How was Countrywide various from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae?

Question by DRG: How was Countrywide various from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae?
In the course of the subprime mortgage crisis, how was Countrywide diverse from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae? I know Bank of America purchased Countrywide and the government purchased the other two nonetheless all 3 of these corporations gave subprime loans. What did they do that was diverse from each other?
I ask this query simply because when I look up countrywide today, it says it is a insurance company. Does that imply in the previous it was a mortgage broker or an investment bank?
Ranger when you say package loans do you mean really producing them into MBS? or packaging them to give them to an investment back or one thing?
So joeyv did the investment banks give loans to make MBS as nicely or did they just get them from Fannie Mae and Freddie mac? And my second question is that you are saying countrywide did not securitize them, just gave the mortgages to other corporations like Fannie and Freddie to securitize them right? So countrywide did not actually produce them?

Very best answer:

Answer by ranger_co_1_75
Fundamentally they have been performing the exact same thing.

Fannie Mae (Federal National Mortgage Association) and Freddie Mac ( Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation) initially had been the only ones who had been permitted to “package loans” and sell them. Chartered and backed by the Federal Government, Fanni Mae and Freddie Mac differed only in the type of loans they packaged and sold in the secondary mortgage industry..

Then came the Bush era of Bank DeRegulation and any individual who could lie and falsify documents was permitted to problem loans and package them into bundles to sell to investors. That included Countrywide.

The distinction was Countrywide was a purely private enterprise and supposedly not backed by the Federal Government. That is why Bank of America, a private corporation, absorbed Countrywide, and FHFA, a government agency, absorbed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

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Why did the Federal Government sue the Wall Street banks that sold Fannie and Freddie bad mortgages?

Question by ideogenetic: Why did the Federal Government sue the Wall Street banks that sold Fannie and Freddie bad mortgages?
Shouldn’t the “buyer beware”* or is there a role for regulation to prevent criminal economic activity in the debt securitization markets that lead to catastrophic financial collapses?

* Since S&P had ‘AAA’ ratings on the junk paper, how would the buyer know?
For those who missed it:
“Federal Regulators Sue Big Banks Over Mortgages”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/03/business/bank-suits-over-mortgages-are-filed.html

Best answer:

Answer by TheOnlyBeldin
Because Barney won’t let them go after the true culprit: Fannie and Freddie themselves.

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What ramifications would the US face if Freddie and Fannie were not saved?

Question by ztim21: What ramifications would the US face if Freddie and Fannie were not saved?
How does the facts that these companies buy/sell mortgages through securitization make mortgages more affordable for ordinary people?

The answer is liquidity, but I dont understand how that makes mortgages inexpensive.

Pre-bailout, what is the ownership interested of the US gov’t as Freddie and Fannie are GSEs?

Thanks for all your help in figuring this one out!

Best answer:

Answer by texanskid
I wish they didnt get saved. I have stock in Fannie May and got whiped out today. Granted I didnt put that much in that I couldnt afford to lose which a lot of people didnt do.

Fannie and Freddie own half of the entire country’s loan debt so without these two companies the credit crisis would get even worse and the banks wouldnt get there money either. Without them being saved the economy would have been destroyed and the banks would go out of business as well.

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