July 23, 2025

Crypto gets a seat at the mortgage table

On June 25, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William J. Pulte ordered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – the two government-sponsored enterprises that help keep mortgage dollars flowing in the housing market – to include cryptocurrencies in their risk evaluations for single-family mortgage loans.

Currently, if you own bitcoin, ethereum or other digital assets, Fannie and Freddie's guidelines require you to convert them into U.S. dollars before they can be used to qualify for a home loan. The updated policy will allow borrowers to use unconverted crypto to meet mortgage reserve requirements. (You'd still need to convert crypto assets used for a down payment.) However, the directive states that only crypto assets that can be evidenced and stored on a U.S.-regulated centralized exchange, subject to all applicable laws, can be considered.

How important is this change, and how will it impact the mortgage market? I asked a panel of experts for their input, which was published recently by US News & World Report here.