[sally]

...Are Fanny Mae & Frddie Mac REAL people ? Or is it a company name? and IF they are, how come that 50% (half) of all home loans in the US are held by them ? are they 2 separate people / companies or is it just ONE company ?

[Demosthenes]

Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac are both US Government Sponsored Enterprises, a group of financial services corporations created by the United States Congress. Despite being GSEs and publicly chartered, both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were privately owned.Fanny MaeFederal National Mortgage Association (FNMA) commonly known as Fannie Mae (clue, say FNMA fast), is a stockholder-owned corporation chartered by Congress in 1968 as a government sponsored enterprise (GSE), but founded in 1938 during the Depression.Freddie MacThe Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC), commonly known as Freddie Mac, is a government sponsored enterprise (GSE) of the United States federal government. The FHLMC was created in 1970 to expand the secondary market for mortgages in the US. Along with other GSEs, Freddie Mac buys mortgages on the secondary market, pools them, and sells them as mortgage-backed securities to investors on the open market. This secondary mortgage market increases the supply of money available for mortgages lending and increases the money available for new home purchases. The name, "Freddie Mac", was a creative acronym of the company's full name that had been adopted officially for ease of identification.Note: Other Government Sponsored Enterprises include:- The twelve Federal Home Loan Banks (established 1932)- Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae) (1968)- Federal Farm Credit Banks (established 1916)- Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation (Farmer Mac) (1988)