Fannie Mae-No Politics (FNMA)

[obiterdictum]

Title III of the Federal Housing Act of 1934 established on paper national mortgage associations that were empowered to create a national secondary mortgage market.

Four years later, no actual national mortgage associations were formed.

So on February, 10, 1938, the Federal Housing Administration chartered the National Mortgage Association of Washington to buy and sell mortgages. The National Mortgage Association of Washington was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), a government agency and was chartered under Title III of the National Housing Act as amended (52 Stat. 23).

Three months later, on April 5, 1938, the National Mortgage Association of Washington's name was changed to the Federal National Mortgage Association or Fannie Mae. Fannie Mae at this time was still a government agency. Fannie Mae remained a pure federal agency and it did not have any shareholders and was not publicly traded.

In 1954, Congress enacted the Federal National Mortgage Association Charter Act. This act changed Fannie Mae the federal agency into a mixed ownership corporation where the US Treasury owned non-voting preferred stock and participating mortgage lenders working with Fannie Mae had to own non-voting common stock in order to sell their mortgage to Fannie Mae.

The Federal National Mortgage Association as a mixed ownership corporation was officially abolished on September 1, 1968 by Title VIII of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968 (82 Stat. 536) enacted on August 1, 1968.

Two corporations emerged in 1968, Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae), a US government wholly owned Corporation and the new Federal National Mortgage Association, and a federally chartered, publicly traded, shareholder owned corporation. There was a transition period after the split to manage the change in stock type (from non-voting preferred and common to voting common stock) that was complete by May 21, 1970. In 1972, Fannie Mae began buying ordinary mortgages from private mortgage lenders that were not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Housing Administration and the Veterans Administration. The rest is history to the present.

So, Fannie Mae did not emerge as we know it until 1968. The only federal charter that exists for Fannie Mae is the amended one previously posted. Previously, the government guarantees were from the FHA and VA mortgages that Fannie Mae purchased. But that ended in 1968, when Fannie Mae was federally chartered and transformed into a publicly traded, shareholder owned corporation with no government guarantee.

Source:
National Housing Act 1934
http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/docs/historical/martin/54_01_19340627.pdf

12 U.S. Code Chapter 13 - NATIONAL HOUSING
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/12/chapter-13

12 U.S. Code Chapter 13, Subchapter III - NATIONAL MORTGAGE ASSOCIATIONS
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/12/chapter-13/subchapter-III

Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968 see page 62
https://bulk.resource.org/gao.gov/90-448/00005202.pdf

Federal National Mortgage Association Charter Act
http://www.law.cornell.edu/topn/federal_national_mortgage_association_charter_act

FEDERAL NATIONAL MORTGAGE ASSOCIATION CHARTER ACT - As Amended Through July 30, 2008 (Title III of the National Housing Act, 12 U.S.C. 1716 et seq.)
http://www.fanniemae.com/resources/file/aboutus/pdf/fm-amended-charter.pdf