As we reflect on Freddie Mac’s 50 years of helping families and communities realize sustainable homeownership, we sat down with three experts to better understand the forces and trends that have shaped the mortgage industry throughout the years.

While change is often a constant force that borrowers, homeowners, lenders and other housing professionals must navigate, there are parts of the industry that stay the same.

We asked our experts what has stayed consistent over the years, for the better?

The secondary mortgage market and mortgage-backed securities (MBS) are parts of our industry that have remained relatively unchanged. The stability of the secondary mortgage market to provide liquidity for MBS has been for decades now a cornerstone. There have been advances and changes over time around the edges of the secondary mortgage market. But the core value of providing liquidity remains the same.

All of the advances that have come along—from artificial intelligence (AI) to cloud computing—have been game changers that have led to incredible innovation. But at the end of the day, it has and always will be about people. The need for the human touch and thought, where people collaborate, empathize, accept ambiguity and continue our mission with a passion, is critical. That is often defined by the people you hire, who often have a sense of a broader purpose beyond their specific role. For example, I jump out of bed every morning excited because I take our mission statement and boil it down to helping people get into homes they can afford and keep. That’s exciting work.

There are many areas within our industry that need to implement greater efficiency to reduce the costs of not only the purchasing of a home, but the sale and management of it. There are a lot of disruptive opportunities in the overall housing environment that we should welcome to help with that. But what hasn’t changed is that our industry is a people-oriented and location-specific business. Those are part of the dynamics of the housing market that we all enjoy. And that also fosters great partnerships and ideas across the housing and mortgage ecosystems, and a healthier environment overall in the U.S. housing markets.