The Federal Housing Finance Agency, (FHFA) recently announced its single-family housing goals for 2022 through 2024, ensuring that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac promote equitable access to affordable housing that reaches low- and moderate-income families, minority communities, and other underserved populations. Benchmarks for low-income purchases and very low-income purchases have been set for 28% and 7%, respectively, while the goal for low-income refinances has been set at 26%.

To support those goals, the FHFA increased its new baseline conforming loan limit to $647,200. The federal government will now back mortgage loans of nearly $1 million, with the new ceiling loan limit for one-unit properties in most high-cost areas now $970,800.

According to the FHFA’s 2021 third quarter Foreclosure Prevention and Refinance Report, the number of refinances decreased from 1.614 million in the second quarter to 1.286 million in the third quarter. Additionally, 43% of loan modifications completed in the third quarter reduced borrowers’ monthly payments by more than 20%. Additionally, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac-owned loans had a 60-plus day delinquency rate of 1.69%, down from 2.14% at the end of the second quarter.

Regarding forbearance: At the end of the third quarter, 320,009 single-family conventional loans owned by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac were in forbearance – a decrease of more than 170,000 since the end of the second quarter.