A Primer on the Secondary Mortgage Market

National Community Development Initiative Meeting
June 4, 1997
New York, NY

This ten-page primer gives an overview of the primary mortgage market and describes the workings of the secondary mortgage market in detail. The secondary market is the market where mortgage loans are bought and sold. Various market trends using mortgage data from the Federal Reserve Board, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Fannie Mae are illustrated and discussed.

Topics include:

An Overview of the Residential Mortgage Market

• Diagrams and discusses the mortgage market actors and process

Description of the Primary and Secondary Mortgage Markets

• Outlines the origination process, the servicing process, and the secondary mortgage market process
• Looks at residential mortgage originators and investors from 1983 to 1995

Examination of the Secondary Mortgage Market

• Explains the rationale for the federal government sponsorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the requirements for an active secondary mortgage market
• Outlines the evolution of the federal credit institutions and their current impact on today's market
• Discusses the changes in multifamily mortgage originators and investors from 1983 to 1995

The full City Research publication is available for download below as an Adobe Acrobat PDF File. Adobe Acrobat Reader (provided free by Adobe) must be installed on your computer in order to read the document.

A Primer on the Secondary Mortgage Market   smm.pdf

Left-clicking on the PDF file will launch Acrobat Reader and enable the document to be viewed on screen and then printed. Right-clicking will prompt the user to save the file to disk. The document can then be opened and printed at a later date.