The Impact of Secondary Mortgage Market Guidelines on Affordable and Fair Lending: A Reconnaissance from the Front Lines

The U.S. mortageg finance system has made great strides, especially in the 1990s, to increase homeownership opportunities for all Americans. A combination of lower interrest rates and higher incomes have contributed to a record 1999 homeownership rate of 66.8 percentaeup from 64.0 percent in 1993. This increase is due, in part, to the large increase in the number of low- and moderate- income families that have become homeowners in the past ten years. And both Fannie Mae and Freddie mac, by changing their guidelines and introducing new technologies, have made it easier for many lower income and minority families to become homeowners. Yet, lower income and minority families still are much less likely to own homes than are higher-income and white families.