A number has been circulating in housing coverage for the better part of two years: if Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are taken public, the typical new mortgage borrower pays roughly $150 to $230 more a month. It comes from Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, and it is a genuine estimate from a credentialed economist — not something invented for a press release.
It also carries a condition that most coverage drops. And once you attach the condition, run the math against actual Georgia home prices, and check where the policy actually stands as of August 2026, the picture gets both smaller and more useful.
The number, and the condition attached to it
Zandi's dollar figure is downstream of a rate estimate: that privatization would add 60 to 90 basis points — 0.60 to 0.90 percentage points — to the 30-year fixed mortgage rate. But he does not attach that increase to an IPO generally. He attaches it to one specific outcome. In his own framing, reported by ResiClub Analytics: "Release of the GSEs as SIFIs with no government guarantee, explicit or implicit—This would add an estimated 60-90 basis points to 30-year fixed mortgage rates."
That is the strongest form of privatization on the menu — the Enterprises cut loose entirely, with no federal backstop, stated or assumed. Zandi has said the rate impact would be much smaller under a release that keeps an implicit or explicit guarantee in place. Almost every version of an IPO that has actually been floated keeps some form of guarantee. So the headline number is a ceiling scenario, not a base case, and any article that reports it without the condition is reporting it wrong.
Where the $150–$230 figure actually comes from
Worth tracing, because the provenance is older than the current news cycle. PolitiFact traced the estimate to a 2015 paper, "Privatizing Fannie and Freddie: Be Careful What You Ask For," by Zandi and Jim Parrott of the Urban Institute. The original range in that study was 43 to 97 basis points, with a 70 bps midpoint. The 2024 presidential campaign used the midpoint to produce a roughly $1,200-a-year figure; Zandi's own updated calculation, run against 2024 home prices and rates, produced the $1,800-to-$2,800-a-year range that translates to $150–$230 a month.
PolitiFact's caveats are the ones a careful reader should keep: it is a projection with a range, not a certainty; the actual outcome depends heavily on the terms of any release; and a full privatization would likely take three to five years to execute.
Why credible estimates run from 22 to 90 basis points
The dispersion among serious estimates is wider than the headline suggests, and it is the more informative part of the story.
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Zandi (Moody's Analytics): 60–90 bps, conditioned on release with no guarantee at all.
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Stanford's Institute for Economic Policy Research: roughly 22–32 bps. Applying Fannie's recent quarterly guarantee-fee average of about 67 bps to 2023 Urban Institute data, SIEPR estimated that a public offering under current capital standards could require about a 22 bps guarantee-fee increase, with a common-share offering that retains the implicit guarantee adding roughly 10 bps more.
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Urban Institute: 89 bps — but as an answer to a different question. Urban finds that generating a bank-like 13% return on equity under existing GSE capital rules would require an average guarantee fee of 89 bps.
These are not contradictions. They price different policy designs. The guarantee question — does the federal government stand behind the securities, and does the market believe it — drives the number far more than the IPO itself does. A borrower reading these estimates should understand that the spread between 22 bps and 90 bps is a spread between structures, not a measure of anyone's incompetence.
What a guarantee fee is, and how much of your rate it already is
This is the part worth remembering regardless of what happens in Washington.
When Fannie or Freddie buys your conventional loan and packages it into a security, they charge a fee for guaranteeing the payments to investors. That fee is priced into your interest rate. According to FHFA's report published December 22, 2025, the Enterprises' combined average guarantee fee on 2024 single-family acquisitions was 65.2 basis points — 0.65% of the loan amount per year. That was down marginally from 65.5 bps in 2023, but well up from 61 bps in 2022, 56 bps in 2021, and 54 bps in 2020.
So roughly two-thirds of a percentage point of your conventional conforming rate is guarantee fee, today, under conservatorship. Zandi's 60–90 bps scenario would, in effect, roughly double that line item. That framing is more durable than the dollar estimate, because it survives whatever the eventual policy turns out to be.
The Georgia math: a $360,000 median home
The Georgia Association of REALTORS® midyear 2026 report puts the statewide year-to-date median sales price at $360,000, up 0.3%, with an average of $449,292. Georgians bought 64,631 homes January through June, down 0.8%, with 53,118 homes on the market in June and an average 60 days on market — up from 56 a year earlier.
For the rate baseline, Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey for the week of August 20, 2026 put the 30-year fixed at 6.65% and the 15-year at 5.95%. PMMS surveys conventional, conforming, fully amortizing purchase loans at 20% down for borrowers with excellent credit — which is precisely the borrower class a guarantee-fee change would hit.
At $360,000 with 20% down, you are financing $288,000:
| Rate scenario | Rate | Monthly P&I | Increase | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Today (PMMS, Aug 20, 2026) | 6.65% | ~$1,849 | — | | +60 bps (low end of Zandi range) | 7.25% | ~$1,965 | +$116/mo, ~$1,392/yr | | +90 bps (high end) | 7.55% | ~$2,024 | +$175/mo, ~$2,100/yr |
Most first-time Georgia buyers are not putting 20% down. At 10% down — a $324,000 loan — the baseline payment is about $2,080, rising to roughly $2,210 at +60 bps (+$130) and $2,277 at +90 bps (+$197). The smaller your down payment, the more of the increase you absorb, proportionally.
These are principal-and-interest figures only. Georgia property taxes, homeowners insurance, HOA dues, and any mortgage insurance are excluded — and none of them would change as a result of a guarantee-fee move.
The Atlanta math: a $442,500 median home
The Atlanta REALTORS® Association Market Brief for June 2026 reports a median sales price of $442,500, up 0.6% year over year, with an average of $569,000, across an 11-county footprint: Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Forsyth, Fulton, Gwinnett, Paulding, and Rockdale.
Which basket you use matters here, so we will say it plainly: broader Atlanta MSA measures for the same month run nearer $408,000–$410,000. The figures below use the ARA 11-county median. If your search is concentrated in the outer MSA, scale the numbers down by roughly 8%.
At $442,500 with 20% down, you are financing $354,000:
| Rate scenario | Rate | Monthly P&I | Increase | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Today | 6.65% | ~$2,273 | — | | +60 bps | 7.25% | ~$2,415 | +$142/mo, ~$1,700/yr | | +90 bps | 7.55% | ~$2,487 | +$215/mo, ~$2,580/yr |
Notice where these land. Metro Atlanta at 20% down falls squarely inside Zandi's $1,800–$2,800 national band. Statewide Georgia falls below it. That is an honest local finding: the national headline number is built on national home prices, and most of Georgia is cheaper than the country. If you are buying in Macon or Valdosta rather than Alpharetta, the headline overstates your exposure.
Who is exposed, and who isn't
This risk is specific to conventional conforming borrowers. If you are using FHA, VA, or USDA financing, your loan is securitized through Ginnie Mae — a wholly-owned government corporation whose mortgage-backed securities carry the explicit full-faith-and-credit guarantee of the United States. That guarantee is statutorily separate from Fannie and Freddie and would not change if the Enterprises left conservatorship. Whatever happens to the GSEs, FHA and VA pricing runs on a different track.
For conventional borrowers, essentially all of Georgia is inside the exposed universe. FHFA announced on November 25, 2025 that the 2026 baseline one-unit conforming loan limit is $832,750, with a ceiling of $1,249,125 in high-cost areas. Both the $360,000 statewide median and the $442,500 Atlanta median sit far below that — meaning a median-priced Georgia purchase financed conventionally is a conforming loan, and therefore a loan whose rate contains a guarantee fee.
If you're sitting on a 3% note
Your existing mortgage is untouched by any of this. A guarantee fee is priced into loans at origination; your note rate is fixed for the life of the loan, and no policy change to Fannie or Freddie reaches back to it.
The exposure is entirely on the replacement purchase. A Georgia homeowner with a 3% note who moves up to a $442,500 Atlanta home at 20% down is already absorbing the jump from 3% to 6.65% — roughly $2,273 in principal and interest where the old payment was far lower. A +90 bps guarantee-fee scenario adds about $215 a month on top of that. It compounds an already-large reset; it does not create a new one. If the 3%-to-6.65% move is what is keeping you in place, a 60-to-90-basis-point tail risk is not the variable that decides it.
Where the policy actually stands, August 2026
No IPO is scheduled. The effort has visibly stalled.
President Trump said on June 5, 2026 that an offering is "on the table" but that there is "not a rush." FHFA Director Bill Pulte, who has been running the privatization effort, was appointed Acting Director of National Intelligence — a role Trump described as "not a permanent position." As The MortgagePoint reported, Jaret Seiberg of TD Cowen questioned "how one could surmount those obstacles if the FHFA director is devoting most of his time to national security issues," and Wharton's Susan Wachter said: "I did see steps moving forward...but it appears to me that those efforts have stalled." Requests to the White House, FHFA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac for an updated timeline went unanswered.
Markets appear to agree with the skeptics. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shares hit 52-week lows in 2026 amid IPO doubts, both down more than 30% on the year. The plan as floated involved selling roughly 5% stakes to raise about $30 billion. Pulte had earlier pointed to a first-or-second-quarter 2026 window; that window has passed without a filing.
What to do with this — which is not "hurry"
Nothing in this story is a timing signal, and we would treat anyone selling it to you as one with suspicion. There is no scheduled event. The central estimate is conditional on the most aggressive form of privatization available — release with no guarantee whatsoever. Academic estimates for a more likely design run as low as 22 to 32 basis points. The original 2015 study's own range was 43 to 97 bps. And the effort itself is, by the assessment of the analysts covering it, stalled.
The durable takeaways are three. First: roughly 65 basis points of your conventional conforming rate is already guarantee fee, and that number has climbed steadily since 2020 — worth knowing when you compare loan estimates. Second: the guarantee question, not the IPO, drives the rate estimate, so watch for whether any eventual proposal preserves a federal backstop rather than watching for a listing date. Third: if you are an FHA or VA borrower, this is not your risk.
Everything above is an economist's projection with substantial dispersion, applied to current Georgia prices and this week's survey rate. It is a way to size a possibility, not a forecast of your payment.
Related reading
Sources
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The housing sector still doesn't know what comes next for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac conservatorship — ResiClub Analytics
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Kamala Harris says Trump would raise mortgage costs — PolitiFact
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[Georgia Housing Market Shows Stability At Midyear](https://garealtor.com/georgia-housing-market-shows-stability-at-midyear/) — Georgia Association of REALTORS®
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Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Single-Family Guarantee Fees in 2024 — FHFA
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Primary Mortgage Market Survey — Freddie Mac
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Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Privatization Effort Faces New Questions — The MortgagePoint
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The ABCs of the GSEs — Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
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Here's what privatization of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac may mean for your mortgage — CNBC
