Before the Federal Housing Finance Agency can lower the maximum loan amounts that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are able to purchase, they have to get through the National Association of Realtors, which challenged the regulators legal authority to make such a move.

Per The Wall Street Journal:

“If you had the authority to ignore the prohibition against reducing loan limits, what would prevent you from making other fundamental changes?” said Gary Thomas, NAR’s president.

“An arbitrary reduction in existing limits, in the hope it will encourage more private sector lending, is a social policy experiment that risks dampening or reversing the ongoing recovery in the housing market and the economy as a whole,” said Thomas.