American home buyers and home owners need access to affordable, safe mortgages in all local markets, no matter what’s happening in the economy, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® Director Tom Salomone told the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises yesterday.

To make sure consumers can get mortgages even when the economy falters, the government needs to continue to support the nation’s two giant mortgage guaranty companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Salomone said.

Private companies that buy mortgages from the lenders that make the loans retreat from the mortgage marketplace during extreme economic conditions. That’s been the case in 2011, when Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and FHA have guaranteed 90% of the loans used by consumers who purchased homes or refinanced existing mortgages.

NAR supports efforts to increase private capital in the housing finance market and to reduce the size of the government’s involvement, but “without some continued involvement by the federal government, we risk losing affordable, long-term, fixed-rate mortgage products,” Salomone said. “This would be devastating to middle-class home buyers and the housing market.”

Source: NAR