Surreal Mortgages

Fannie Mae has some looser government restrictions than other financial institutions do.

According to Wikipedia, they can sell mortgage-backed securities with only half of the normal money backing them up. But it’s not really justified to allow this because Fannie Mae offers no real guarantee, even though it might seem like one exists because of their ties to the government.

Critics, including Alan Greenspan, say that the risk is artificially lowered.

Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA) is just another name for Fannie Mae.

It is traded on NYSE as FNM.
http://www.nyse.com/about/listed/lcddata.html?ticker=FNM

Fannie Mae is a private company. They buy mortgages from lenders. Then, the lenders can use the money from it to make more mortgages. This market is called the secondary mortgage market.

So basically they make sure that lenders have enough money to offer lots and lots of mortgages to home buyers.

The federal government created Fannie Mae in 1938, which created the secondary mortgage market. Then in 1968, Fannie Mae turned private.

Fannie Mae “provides financial products and services that make it possible for low-, moderate-, and middle-income families to buy homes of their own,” according to their website.

They have a lender search tool that lets you search the Fannie Mae-approved lenders by state.
http://www.mortgagecontent.net/flApplication/fanniemae/findLender.jsp?p=Find+a+Lender+Search