Freddie Mac painted a desperate picture of the US housing market. According to its latest forecast, it expects that only 6.3 million homes will be sold this year; the lowest sales volume since 2001.

Residential lending will also tumble, Freddie expects the figure to drop to 2.75 trillion, the lowest since 2002. Meanwhile, it expects mortgage rates to spike at 6.7 percent this quarter; that is around 0.5 percent higher than the first three months of this year.