A New Rule Could Make It Harder to Get a Mortgage — And You Can Still Weigh In

What's Happening

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) — the federal regulator that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — has proposed a rule that would weaken the Affordable Housing Goals, which are the annual targets requiring Fannie and Freddie to purchase mortgages for low- and moderate-income borrowers.¹ This is a mid-course correction: the goals for 2025–2027 were already set in 2024. Now FHFA, under its new leadership, wants to lower them again.¹

To understand why this matters, you need to know what Fannie and Freddie do. These two companies — called government-sponsored enterprises, or GSEs — buy mortgages from lenders after they're originated. When Fannie or Freddie buys your loan, the lender gets cash back quickly, which means they can offer you lower interest rates than they could if they had to hold every loan themselves. Without this system, mortgages would be more expensive for everyone.¹

In exchange for special tax treatment and implicit government backing, Fannie and Freddie have a legal obligation to serve the entire mortgage market — including working families who don't fit the profile of a wealthy buyer. The Affordable Housing Goals, first established by Congress in 1992, are the mechanism that enforces this. FHFA sets annual percentage targets, and Fannie and Freddie must meet them.¹

What the Proposed Rule Would Change

Under the proposed rule, the targets for mortgages serving low- and moderate-income buyers would be set below what private markets would naturally deliver — meaning Fannie and Freddie would no longer have to aim for anything beyond what the market would do anyway.¹ The goals for multifamily housing and refinances would stay unchanged, but the single-family affordability targets would effectively be gutted.¹

The numbers in the original 2024 goals were already modest. But under this new proposal, the targets would be low enough that Fannie and Freddie could pull back from serving lower-income to moderate-income buyers without consequence. As the Consumer Federation of America put it, the goals would no longer present targets to aim for — they'd be a floor the GSEs could ignore.¹

Why It Affects You Directly

The context matters here. Homebuying is at its lowest level since the mid-1990s, and the median first-time homebuyer is now 38 years old — an all-time high.¹ Roughly 75 percent of all households cannot afford a median-priced home at current prices and interest rates.¹

The Affordable Housing Goals currently help roughly 750,000 homebuyers a year qualify for mortgages they otherwise might not get.¹ The Congressional Budget Office estimated those goals would result in about 37,000 additional eligible mortgages being purchased in a single year.¹ Research from the Urban Institute has found these goals have directly increased mortgage access for lower- to moderate-income families and have lowered interest rates in markets where Fannie and Freddie have significant presence.¹

So what would weakening these goals mean for you as a buyer? Fewer loan products aimed at borrowers with moderate incomes, less pressure on lenders to originate those loans, and fewer options if you're buying in a market where prices and competition are already pushing homeownership out of reach.

What FHFA Claims — and What the Evidence Says

The proposed rule argues that the Affordable Housing Goals have made mortgages more expensive for middle-class borrowers, claiming that lenders have "turned away middle-class borrowers or increased prices on middle-class borrowers in pursuit of meeting housing goals."¹ The problem with this claim: FHFA itself acknowledges it is not aware of "data sources that would quantify trends illustrated by these examples."¹ There is no data behind the allegation.

In contrast, the Congressional Budget Office found that the implicit subsidies going toward goal-eligible mortgages are mostly paid for by an implicit tax on so-called "mission-remote" loans — meaning loans going to real-estate investors, not to everyday buyers.¹ In other words, the program doesn't make life harder for middle-class buyers. It makes real-estate investors slightly less profitable, and it helps working families qualify.

What You Can Do

The proposed rule opened a public comment period. FHFA is required to read and respond to comments before finalizing the rule, and there is a window for everyday homebuyers — not just industry lobbyists — to make their voices heard.

The deadline to submit a comment is November 3, 2025. You can submit comments through FHFA's website at fhfa.gov.¹ You don't need to be a legal expert; a comment explaining how this rule would affect your ability to buy a home carries weight.

This rule isn't a distant technical adjustment. It reshapes the rules that determine whether Fannie and Freddie have to care about buyers who aren't wealthy investors. At a moment when first-time buyers are older than ever and affordability is stretched to its limit, that matters.

The Bigger Picture

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been in federal conservatorship — meaning taxpayers have owned them — since the 2008 financial crisis.¹ Whether in or out of conservatorship, they carry a public mission: to keep mortgage credit available and affordable. The Affordable Housing Goals are one of the main tools that enforce that mission.