Posts with tag Federal Housing Finance Agency

So far $148 billion have been paid by the taxpayers to bail out Fannie and Freddie for single family mortgages gone bad, and as much as $400 billion more could still be needed. That's according to testimony by Edward DeMarco, acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which is the conservator for Fannie... Continue Reading »

Buried in the arcane pages of many homebuyers' contracts is a hidden fee with an equally esoteric name: private transfer fee covenants. Essentially, these cryptic addenda, which are still legal in more than 30 states, require payment to a third party every time the property changes hands. On average, these fees can average... Continue Reading »

You've probably never heard of them, but private transfer fee covenants exist in new-home real estate contracts in 45 states. These nasty little debt agreements hidden in the hundreds of pages of a new-home contract can mean someone gets a part of the profits on that home over a 99-year period. Now the Federal Housing... Continue Reading »