The National Association of Realtors urged Congress Wednesday to enact a package of changes to current law and policy to help make the lending process easier for first-time home buyers.

"Access to affordable credit remains a huge problem for prospective homebuyers, those wishing to refinance and our economy overall. The homeownership rate has fallen almost to levels last seen in 1990," Mabél Guzmán, NAR conventional finance and lending committee chair, wrote in her testimony before a hearing of the Senate Banking Committee.

She added, "Today, the number of homes purchased annually remains less than half of what was purchased prior to the real estate bubble and subsequent collapse."