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    • Combating Predatory Lending
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Educating and Protecting Consumers

Freddie Mac brings the world's finest housing system to one in six homeowners in America. While we don't offer consumers mortgage loans directly, we do help consumers understand the ins and outs of the mortgage lending system so they can take part in the dream of homeownership. Here are some ways we're doing that.

Buying and Owning a Home: An Online Guide to the Homebuying Process

We have developed a comprehensive online guide designed to help consumers prepare for homeownership, understand mortgages, and find the right neighborhood, real estate agent and home. The guide helps potential homeowners understand the homebuying process, as well as maintain the home, manage the mortgage and avoid foreclosure.

Avoiding Foreclosure

We require the mortgage companies that service our loans to look for options that help borrowers who are delinquent on their mortgages keep their homes and avoid foreclosure. Working together with those companies, from 2000 through 2005 we have helped over 228,000 financially troubled borrowers keep their homes. In addition, we provide advice and education for consumers in our online guide to the homebuying process to help borrowers avoid foreclosure.

Combating Predatory Lending

We work hard to make mortgage lending easier, fairer, and more affordable for borrowers in every segment of the market. We also want to make it safer, so we combat predatory lending practices, which some unscrupulous lenders use to prey on vulnerable borrowers. Find out about our leadership role against predatory lending.

Credit Education

Thousands of American families who financially qualify for a mortgage haven't gotten one. Why? One reason is a lack of information about the importance of good credit and how to qualify for and get a mortgage. Poor credit and lack of a down payment are the two biggest obstacles to homeownership. But, unlike the down payment problem, the remedy for poor credit isn't money. It's education. Read about how we're helping to educate tomorrow's homeowners about good credit.

Hurricane Relief

After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, Freddie Mac committed itself to providing stability and liquidity to the region and helping Gulf Coast homeowners avoid foreclosure, and we kept that commitment. We pledged to provide $1 billion in new mortgage funding for New Orleans and the other Gulf Coast communities by purchasing state and local mortgage bonds. We're proud to say that through immediate and significant philanthropic efforts, we've accomplished that goal, too.

Automated Underwriting

New technology has helped lower-income and minority consumers by simplifying the mortgage process. Automated underwriting systems, such as Freddie Mac's Loan Prospector®, have expanded homeownership opportunities, particularly among underserved populations.