Fannie Mae

The Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA), colloquially known as Fannie Mae, was established in 1938 by amendments to the National Housing Act after the Great Depression as part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. Fannie Mae was established to provide local banks with federal money to finance home mortgages in an attempt to raise levels of home ownership and the availability of affordable housing. Fannie Mae created a liquid secondary mortgage market and thereby made it possible for banks and other loan originators to issue more housing loans, primarily by buying Federal Housing Administration (FHA) insured mortgages. For the first thirty years following its inception, Fannie Mae held a monopoly over the secondary mortgage market.

Ginnie Mae, which remained a government organization, supports FHA-insured mortgages as well as Veterans Administration (VA) and Farmers Home Administration (FmHA) insured mortgages. As such Ginnie Mae is the only home-loan agency explicitly backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government.

In 1970, the federal government authorized Fannie Mae to purchase private mortgages, i.e. those not insured by the FHA, VA, or FmHA, and created the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC), colloquially known as Freddie Mac, to compete with Fannie Mae and thus facilitate a more robust and efficient secondary mortgage market.

In 1981, Fannie Mae issued its first mortgage passthrough and called it a mortgage-backed security. The Fannie Mae laws did not require the Banks to hand out subprime loans in any way. Ginnie Mae had guaranteed the first mortgage passthrough security of an approved lender in 1968 and in 1971 Freddie Mac issued its first mortgage passthrough, called a participation certificate, composed primarily of private mortgages.

Fannie Mae made money partly by borrowing at low rates, and lending at higher rates. It borrowed by selling bonds, and lent by creating mortgages and mortgage backed securities which it held on its own books. Since its implied government guarantee meant it could borrow at very low rates, it earned a higher profit than did the non-government companies doing the same work. This was called "The big, fat gap" by Alan Greenspan. By August, 2008, Fannie Mae's mortgage portfolio was in excess of $700 billion.

Fannie Mae also earned a significant portion of its income from guaranty fees it received as compensation for assuming the credit risk on the mortgage loans underlying its single-family Fannie Mae MBS and on the single-family mortgage loans held in its retained portfolio. Investors, or purchasers of Fannie Mae MBSs, are willing to let Fannie Mae keep this fee in exchange for assuming the credit risk; that is, Fannie Mae's guarantee that the scheduled principal and interest on the underlying loan will be paid even if the borrower defaults.

Ex. 4. Choose an appropriate word or expression from the box to