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Freddie Mac CEO and CFO Discuss 

Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2021 Financial and 

Business Results

Remarks of Michael DeVito, CEO, and Christian Lown, EVP and Chief Financial Officer

February 10, 2021

As Prepared for Delivery

Remarks of Mr. DeVito

Good morning and thank you for joining us to review another strong year for Freddie Mac. 

Today I will briefly highlight the progress we made on our strategic priorities in 2021 and offer some 

thoughts on what we expect in 2022.

Then our CFO, Chris Lown, will walk you through our financials.

A Review of 2021

So, let me begin with a quick recap of our progress last year. Freddie Mac’s mission has long been 

understood as delivering “liquidity, stability and affordability” to the housing market. As I’ve noted in prior 

calls, we interpret that mission expansively to meet the country’s broader housing needs in all economic 

environments. That work includes:

• Enhancing liquidity within the mortgage and capital markets. 

• Stabilizing the housing market and keeping families in their homes throughout the economic 

cycle.

• Working with an array of housing market participants to promote greater access to and supply of 

affordable and sustainable homes throughout the country.

• Promoting greater equity in housing.

• Helping lenders of all sizes better serve their communities. 

• Integrating environmental, social and governance strategies into our business and operations.

In short, our mission is to Make Home Possible for millions of renters and borrowers across the nation. 

This is the overarching purpose of all our efforts, and everything we do is in furtherance of it. 

Last year, I set out three pillars that support our mission: Delivering results, practicing risk management 

excellence, and growing our talent. 
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I would like to take a moment to highlight some of the progress we’ve made with respect to each of those 

pillars over the last year. 

Let me begin with the strong results we delivered in 2021. Chris Lown will go into more depth in a few 

minutes, but the headline numbers are worth noting here: Freddie Mac earned net and comprehensive 

income of $12.1 billion and $11.6 billion, respectively, in 2021. This significantly exceeded our very strong 

2020 performance. Our earnings helped bring the company’s total equity to $28 billion – 71 percent 

greater than our net worth at year-end 2020. 

I should also say a word about the importance of building capital and the integral relationship it has to our 

mission. Capital is essential both as the backstop for the risks we assume in supporting our mission and 

to signal safety and soundness to taxpayers, our partners, and the financial markets. 

We remain undercapitalized, and our path to a stronger capital position is through consistently solid 

financial performance. To achieve that performance, we must demonstrate relentless focus on all aspects 

of our business. 

Second, we practiced solid risk management in 2021. For example, our servicer outreach and loss 

mitigation efforts, combined with improving economic conditions, dramatically reduced delinquent loans in 

our portfolio. Our 2021 Single-Family serious delinquency rate declined to 1.12 percent, and our 

Multifamily delinquency rate dropped to 0.08 percent at year end, far below their respective pandemic 

peaks of 3.04 percent and 0.17 percent. 

And third, we are growing talent by building a strong leadership team and supporting a culture where 

individuals from all backgrounds, who do things the right way, can succeed.

We often see this support materialize in awards and recognition. For example, the Human Rights 

Campaign just named Freddie Mac a Best Place to Work for LGBTQ+ Equality and gave our company a 

perfect score on its corporate equality index. It was the thirteenth consecutive time we’ve earned the 

award since 2010

Supporting Our Mission

As I said, the purpose of everything we do is ultimately to Make Home Possible for owners and renters. 

Our earnings, increased capital, focus on risk management, and committed team served this mission and 

the nation well in 2021. 

We helped nearly 5 million families buy, refinance, or rent a home last year. We financed nearly 1.4 

million purchases, including 554,000 for first time homebuyers. We enabled 2.9 million households to 

lower their monthly mortgage payments or receive more favorable terms through refinancing. And, of the 

655,000 rental units we financed last year, 94 percent were affordable to renters earning 120 percent or 

less of area median income.

We also continued our effort to help families wrestling with the effects of a global pandemic remain in their 

homes. Last year, 317,000 Single-Family borrowers received a forbearance, deferral, or other relief from 

a Freddie Mac servicer. Since the earliest days of the pandemic in 2020, approximately 858,000 

homeowners have entered into a forbearance agreement with our servicers, and we have helped more 

than 700,000 get back on their feet through the relief I mentioned earlier. 
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Multifamily borrowers and renters also benefitted from Freddie Mac’s pandemic forbearance programs. 

More than 136,000 renters in properties subject to a forbearance agreement received protection from 

eviction for non-payment of rent over the course of the pandemic. Approximately 0.42 percent of loans in 

our Multifamily portfolio remained in COVID-19-related forbearance as of December 31, a marked 

decrease from 2.01 percent at the end of 2020.

Developing New Tools

While we put our existing tools to work in support of our mission in 2021, we continued to develop new 

ones that help homebuyers and renters access quality, sustainable housing. 

In August, we expanded our home renovation loan offering with CHOICEReno eXPress mortgages. This 

Single-Family offering helps homebuyers and homeowners reduce their out-of-pocket costs via more 

affordable loan terms than using credit cards or unsecured financing when making small-scale 

renovations.

In November, our Multifamily division created a program to help renters build credit by reporting on-time 

rent payments to the three credit bureaus. 

The early results are promising. By year end 2021, more than 73,000 tenant households had been 

offered this program across 284 properties. So far, we've helped establish credit scores for more than 

6,000 individuals who were previously credit invisible. Participants with existing credit scores who saw an 

improvement in their score, improved their scores by an average of 43 points 

Looking Ahead

Looking ahead for the balance of 2022, we will continue to emphasize our strategic priorities and our 

renewed focus on mission. We are off to a good start.

In January, we became subject to the regulatory capital reporting requirements in the Enterprise 

Regulatory Capital Framework, with our first quarterly capital report due by May 30. The framework, 

which establishes risk-based and leverage capital minimums for Freddie Mac, requires us to hold 

significantly more capital than we did under the former Conservatorship Capital Framework. 

We have already announced a plan to further reduce our risk exposure with our biggest year ever for 

Single-Family Credit Risk Transfer or “CRT” issuance. By the end of 2022, we expect to have issued at 

least $25 billion, primarily of our flagship STACR and ACIS offerings, a more than 30 percent increase 

over our record year in 2021. 

And finally, we are ramping up our sustainability efforts in 2022. We recently published our first annual 

sustainability report in accordance with the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, or SASB. The 

document provides data on Freddie Mac’s business practices, including metrics and activities related to 

equitable lending, flood risk and diversity in hiring.

The SASB report, together with our Multifamily Sustainability, Green and Social Bonds, and recently 

produced Single-Family Green Bond framework, reflects Freddie Mac’s ongoing environmental, social 

and governance focus.
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Now, let’s turn to our Financial Results with Chris Lown.

Remarks of Mr. Lown

Financial Results

Thanks Michael.

For full year 2021, we reported net income of $12.1 billion, an increase of 65 percent from 2020. We also 

reported comprehensive income of $11.6 billion, an increase 54 percent from 2020. 

2021 Results

Net revenues increased by 32 percent year-over-year to $22 billion, driven by a 38 percent increase in 

net interest income. The increase was primarily a result of 20 percent growth in the Single-Family 

mortgage portfolio and higher deferred fee income recognition due to faster loan prepayments as a result 

of low mortgage rates.

Net investment gains increased roughly 50 percent, or $900 million, to $2.7 billion, primarily driven by 

higher margins on Multifamily loan commitments and favorable spreads.

Full year credit-related expense declined by $1.3 billion to $1 billion in 2021, which was mainly due to the 

release of pandemic related provisions this year and benefit from a 16.8 percent increase in home prices 

in 2021. 

Freddie Mac’s mortgage portfolio grew by 18 percent year-over-year to $3.2 trillion at end 2021. This 

increase was primarily driven by a 20 percent increase in our Single-Family mortgage portfolio and a 7 

percent increase in our Multifamily mortgage portfolio. 

Fourth Quarter Results 

Turning to fourth quarter 2021, we reported net income of $2.7 billion, down 6 percent from the fourth 

quarter last year, and comprehensive income of $2.7 billion, up 8 percent from the same period last year. 

The decline in net income was primarily driven by a credit expense this quarter, compared with a reserve 

release in the fourth quarter of 2020.

Getting into more detail, fourth quarter net revenues totaled $5.6 billion, an increase of 11 percent 

compared to $5 billion in the prior-year quarter, as a result of higher net interest income, partially offset by 

lower non-interest income. Net interest income increased by 30 percent year-over-year to $4.8 billion, 

mainly driven by higher net interest income in the Single-Family segment, which saw its mortgage 

portfolio grow by $466 billion. 

Non-interest income was down from the prior year quarter due to lower investment gains, mostly in the 

Multifamily segment. Investment gains fell 39 percent due to lower volume of Multifamily mortgage loan 

purchase and securitization activity due to our $70 billion dollar FHFA loan purchase cap, and less 

favorable market spreads.
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Single-Family Results

Looking at the individual business lines, the Single-Family segment reported full year comprehensive 

income of $8.4 billion, up from $4.3 billion in the prior year. This was largely due to a 40 percent increase 

in net interest income, mainly driven by an increase in guarantee fee income from growth in the SingleFamily portfolio, and a higher average portfolio guarantee fee rate of 46 basis points compared with 44

basis points in 2020. 

In terms of new business in 2021, we saw strong home purchase activity and moderating refinance 

activity versus 2020, though refi continued to make up the greatest share of loans. Total Single-Family 

new business activity increased by 12 percent to a record $1.2 trillion, reflecting a 32 percent increase in 

home purchase loans and a 3 percent increase in refinance loans.

At the end of 2021, 53 percent of our Single-Family mortgage portfolio had some form of credit 

enhancement coverage, an increase of 3 percentage points from 2020.

Multifamily Results

Moving to Multifamily, the business reported comprehensive income of $3.2 billion for 2021, a slight 

decline year-over-year. Our Multifamily mortgage portfolio grew seven percent year-over-year to $415 

billion in 2021.

We saw new business activity decline by $13 billion from $83 billion in 2020 to the $70 billion regulatory 

cap in 2021. For 2022, FHFA increased this purchase cap for new business to $78 billion.

Finally, our Multifamily Credit Risk Transfer issuances during the year covered $84 billion of Multifamily 

unpaid principal balance, increasing the credit enhancement coverage on the Multifamily portfolio to 94 

percent at the end of 2021 from 89 percent in 2020. In addition, approximately 69 percent of Multifamily 

loans in forbearance are included in securitizations with first-loss credit enhancement provided by 

subordination.

Overall, we saw a strong performance from both of our business lines that contributed substantially to our

capital position, which ended the year just north of $28 billion.

And now I’ll hand the call back to Michael.

Remarks of Mr. DeVito

Conclusion

As I recently shared with our team, 2021 was a year I spent listening, learning, and exploring the potential 

of a great organization. This included engaging with leadership, employees, customers, and other 

stakeholders as they worked to deliver extraordinary results for our housing finance market and economy. 

As we look to 2022, we at Freddie Mac are excited to get to work and take these efforts to the next level.

Thank you for joining us today.