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Bolstered by higher originations, Freddie Mac reported Tuesday that net income was $524 million for the first quarter, up from $227 million a quarter earlier.
May 5 -
Fannie Mae will no longer charge mortgage lenders to submit loans to its Desktop Underwriter automated underwriting system, a decision that follows a similar move by Freddie Mac earlier this month.
June 23 -
Freddie Mac is growing its single-family business and taking market share from its fellow government-sponsored enterprise Fannie Mae.
November 6

Much of Freddie Mac's stellar $4.2 billion second-quarter earnings are the result of how certain hedging income is recognized on its balance sheet, or what CEO Donald Layton called "accounting noise." However, Freddie's operating fundamentals are "strong and improving."
"Segment earnings are up, purchase volumes are up, and the risk profiles are significantly better," Layton said Tuesday during a conference call with investors.
In addition to posting net income of
"We had very good underlying earnings again this quarter. But unlike several previous quarters, we were positively impacted by the stronger performance of many market-sensitive components of our business," Layton said.
Freddie funded $101 billion in newly originated, single-family mortgages during the second quarter, up from $59 billion a year ago and $80 billion in the first quarter. But $62 billion of the $101 billion funded in the quarter came from refinancing, a segment that's expected to decline in the second half of this year.
"The increase in Freddie Mac's new single-family business volume reflects the substantial increase in conventional mortgage activity up 30% in the first half of 2015 compared to the first half of 2014 and an increase in our GSE market share," Freddie Mac spokesperson Lisa Gagnon said in an emailed response to questions.
In addition, home sales are on pace for the
Freddie also resumed purchasing mortgages originated with down payments as low as 3%, but Layton said during the call this has not materially added to its loan volume.
Freddie Mac continues to provide gains for the U.S. government, which holds it and fellow GSE Fannie Mae in conservatorship. Both GSEs have been shedding some of their credit risk through financial instruments that transfer risk to the private sector and nonperforming loan sales.
Freddie historically has been the outpaced in size by fellow GSE Fannie Mae, which is also due to report earnings this week. But Freddie has
Regulatory efforts are underway to combine Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's securitized mortgages in part due to liquidity problems with Freddie Mac MBS, but a recent
Freddie Mac had a 42% issuance share through May, up from 41% last year and 35% in 2012.