The Latest Breaking News from Freddie Mac

It's going to be hard for first-time buyers to afford a house.

Mortgage rates are continuing their upward motion while potential homebuyers and sellers face a shifting housing market and the affordable housing sector welcomes a well-known new participant.

A few years after risky mortgages and related investments led to a global financial collapse, the Federal Reserve put out a handbook to help consumers make smarter choices about their home loan options. The focus was on adjustable-rate mortgages, whose exotic variants were among the prime culprits in the meltdown.

Compared to other sectors of the wider economy, the housing and mortgage industries have traditionally been slower to embrace cutting-edge technologies and digital solutions. A myriad of reasons explain this pokey response to evolving change, ranging from the sector’s conservative risk tolerance to a lack of standardization in many evolving technologies.