Over 56% of homeowners with loans from Freddie Mac, received $29 billion or more in home equity from refinancing. These percentages for cash-out refinancing are the smallest obtained since the 2^nd quarter of 2004. The 4^th quarter of 2007 has about percentage of about 77%.

The chief economist for Moody´s Economy.com, Mark Zandi, tried to explain this occurrence by relating that because of credit being tougher to obtain, borrow quality of those looking for cash-out refinance loans has increased. Due to this, "Lenders are only refinancing those with 50% equity or more,"... "There are a lot of home owners out there who don't have any debt besides their mortgage."

Zandi has also reported that the primary cause of the refinancing done by the borrowers was the decline in interest rates. Due to this decline, Freddie Mac is already predicting that 30 year fixed mortgage rates, for prime loans in 2008, will average between 5.8% to 6%.