Freddie Mac is retiring GreenCHOICE, the standalone mortgage it created to finance energy-efficiency improvements. The cutoff is a lender’s application received date of January 25, 2027 or later. Energy-efficiency work does not leave Freddie Mac’s lineup, though. The financing moves to renovation loans that carry their own rules.
What Freddie Mac’s bulletin says is ending
Freddie Mac announced the change in Bulletin 2026-13, dated October 7, 2026. It says: “we are retiring the standalone offering for GreenCHOICE Mortgages.” The bulletin is written for lenders that sell loans to Freddie Mac, not for borrowers.
The retirement applies to mortgages with an application received date on or after January 25, 2027. Applications received before that date are not shut out. A GreenCHOICE mortgage with an earlier application must have a settlement date on or before February 28, 2027.
After that, a mortgage with an earlier application that settles on or after March 1, 2027 has to be delivered as a CHOICEReno eXPress mortgage. Freddie Mac also removes the GreenCHOICE labels from its delivery data for loans settling March 1 or later, including the one for paying off outstanding energy debt.
Is energy-efficiency financing in a refinance still possible?
For a homeowner who planned to roll insulation or a new furnace into a refinance, the answer is yes, through a different product. Freddie Mac’s CHOICERenovation overview lists renovations to improve the energy and water efficiency of a home as an eligible use of loan proceeds.
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CHOICERenovation works for purchases and for no cash-out refinances. For a refinance, the financed renovation cost is capped at 75% of the as-completed value, according to the overview, which is dated July 2025. It covers one- to four-unit primary residences, second homes, one-unit investment properties and certain manufactured homes and condominiums.
For a purchase, the overview caps financed renovation costs at 75% of the lesser of the purchase price plus estimated renovation costs, or the as-completed appraised value. Manufactured homes have a $50,000 ceiling. The overview says loans must be first-lien mortgages that are otherwise eligible under Freddie Mac’s Guide.
Freddie Mac says CHOICERenovation can already be combined with GreenCHOICE. That is the pairing going away. When the standalone product retires, a borrower financing energy work does so through CHOICERenovation or the smaller CHOICEReno eXPress, and not through a separate green loan.
What changes for CHOICEReno eXPress and CHOICERenovation
CHOICEReno eXPress, the lighter version, gets looser rules for loans submitted to Freddie Mac’s Loan Product Advisor on or after January 25, 2027. The bulletin drops the energy report requirement for qualifying Accept and manually underwritten mortgages. It sets a 15% maximum financed renovation cost in all geographies and allows all property types.
The July 2025 overview listed CHOICEReno eXPress limits of 10% or 15%. The bulletin standardizes the cap at 15% in every geography, so a borrower in an area that had the lower cap gains room for the same project.
CHOICERenovation gets a delivery change for the same date. Lenders must report the energy improvement amount and the type of renewable energy component. Those are data fields lenders must report when they deliver the loan.
Why the borrower never sees the bulletin
Freddie Mac does not lend to homeowners. It buys mortgages from lenders, so a change like this reaches a borrower only when a lender decides which products to offer. Freddie Mac’s GreenCHOICE FAQ describes GreenCHOICE, CHOICEHome and CHOICERenovation as separate offerings in its CHOICE family.
The same FAQ says refinance proceeds can pay off a PACE obligation, a property-assessed clean energy loan, with conditions such as the PACE loan being paid in full. The bulletin removes the delivery label for paying off outstanding energy debt from loans settling March 1, 2027 or later. It does not say what replaces that label.
Program terms sit on Freddie Mac’s single-family site. A borrower with an application in progress should ask the lender which date it logs as the application received date. The bulletin keys the cutoff to that received date.
Loans already in the pipeline get protection. Transfers of GreenCHOICE mortgages with applications before January 25, 2027 are prohibited until all eligible improvements are complete and the appraiser has issued a completion report. That keeps the renovation work from being left unfinished when a loan changes hands.
The bulletin gives no borrower counts, loan volumes or dollar figures for GreenCHOICE. It does not say how many homeowners used the product. What it states is where energy-efficiency renovations go next: CHOICERenovation, CHOICEReno eXPress and Freddie Mac’s Renovation offerings.
The bulletin also made one change that points the other way. Community Land Trust mortgages and income-restricted mortgages can now include multiwide manufactured homes, and lenders no longer need Freddie Mac’s written approval to sell mortgages on leasehold manufactured homes. Multiwide homes are the larger units built in two or more sections. Both changes took effect October 7, 2026, and they broaden who can use shared-equity and leasehold financing rather than touching energy work.
Paying for insulation without a GreenCHOICE loan?
A loan is one way homeowners pay for energy work, and the cost of getting it wrong is a refinance rolled around a product that no longer exists. Heating, cooling and repair bills also keep arriving whichever loan a lender offers.
The Senior Property Tax & Home-Cost Relief Kit covers heating, cooling and home-repair help for older homeowners, along with how to apply. It also keeps an application log and renewal calendar, which helps when more than one program has its own dates.
It runs 64 pages and includes a part on utilities and home costs and another on repairs, insurance and staying put.
Find insulation, heating and repair help in a home-cost relief kit for older homeowners →
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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
