Fannie Mae is a government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) chartered by Congress with a mission to provide liquidity and stability to the U.S. housing and mortgage markets.

Fannie Mae operates in the U.S. secondary mortgage market. Rather than making home loans directly with consumers, we work with mortgage bankers, brokers, and other primary mortgage market partners to help ensure they have funds to lend to home buyers at affordable rates. We fund our mortgage investments primarily by issuing debt securities in the domestic and international capital markets.

Fannie Mae was established as a federal agency in 1938, and in 1968 we were chartered by Congress as a private shareholder-owned company. On September 6, 2008, Director James Lockhart of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) appointed FHFA as conservator of Fannie Mae. In addition, the U.S. Department of the Treasury agreed to provide up to $100 billion of capital as needed to ensure the company continues to provide liquidity to the housing and mortgage markets.

Fannie Mae has three businesses - Single-Family, Housing and Community Development, and Capital Markets - that work together to provide services, products, and solutions to lender partners and a broad range of housing partners. Together, these businesses contribute to the company's chartered mission objectives, helping to increase the total amount of funds available in America to make homeownership and rental housing more available and affordable.