Fannie Mae
Definition of "Fannie Mae"
Wondering who is this Fannie Mae person that your real estate agent always mentions when the subject about mortgage is brought up?
Fannie Mae is not a person, nor a Woody Allen female character – but the way people commonly refer to The Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA).
But, to be fair, although it is not a person, to better understand Fannie Mae definition we need to tell its story as if we were telling a person’s life:
Fannie Mae was founded as a government-sponsored enterprise in 1938 as part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration’s “New Deal” on the aftermath of the Great Depression. The idea behind Fannie Mae was to inject federal money into privately owned banks to finance home mortgages and raise the levels of home ownership after so many Americans had their homes foreclosed on due to defaulting because of the economical crisis. Fannie Mae was an aggressive second mortgage market supporter that connected their financial injection with the obligation of buying Federal Housing Administration (FHA) insurance. So much so, it basically held a second mortgage monopoly for over 30 years.
But with the economy re-established, The Federal National Mortgage Association has been through a lot of changes. It became a mixed-ownership corporation in the 1950s and eventually turned into a government-sponsored, publicly traded and privately held corporation spawning Ginnie Mae (Government National Mortgage Association) and the privately held corporation that kept the “Fannie Mae” name without the “Federal National Mortgage Association”.
Yes, it’s like a family, right? You have Fannie Mae, younger sister Ginnie Mae and love interest on that love-hate relationship Freddie Mac. The name of this sitcom? “The Mortgages”?
Real Estate Tips:
Find a local real estate agent to advise you on the best type of mortgage to your specific home.
Popular Mortgage Terms
Administering loans between the time of disbursement and the time the loan is fully paid off. Servicing includes collecting payments from the borrower, maintaining payment records, ...
Refinancing that omits some of the standard risk control measures and is therefore quicker and less costly. The rationale for streamlined refinancing is that, while it is an entirely new ...
A written document evidencing the lien on a property taken by a lender as security for the repayment of a loan. The term 'mortgage' or 'mortgage loan' is used loosely to refer both to the ...
Fees assessed by lenders when payments are late. Late fees are usually 4% or 5% of the payment. A borrower with a 6% mortgage for 30 years who pays a 5% late charge every month raises his ...
The ratio of total housing expense to borrower income. This ratio is used (along with other factors) in qualifying borrowers. ...
A mortgage lender that sells all the loans it originates in the secondary market. ...
The interest rate used in calculating the initial mortgage payment in qualifying a borrower. The rate used in qualifying borrowers may or may not be the initial rate on the mortgage. On ...
The sum of all interest payments to date or over the life of the loan. This is not a good measure of the cost of credit to the borrower because it does not include upfront cash payments and ...
Refinancing for an amount in excess of the balance on the old loan plus settlement costs. When the main objective of a refinancing is to raise cash, the relevant question is whether the ...
Have a question or comment?
We're here to help.