Take a look at the Center’s comments below on a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece on GSE reform. The Center will continue to work with our partners to ensure affordable homeownership remains an option for all creditworthy households.
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New York, NY — The Center for NYC Neighborhoods is dedicated to ensuring that the opportunity to own a home is affordable and accessible to as many of our neighbors as possible, and we believe that any reform of Fannie and Freddie must further this goal. The role of homeownership in wealth building for low- and moderate-income families, and in creating stable and vibrant neighborhoods, is clear, and the most accessible path to homeownership is the 30-year, fixed rate mortgage, which establishes a monthly payment that fits most easily into household budgets and remains stable and predictable over the life of the loan. Unfortunately, today the average credit score for a mortgage guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac is 760, a very high score that is well above the median for New York State. We believe that homeownership opportunities should not be limited to families with near-perfect credit, but should be brought back within reach for more American families who are perfectly creditworthy. We support GSE reform proposals that seek to ensure access to homeownership for all creditworthy households and that provide a stable source of funding for affordable housing initiatives.