Mortgage Industry

The mortgage industry provides the loans that let buyers finance the purchase of real estate, and in the United States it is a major financial sector supported by the federal government through government sponsored entities created to encourage home lending and homeownership, chiefly Ginnie Mae, the Government National Mortgage Association, Fannie Mae, the Federal National Mortgage Association, and Freddie Mac, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation. These entities guarantee conforming loans and package them into mortgage-backed securities sold to investors, a process of securitization that lets banks quickly relend the money they have lent out and issue far more mortgages than their own deposits alone would support. The sector has expanded significantly over the past decade with advances in mortgage lending technology, but it also carries systemic weight: the subprime mortgage crisis centered on this industry contributed directly to the 2008 financial collapse. Its scale and structure continue to shape home ownership rates and the wider financial system in the United States and beyond.