This annual report describes FHFA's accomplishments, as well as challenges, the agency faced in meeting the strategic goals and objectives during the past fiscal year.
Read about the agency’s 2022 examinations of Fannie Mac, Freddie Mac and the Home Loan Bank System.
Submit comments and provide input on FHFA Rules Open for Comment by clicking on Rulemaking and Federal Register.
As conservator, FHFA is focused on ensuring that each Enterprise builds capital and improves its safety and soundness.
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Operate the business in a safe and sound manner.
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Promote sustainable and equitable access to affordable housing.
2023 Scorecard
FHFA experts provide reliable data, including all states, about activity in the U.S. mortgage market through its House Price Index, Refinance Report, Foreclosure Prevention Report, and Performance Report.
Source: FHFA
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Glossaries
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FHFA’s 2014 Strategic Plan for the Conservatorships of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac includes the goal of improving the overall liquidity of Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s (the Enterprises) securities through the development of a common mortgage-backed security. That security is the Uniform Mortgage-Backed Security or UMBS, which began trading in the "To-Be-Announced" (TBA) market [1] on March 12, 2019. UMBS issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac trade in the TBA market without regard to which Enterprise is the issuer. This fungibility, or interchangeability, is central to broadening and enhancing the liquidity of the secondary mortgage market on an ongoing basis.
This report provides insight into how FHFA monitors the consistency of prepayment rates across cohorts of the Enterprises’ TBA-eligible MBS. [2] This report defines a cohort as those Enterprise TBA-eligible securities with the same coupon, maturity, and loan-origination year. [3] A prepayment on a mortgage loan is the amount of principal paid in advance of the loan’s scheduled payments. Full prepayment occurs when a borrower pays off the loan ahead of the scheduled maturity. If a borrower defaults on the mortgage loan, the Enterprise will pay investors the remaining principal balance and remove the loan from the MBS. That action has the same effect on investors as a full prepayment. Partial prepayment occurs when a borrower pays principal in addition to the regularly scheduled payment of principal and interest.
Consistency of prepayment rates is important to the success of UMBS and to the efficiency and liquidity of the secondary mortgage market. Some industry stakeholders have expressed concern that the rates of prepayment of the Enterprises’ securities might materially diverge and undermine their fungibility. FHFA has taken a number of steps to promote the continued consistency of prepayment rates of Fannie Mae- and Freddie Mac-issued mortgage-backed securities (MBS). [4] This quarterly report is part of that commitment and provides market participants additional transparency into the data FHFA receives and reviews on a monthly basis and into FHFA’s uses of that data. [1] The TBA market is a forward market for certain mortgage-backed securities, including those issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. [2] To avoid double counting, only first-level securitizations are included in the analysis. Second-level securitizations (Megas and Giants) are excluded. [3] FHFA has previously stated that cohorts would be determined by issuance year. Basing the analysis on loan-origination years is more consistent with industry practice. [4] See, for example, the UMBS Final Rule at https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/03/05/2019-03934/uniform-mortgage-backed-security.