This has led to fewer home sales nationwide, and a recent jump in rates has dashed hopes for a better spring selling season, at least for now. In a stark contrast to the homebuying bonanza of 2021, housing demand has fallen sharply with buyers grappling with a year of higher mortgage rates and stubbornly high home prices. Elevated inflation has brought on the steepest Federal Reserve interest rate increases since the 1980s, pushing up borrowing costs for many Americans. Housing affordability in the United States is at an all-time low. 'A couple thousand dollars is make it or break it for a lot of people that are trying to get into a home.' 'We thought about how we were going to help consumers that are on the fence,' Alex Elezaj, the chief strategy officer at UWM, told Insider. The lenders make up the difference, and that, for example, can result in a savings of $4,000 toward the downpayment on a $200,000 home. The programs from Rocket Mortgage and UWM let some homebuyers who make 80% or less of their area's median income put just 1% down on a home, 2 percentage points less than the minimum for a conventional loan. That has become reality for many lower income Americans thanks to new mortgage programs introduced by United Wholesale Mortgage and Rocket Mortgage - the two largest US lenders in 2022 - that aim to make homeownership more affordable at a time when high interest rates and home prices have put the the market into a deep freeze. Imagine getting approved for a mortgage on the home of your dreams and making a down payment of just 1% of the purchase cost.

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