How do YOU feel about a minimum 20% downpayment?

Not terribly long ago, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was proposed. The act as a whole is a massive endeavor which attempts to redress and prevent many of the recent wrongs which supposedly catapulted the Economy straight into hell.
One aspect of the bill, however, has definitely caught the eye of real estate investors, realtors, and prospective homebuyers – and not entirely in a good way. The Act imposes a strict definition of a “prime” mortgage as one which contains a downpayment of 20%. It’s an attempt to prevent the foreclosure crisis – in which home values dropped and millions of sub-prime mortgages instantly sank – from ever happening again.
Historically, many Americans have been able to secure “prime” mortgages with as little as 5% down. Critics of the Act say that increasing fees, penalties, and interest rates on mortgages with less than a 20% downpayment will unfairly exclude the lower-middle class from the possibility of an affordable mortgage. Supporters of the idea say that it’s the only way to keep history from repeating itself.
Recently, AgentGenius reported on the situation, which has heated up a bit since the National Association of Realtors released a video (posted here on AgentGenius) responding to the possibility of the 20% downpayment requirement. There’s been so much controversy, in fact, that Congress has extended the deadline for commentary from the public. The original deadline of June 10 has been pushed back to August 1 – which means that concerned constituents have about a month and a week to make their opinions known to their local representatives.