CREDITSMART® HOMEOWNERSHIP PRESERVATION WORKSHOPS OFFERED IN MIAMI WITH CUBAN AMERICAN NATIONAL COUNCIL

Successful Long-Term Homeownership Begins with Consumer Education

Miami, FL – Homeownership counseling and education are now more important than ever given the rise in mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures in some areas of the country. Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE), one of the nation's largest investors in residential mortgages, and the Cuban American National Council, Inc. (CNC), an organization dedicated to enhancing the well-being of the Hispanic Community, are working together to educate Miami-Dade County residents on how to be successful long-term homeowners with an new emphasis on foreclosure prevention.

This year Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) enhanced its CreditSmart® multilingual financial literacy curriculum by adding new material on homeownership preservation, including foreclosure prevention, planning for emergencies, property maintenance and avoiding financial traps. CNC will offer the CreditSmart Español workshops in Spanish, which will give participants a greater understanding of the responsibilities of caring for their homes, the importance of maintaining their credit, and what to do if they ever have difficulty meeting their financial obligations.

Guarione M. Diaz, President & CEO of the Cuban American National Council, Inc., said, "Too many first-time homebuyers are losing their homes, their single largest family asset, and many more face losing their homes as the current mortgage default crisis matures because they lack knowledge of how best to protect themselves. We want individuals to understand that that there are sources of support and information in the community to which they can turn to for information about homeownership. This new thrust to support homeownership preservation, especially among first-time homebuyers, is a unique milestone in consumer education."

"Many people learn how to manage their finances by trial and error. A home is often a family's largest investment and source of wealth. It shouldn't be lost through a hit or miss approach to finances, " said Dwight Robinson, senior vice president of Corporate Relations and Housing Outreach for Freddie Mac. "One way to better prepare our nation's homeowners for the responsibilities of homeownership is through consumer education. CreditSmart is designed to help consumers build and maintain better credit and understand the steps to successful long-term homeownership."

For more information about CreditSmart workshops offered through CNC, call 305-642-3484.
The following home preservation tips are provided courtesy of Freddie Mac's CreditSmart curricula.

Costly Business Practices

While check-cashing businesses are legal and found throughout the United States, they are typically used by individuals who don't have traditional credit, savings or checking accounts. They often charge very high fees for their services.  Try these alternatives to check cashing businesses:

• Cash your check at the bank that issued the check. The bank whose name or logo is on the check. The bank fees may be lower than the check cashers.
• Try to save up enough money to equal the check cashing fee and use the funds acquired over time to open a checking or savings account where you can deposit or cash your check for little or no fees. Ask local lenders about their special low balance checking and savings programs.

Home Improvement Loan Scam

Home improvement scams come in various forms, including the two most common:

• The contractor asks for money up front and leaves after completing little or no repair work.
• The contractor helps you get a loan to cover repair costs that grow way beyond the original estimate and agreement. The repair costs, plus exorbitant hidden fees and high interest rates become so expensive they're ultimately unaffordable.

For more consumer tips or information about CreditSmart, visit www.FreddieMac.com/creditsmart.

Recognizing that consumers seek information and assistance from lenders, community-based organizations and other housing professionals, Freddie Mac developed CreditSmart as a tool to support the efforts of organizations that share its goal of creating better-equipped homeowners. CreditSmart, CreditSmart® Español, and CreditSmart® Asian (available in Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese) were developed with participation from multicultural community-based organizations. Since its inception in 2001, more than a million consumers nationwide have been exposed to the CreditSmart curriculum.

About Freddie Mac
Freddie Mac is a stockholder-owned corporation established by Congress in 1970 to support homeownership and rental housing. Freddie Mac purchases single-family and multifamily residential mortgages and mortgage-related securities, which it finances primarily by issuing mortgage-related securities and debt instruments in the capital markets. Over the years, Freddie Mac has made home possible more than 50 million times, ensuring financing for one in six homebuyers and more than four million renters.

About Cuban American National Council
Headquartered in Miami, and with offices in Central Florida, Washington D.C. and New Jersey, the Cuban American National Council (CNC) is a non-profit organization providing human services to persons in need from all racial and ethnic groups.  CNC assists individuals to become self reliant through its employment and training, education and financial literacy and housing counseling programs, with an emphasis on building bridges of understanding and cooperation among America's diverse communities. CNC has pioneered alternative education models in South Florida and has become one of the largest Hispanic non-profit developers of section 202 housing serving low-income elderly in the United States.  Since 1972, CNC has been funded by both the private and public sectors to plan, negotiate and manage numerous grants and contract agreements.

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