Friday, April 19, 2013

Freddie Mac Consumer Credit Tutorial

First, for those who are really new to the process of buying a home, here’s a little bit of background.  The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC), commonly referred to as ‘Freddie Mac’ is a corporation authorized by Congress to provide a secondary market for residential mortgages.  It is a public government-sponsored enterprise (GSE),   which buys mortgages on the secondary market, pools them, and sells them as a mortgage-backed security (MBS) to investors on the open market. This secondary mortgage market increases the supply of money available for mortgage lending and increases the money available for new home purchases.  You may have heard of Freddie Mac’s sister, Fannie Mae, another GSE.  They’ve both been in the news a lot over the last few years.  Not as much as the Kardashian’s, but still quite a lot.

Freddie Mac has come out with a free 12 part consumer tutorial called CreditSmart®.  The stated goals of this program are to understand the importance of building credit, see how lenders assess your eligibility for a mortgage loan, recognize the warning signs of predatory lending and scams, learn the steps to successful homeownership and safeguard your home and your finances against life’s unexpected challenges.  It also has a module that talks about what to do if you ever have difficulty making your mortgage payments.

It’s recommended that you take the modules in order to get the most out of the program.  Each module can take up to 20 or 30 minutes, but you can do them at your own pace.  If you’re a potential first time buyer, or if you have bruised credit and are thinking about a home purchase, you would be well off to go through this series. You can find it here.


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