As part of our public mission, Freddie Mac has a responsibility to provide financing that helps people buy or rent decent, affordable housing. In many of the nation's high-cost communities, lowering the cost to buy or rent a home has never been more important or needed.
In 2016, Freddie Mac provided affordable single-family financing for almost 633,000 low- and moderate-income families (at 100 percent or less of the area median income), including almost 399,000 low-income families (at 80 percent or less of the area median income), and almost 93,000 very low-income families (at 50 percent or less of the area median income).
Additionally, in 2016, Freddie Mac:
- Helped more than 268,000 people buy their first home.
- Provided financing for approximately 60,000 families through federal programs, including:
- U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) programs
- Federal Housing Administration (FHA) programs
- U.S. Department of Agriculture's Guaranteed Rural Housing Program
- Mortgage Revenue Bonds (MRBs) issues by various state and local housing finance agencies (HFAs)
- Low Income Housing Tax Credits
- U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's rental housing assistance programs designed to promote affordable single-family and multifamily housing, including Section 8 and Section 236 rental programs
Freddie Mac also has a long history of increasing the availability of affordable rental housing in the U.S. Last year, we financed approximately 740,000 apartment homes. (Additionally, Freddie Mac provided financing for approximately 5,000 multifamily cooperative units.) Approximately 86 percent of these rental units were affordable to people whose incomes are at or below the area median income.
Freddie Mac is one of the leading financial institutions in the country providing financing for affordable housing. In fact, Freddie Mac's ability to step in and make a difference in markets like these that might otherwise be neglected is one key benefit of our public mission – and something that clearly distinguishes us from the private sector.
We describe our performance against the affordable housing goals, as well as other affordable housing initiatives, in the Annual Housing Activities Report and Annual Mortgage Report.