Shares of Fannie Mae fell again on Friday, capping a three-day slide of more than 13 percent, as investor concerns widened after a government regulator accused top executives of the mortgage giant of mismanagement and serious accounting misdeeds.

While the impact so far has been limited to shareholders, the fallout could eventually reach millions of Americans if they have to pay higher rates for new mortgages for home purchases or refinancings, analysts say. That could be one of the consequences if Fannie Mae is forced to pay higher rates on its nearly $1 trillion in debt.

Fannie Mae and another government-sponsored mortgage financer, Freddie Mac, purchase billions of dollars of mortgages each year from banks and other mortgage lenders, then package them into bonds that are resold to investors. While they are not directly guaranteed by the government, they have special privileges - notably the ability to borrow directly from the U.S. Treasury, which makes their borrowing rates lower than competing firms.

The two companies, whose stock and debt is widely held by investors in the United States and throughout the world, have long contended that home buyers - especially low-income borrowers - have benefited from lower mortgage rates because of their ability to provide a standard way for the loans to be bundled and resold to investors.

But now that both of the firms have become embroiled in accounting scandals within 15 months of each other, their days of low-rate borrowing could be in danger. The Standard & Poor's rating agency said on Thursday that it is considering downgrading some of Fannie Mae's debt. Investors typically demand higher rates from companies with reduced credit ratings as compensation for the increased risk they assume.

Fannie Mae's shares fell $1.64, or 2.4 percent, to a 52-week low of $65.51 in trading Friday on the New York Stock Exchange. The shares closed roughly $10 higher on Tuesday before word of the regulatory findings. That wiped away some $9.7 billion in the market value of Fannie Mae shares.

Regulators at the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight who investigated Fannie Mae's books said the problems they found, at least in a key area of accounting, were more serious, far more complex and wider in scope than those at rival Freddie Mac - which was fined a record $125 million in a settlement with the agency.

The regulators have even raised "safety and soundness" concerns regarding Fannie Mae. Those were not an issue in the case of Freddie Mac.

OFHEO's director told Fannie Mae's board that the company's management may not be capable of taking the corrective actions needed, raising the possibility of an ouster of top executives. Fannie Mae said Thursday that it had revised its employment contracts with the three top executives, including Chairman and Chief Executive Franklin Raines, to ensure that if they were fired, they wouldn't get huge severance payouts.

With the OFHEO allegations and the disclosure of a Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry into Fannie Mae's accounting, earlier efforts by lawmakers and the Bush administration to tighten the government's reins over the two companies - and possibly crimp their privileges - could get fresh momentum.

"It gives an increased impetus to do something about them," said Bert Ely, a banking expert based in Alexandria, Va.

Critics of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac abound. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has warned that they could pose a threat to the U.S. financial system if their ability to assume new debt was not restrained. The problem, Greenspan and other critics say, is that investors widely believe that should either company get into financial trouble, the government would bail it out even though the bonds they issue explicitly state they are not backed by the federal government.

Congressional action "could raise the probability that the issue (of implicit government backing) could come to be tested," said James Owers, a professor at Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University in Atlanta. "We would not want a major disruption in our mortgage markets."

Similarly, the OFHEO regulators could order Fannie Mae to lessen its financial leverage by raising fresh capital or buying fewer mortgages - potentially making it harder for some home buyers to obtain financing.

A letter from OFHEO Director Armando Falcon this week to members of the Fannie Mae board said an agreement the agency is negotiating with the company includes "remedial actions."

In mid-2003, soon after the crisis surfaced at Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae Chairman and Chief Executive Franklin Raines said that a surge at the time in mortgage rates was caused at least in part by uncertainty stemming from Freddie Mac's problems and concern over what the government might do in response to them. Several economists disputed that notion, however.

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