Fresh Housing Targets for Low-Income Home Buyers
Published Date: 12/23/2025
Rule
Summary
Starting February 23, 2026, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have new housing goals for 2026-2028 that focus on helping more low-income families find affordable homes. The rules simplify how goals are measured, combine some targets into one, and update penalties for missing goals. These changes aim to make affordable housing easier to finance while keeping the system strong and fair.
Analyzed Economic Effects
3 provisions identified: 1 benefits, 0 costs, 2 mixed.
Lower single-family housing benchmarks
Starting February 23, 2026, FHFA lowers several single-family benchmarks: the Low-Income Home Purchase Goal falls from 25.0% to 21.0%, the Very Low-Income Home Purchase Goal falls from 6.0% to 3.5%, and the Low-Income Refinance Goal falls from 26.0% to 21.0%. FHFA states the change is expected to expand access to mortgage credit for about 201,000 additional goal-eligible borrowers.
Multifamily affordable-rental benchmarks unchanged
FHFA keeps the multifamily housing benchmarks for 2026-2028 the same as prior levels: 61.0% of goal-eligible multifamily units must be affordable to families at or below 80% of area median income (AMI), 14.0% must be affordable to families at or below 50% of AMI, and the small multifamily low-income subgoal remains 2.0%. This preserves the existing targets for financing affordable rental units.
Area-based subgoals combined into one
For 2026-2028 FHFA combines the prior low-income census tract and minority census tract subgoals into a single "low-income areas" home purchase subgoal set at 16.0%. The low-income areas benchmark will include an additional amount for families in designated disaster areas (to be determined separately) and FHFA will publish the low-income areas home purchase goal annually on its website.
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Key Dates
Department and Agencies
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