FREDDIE MAC ADDS GUARANTOR EXECUTIONS TO WEB-BASED SELLING SYSTEM; SETS NOV. 22 DATE FOR GUARANTOR ARM AND MULTILENDER EXECUTIONS

Pilot Sellers Credit New Features With Productivity Gains of 20 Percent Or More

Freddie Mac today announced that Guarantor executions for 15-, 20-, and 30-year mortgages are now available to all Sellers through its web based selling system, a move that lenders who participated in the summer-time pilot say could help lenders boost staff productivity and reduce the cost of completing secondary market executions by 20 percent or more. The company also said a Guarantor ARM and Multilender execution will be added to its web-based system and available beginning November 22.

Adding Guarantor and Multilender executions to the web-based system, which Sellers had been using for Cash executions since 2003, will provide Sellers with a full suite of secondary market functions and securities executions on an intuitive, user-friendly web-based design. The fully deployed selling system replaces the company's older legacy systems, including MIDANET and Gold Cash Xtra.

"Adding Guarantor and Multilender executions represents a quantum leap in secondary market automation that is realizing real gains in productivity and savings for our lender customers," said Ed Albrigo, vice president of change management at Freddie Mac. "Wherever there is a PC and Internet connection, lenders can use the selling system's single user interface to achieve faster, streamlined executions."

"And we're not done," Albrigo added. "We're readying a new wave of enhancements so loan data entered into our Loan Prospector^® automated underwriting service at origination will flow seamlessly through to purchase and servicing. Re-keying data into multiple systems is about to go the way of the 8-track stereo."

Placing Guarantor and Multilender executions on a single web-based platform will accelerate virtually every aspect of the secondary market process. Specifically, the selling system will eliminate the need for multiple data entry, provides fast and easy-to-follow feedback, allows interactive on-line data exporting, reduces edits and error correction, and reduces the settlement cycle to four days (or less).

By expanding its web-based selling system to include Guarantor executions for 15-, 20- and 30-year fixed-rate Mortgages today, and Guarantor ARM and Multilender executions on November 22, Freddie Mac will provide users with more crucial real-time, on-line information, including:

Real-time access to contract information – including pool number, contract number, and CUSIP number
Real-time conversion process
Real-time Master Commitment balances based on the contracts already taken out

The result, say lenders who participated in the system's summer pilot, is the elimination of potential data errors that require hours, if not days, of phone calls and faxes with document custodians to rectify. Several lenders who participated in the survey agreed the system was saving time and boosting staff productivity, in many cases by 20 percent or more.

"We can do online certifications, which eliminates a lot of paperwork, and we have more time to actually deliver loans, which allows us to get more loans off our books," said Donna Cooney, asset securitization supervisor at Cendant Mortgage in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey. "We can just click and get anywhere we want to go. This is a huge benefit for us."

Terri Bulver, vice president, loan delivery at US Bank Home Mortgage in Minneapolis, Minnesota says the addition of Guarantor executions through the web-based system significantly increases data quality and exporting flexibility. "The editing capabilities allow us to correct more delivery errors upfront and save more time – and shipping costs when a file is still here," Bulver says. "And time equals cost."

Freddie Mac is a stockholder-owned corporation established by Congress in 1970 to support homeownership and rental housing. Freddie Mac purchases single-family and multifamily residential mortgages and mortgage-related securities, which it finances primarily by issuing mortgage passthrough securities and debt instruments in the capital markets. Over the years, Freddie Mac has made home possible for one in six homebuyers and more than two million renters across America.

###