Along with tighter credit rules, the price of securing a mortgage just got more expensive thanks to Fannie Mae lifting mortgage fees and raising the cost of loans, according to a story today by Bloomberg News.

Fannie Mae, the largest U.S. mortgage- finance company, will raise a fee it charges lenders to buy their mortgages or guarantee home-loan securities, a move that may increase costs for borrowers.

Fannie Mae’s “adverse market delivery charge,” introduced earlier this year for all mortgages that the company helps finance, will rise to 0.50 percentage point on Oct. 1, from 0.25 percentage point, according to a letter to lenders posted on the Washington-based company’s Web site.

Government-chartered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been tightening standards and raising fees since last year to boost revenue and limit losses amid the worst housing slump since the 1930s. The changes have made it harder or more expensive for borrowers to get home financing, contributing to deeper price drops, said consultant David Lykken of Mortgage Banking Solutions in Austin, Texas.

“Everyone has to go to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac right now, as there are very few alternatives,” Lykken said. The latest fee increase will “increase loan prices and the housing market is going to get worse.”

It seems that for every government program that is supposed to help restart the housing market, something else underneath the surface, like today’s Fannie Mae fee hikes,  coes along to undermine help for the industry .