Freddie’s program offers low down-payment options to repeat buyers with low or moderate incomes. Freddie Mac also offers no-cash-out mortgage refinancing and requires all first-time borrowers to go through home ownership counseling. Fannie Mae’s guidelines requires counseling for low and moderate-income buyers and allows borrowers to count cash gifts as financial reserves. Fannie also offers a limited cash-out option to cover closing costs.

In January, most mortgages issued by Fannie and Freddie went to borrowers with average credit scores of at least 731 out of 850, according to the Ellie Mae Origination Insight Report. Refinancing represented a much more significant portion of loan activity than in recent months. Approximately 51 percent of all loan volume in January involved some form of refinancing activity, up 8 percent from December to the highest level since 2013. The closing rate for all mortgage loans also rose, going up to 62.4 percent.

New guidelines that took effect in early December clarify the credit approval threshold for Fannie and Freddie at 620, erasing some of the uncertainty on the part of lenders, who may have been reluctant to approve loans to people with subprime scores. However, high FICO scores still matter. In January, only 30 percent of closed loans had a FICO score below 700, a drop from 32 percent in January 2014. Borrowers who were denied loans had an average FICO score of 681.

Even in Miami’s booming market, credit restrictions continue to slow the homebuying process for consumers.