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Freddie Mac Sets 2008 Multifamily Record for Whole Loans and Bond Guarantee Business

McLean, VA – Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) announced today that in 2008 it set a record of $24 billion in volume for its multifamily whole loan and bond guarantee business (multifamily mortgage settlements), a more than 10 percent increase over the 2007 volume of $22 billion. This volume includes Freddie Mac’s targeted affordable housing products, which finance apartments that receive some form of government subsidy. In addition to the mortgage settlement volume, Freddie Mac purchased $1.4 billion in CMBS in 2008, compared to $22 billion in 2007, reflective of the inactive CMBS market. Freddie Mac’s multifamily transactions financed approximately 418,000 apartment homes, the vast majority of which are affordable to families earning low or moderate incomes.

“Freddie Mac’s multifamily business had a solid year in 2008, in spite of considerable housing market and economic turmoil,” said Mike May, senior vice president of Multifamily for Freddie Mac. “Holding true to our vital mission, Freddie Mac continues to provide critically needed liquidity and stability to help keep the country’s multifamily housing finance markets working. During the past several years, Freddie Mac has spent a considerable amount of time and resources to build its multifamily housing capabilities, and those efforts are enabling Freddie Mac to support the market, our customers and families from coast to coast in this difficult economic environment.”

Highlights of Freddie Mac’s multifamily business in 2008 are:

• Approximately $18.8 billion was settled through Freddie Mac’s conventional programs, which included approximately $2 billion of conventional structured volume;
• Nearly $5.5 billion in targeted affordable housing products was transacted, including over $3.6 billion in targeted affordable housing structured business;
• Over $3 billion in Capped ARM financings (1) and just over $2 billion in Acquisition Upgrade and Acquisition Rehabilitation Mortgages^SM;
• $10.4 billion of the transactions used the Freddie Mac Early Rate-Lock option;
• Commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) purchase volume of $1.4 billion;
• Purchases of approximately $1.2 billion in seniors housing mortgages;
• Purchases of more than $580 million in student housing mortgages;
• Completed approximately $450 million of business for the Freddie Mac Targeted Affordable Fully Delegated Underwriting^SM program; and
• Nearly $415 million in Capital Markets Execution^SM (2) activity.

1. Capped ARM financings are loans which have adjustable-interest rate terms and contain provisions to limit the maximum interest rate or index rate associated with the loan.

2. Freddie Mac began purchasing multifamily loans backing apartment housing during 2008 with the intent to securitize and guarantee these loans for sale to third parties.

Since the launch of Freddie Mac's multifamily business in 1993, it has provided more than $214 billion in financing for approximately 56,000 multifamily properties.

Freddie Mac was established by Congress in 1970 to provide liquidity, stability and affordability to the nation’s residential mortgage markets. Freddie Mac supports communities across the nation by providing mortgage capital to lenders. Over the years, Freddie Mac has made home possible for one in six homebuyers and more than five million renters.

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