Why this is important: With the recent Equifax breach, plenty of people have put freezes on their credit reports (for good reason). But if you only froze one, someone can now still take out a loan on your name if they have the rest of your info.
What changed: Until recently, Fannie Mae required all three credit reports to actually report for them to buy a loan from a bank. The change now allows for your report to be frozen with one credit reporting agency, but the other two must be unfrozen.
Why this matters: Your local bank might sell the mortgages they originate to Fannie Mae. Many small and even moderately sized banks have investors they sell mortgages to. Fannie Mae is one of the largest investors here. The loan must be originated and underwritten to Fannie Mae’s standards for them to purchase it. This means that Fannie Mae’s guidelines impact your local banks’ guidelines if they sell to them. This change means that other banks will now be allowing this same thing. So if you’re worried about your credit but didn’t freeze it with all three agencies, do that now.
Edit: source—I’m a technical writer at a bank and am rewriting our internal procedures on what we accept based on the above as I type this.
Submitted December 06, 2017 at 09:33AM by poopsmitherson http://ift.tt/2jlyddL
