Freddie Mac To Expand Zero-Down Teacher Housing

By Julie Blair

Washington

Freddie Mac is seeking partnerships with teacher-retirement systems around the country to build an innovative program that provides teachers and other school employees with zero-down-payment mortgages, a service the housing-finance company now offers in California.

The CalSTRS Home Loan Program, unveiled last spring, was the first in the nation to involve public pension funds, and aims to help lower- or middle- income employees afford their own homes, said Dwight Robinson, a spokesman for Freddie Mac, based in McLean, Va. The congressionally chartered corporation packages mortgages and sells them to investors as a way to maintain a supply of affordable housing.

The CalSTRS program has become so popular in the Golden State that the company aims to duplicate the effort in other parts of the country where modestly paid educators and other school workers often find...