Freddie Mac Introduces Suite of Low Downpayment Mortgages

WASHINGTON -Freddie Mac has come out with a new suite of mortgage products with flexible credit underwriting standards for borrowers with limited credit and savings. Home PossibleT Mortgages is a new suite of low downpayment mortgage products to help working families and key community workers such as police, firefighters, teachers and healthcare workers with savings issues or imperfect credit become homeowners. Home Possible Mortgage combines borrower education and early delinquency counseling, zero and 3% downpayment mortgage products and flexible credit requirements making it possible for borrowers to purchase single family property with as little as a $500 downpayment. The basic Home Possible mortgage is available either as a 100% loan-to-value mortgage that borrowers can use for single-family home purchases and no cash-out refinancing, or as a 97% LTV mortgage for one-to-four unit properties. Home Possible Neighborhood SolutionT Mortgages offers these features plus others designed to make home buying more possible for teachers, law enforcement officers, firefighters and health care workers by combining a temporary subsidy buydown with a higher debt-to-income ratio. Both products – Home Possible and Home Possible Neighborhood Solution Mortgages – are available as 15-, 20- and 30-year fixed rate mortgages or as 7/1 or 10/1 adjustable rate mortgages for one-unit properties. To qualify, borrowers can earn up to their area’s median income or if they earn more than the area median income, they can buy or refinance in an underserved market area. All borrowers must complete a pre-purchase borrower educational program. In addition, Home Possible borrowers financing a 2-4 unit property may have reserves reduced to two months of mortgage payment. No reserves are required for financing a one-unit property, but Home Possible Neighborhood Solutions borrowers must have one-month of reserves, either from their own cash or a gift. Originators can sell Home Possible Mortgages to Freddie Mac through Cash, Guarantor or MultiLender executions with servicing retained. The new suite of Freddie Mac mortgages are available through Freddie Mac’s national network of more than 2,000 lenders including credit unions and 10,000 mortgage brokers that use Freddie Mac’s automated underwriting service Loan ProspectorT. -