By Zach Fox

Fannie Mae CEO Timothy Mayopoulos said Oct. 20 that the government-sponsored enterprise will start buying mortgages with loan-to-value ratios up to 97% in an effort to increase access to credit.

Speaking during the Mortgage Bankers Association's annual conference in Las Vegas, Mayopoulos encouraged the bankers in attendance to increase credit. He said that everyone could agree there are creditworthy borrowers who currently are unable to secure a mortgage. To help remedy the situation, Mayopoulos said Fannie Mae would buy loans with very small down payments.

"I am very pleased that we will again be offering a 97% loan-to-value program to all of our customers," Mayopoulos said. "This offering will be easy to execute through Desktop Underwriter. It will also be competitively priced, including against [Federal Housing Administration] execution. We want this business."

During a question-and-answer session following his remarks, Mayopoulos acknowledged that he expected to take some heat in the press for the new program.

"I know that there will be commentary out there that says that we're opening up the floodgates and we're going to take on a lot of bad loans. We're not going to do that," he said.

Mayopoulos said Fannie Mae is not running the risk of repeating the same mistakes that led to the 2008 credit crisis. He said loans with little or no documentation were a "very big part" of that crisis.

"That problem has been solved. Hopefully, that problem has been solved forever," he said. He added that Fannie Mae has eliminated a lot of risk layering, which he called another significant factor.

Freddie Mac CEO Donald Layton also spoke as part of the same session. During Layton's prepared remarks, he did not mention a 97% loan-to-value product, focusing more on Freddie Mac's credit risk-sharing initiatives.

But during the question-and-answer session, Layton echoed Mayopoulos' sentiment. He said there will be new products rolling out shortly that target creditworthy borrowers currently locked out of homeownership.

The MBA conference has so far been dominated by discussion of how to open up the credit box and qualify more borrowers for mortgages. And it has stretched beyond bankers, with speeches from Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro also both focused on expanding credit access to borrowers.

Mayopoulos closed his prepared remarks by urging the bankers in the room to lend across Fannie Mae's credit box, offering mortgages to a wider range of borrowers, as measured by debt-to-income or loan-to-value ratios.

"Increasing access to credit is good for borrowers, it's good for lenders, and it's good for the economy as a whole," he said.