand dollars house who has a seven hundred FICO credit score and twenty percent down payment will pay in the tune of one thousand six hundred dollars for the Fannie risk fee instead of one thousand two hundred dollars before. If the borrower has a score of six hundred and eighty then the fee will two thousand eight hundred dollars.. Borrowers can pay fees upfront, or lenders will price them into interest rates.

Though the amount is not huge, but still the new fees should be kept in mind as they're being added to more loans to borrowers with higher credit scores.

FICOs usually go from three hundred to eight hundred and fifty; the median is 711. With few exceptions, risk fees hadn't applied before to borrowers with FICO scores of seven hundred and forty or above.