• Freddie Mac is the official nickname of the Federal Home Mortgage Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC).

  • Freddie Mac is a state-sponsored joint stock company (GSE) established by Congress in 1970 to support middle-income American home ownership.
  • Freddie Mac’s role is to buy large amounts of loans from mortgage lenders, then pool them together and sell them as mortgage-backed securities.
  • Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are public GSEs. The main difference between the two is that Fannie Mae buys mortgages from large retail or commercial banks, while Freddie Mac gets loans from smaller banks.
  • Some argue that the runaway growth of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was the main driving force behind the 2008 credit crunch that turned into the Great Recession.