by Ethan Handelman, National Housing Conference
A bipartisan conference committee reached agreement late last night on a payroll tax cut extension. You may remember that the short term extension of the payroll tax cut relied on, in effect, a tax on housing—an increase in the guarantee fee charged by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac spread out over ten years. The most recent iteration avoids repeating that error, which would have increased costs for homebuyers at a time when housing markets are still delicate and made future efforts to reform our mortgage finance system more difficult.
NHC as well as a wide coalition of housing organizations voiced concern that the previous error not be repeated. We’re glad that voice was heard.