By Dina ElBoghdady | The Washington Post
For more than 20 years, Mark Vinciguerra’s small bank specialized in making home loans to first-time buyers in the northwest Ohio suburbs. Then the recession hit, and auditors at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac came knocking.
The mortgage finance giants demanded that Vinciguerra buy back more than 200 loans he’d sold them that were teetering into foreclosure, claiming that the bank had failed to meet their quality standards. Vinciguerra ultimately repurchased only five loans, but endless hassles over the others shattered his willingness to take a chance on some moderate- and low-income borrowers.
