Freddie Mac is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a new data visualization site that breaks down the state-by-state statistics of mortgage transactions the company has helped facilitate.
David Brickman | Photo credit: Freddie Mac
Since the publicly-traded company was created by a congressional charter in 1970, it says it helped finance more than 10.7 million multifamily rental units and helped finance more than $618.6 billion in multifamily loan funding since 1993. Of the multifamily rental units it’s helped finance, more than 5.4 million were deemed affordable.
“Milestones provide an important opportunity to pause, take stock of the past and look ahead to the challenges and opportunities the future holds,”said David Brickman, CEO of Freddie Mac, in a statement. “Over the last 50 years, in good times and in bad, we have played a vital role in providing housing to nearly 80 million owners and renters.”
“From industry-leading innovations and market stability to affordable housing for families across the country, everyone at Freddie Mac is focused on leading the industry forward.”
The government-sponsored entity — which securitizes mortgages and provides liquidity to the mortgage market while aiming to keep rates affordable — says it’s provided more than $10 trillion in funding to the U.S. housing market since 1970.
It’s helped “make home possible” nearly 80 million times. Freddie Mac is not a direct mortgage lender, rather it purchases loans from lenders to provide liquidity.
In the single-family sector, Freddie Mac says it helped finance roughly 67 million single-family homes with nearly $9.8 trillion in single-family loan funding. Of those homes, 20 million were deemed affordable. The company also says it served 5.6 million first-time homebuyers since 1990 and prevented 1.9 million foreclosures since 2001.
Not every era of the company’s history is a cause for celebration, however. While the new site gives a detailed state-by-state breakdown of all the transactions and volume that Freddie Mac has helped facilitate, there’s no mention that the publicly-traded company had to be bailed out by taxpayers after the financial crash of 2008 and taken under government conservatorship.
The company has since paid back its taxpayer bailout and there’s been talk in the Trump administration about ending the conservatorship and opening up the charter under which Freddie Mac operates to allow private-sector competition.
