Our Work
Learn about the products and services offered through our Multifamily branch
For over 30 years, Fannie Mae Multifamily has served the secondary mortgage market as a reliable source of mortgage capital in every market, every day. We provide liquidity, stability, and affordability to the multifamily market in a disciplined fashion while maintaining our credit standards and minimizing losses.
Our multifamily business relies on its Delegated Underwriting and Servicing (DUS®) program to finance quality, sustainable, and affordable rental housing. It is executed primarily through its partnership with the DUS Lender network of 24 financial institutions and independent mortgage lenders. DUS leverages private capital, aligns interests through risk-sharing, and supports life-of-loan-servicing. The strength of the DUS model is shared risk. Our flagship DUS platform is successful because it relies on “skin in the game” — lenders retain some of the underlying credit risk of the loans they sell to Fannie Mae, so both parties have a stake in each loan’s performance.
"Long before we built a hundred million rentals together, we built a better multifamily model. DUS."
DUS lenders adhere to rigorous credit and underwriting standards and submit to Fannie Mae’s ongoing credit review and monitoring. They underwrite, close, deliver, and service loans on Fannie Mae multifamily properties and typically retain one-third of the risk on every loan.
DUS serves a wide spectrum of the multifamily market, including conventional, rent-restricted, cooperatives, seniors, student housing, and manufactured housing communities. We also finance all loan sizes, from a $1 million single-asset loan to a $1 billion structured transaction facility.
The majority of our DUS acquisitions are supported with private capital: 98% of every dollar in liquidity that Fannie Mae delivers to the multifamily market is supported by private capital through loss-sharing arrangements with our DUS lenders and/or the purchase of MBS by private investors.
Since 1988, Fannie Mae and its lender network have provided more than $750 billion in liquidity to the mortgage market to finance more than 11.5 million units of multifamily housing. In 2021, nearly 95% of those units affordable to families earning at or below 120% of the area median income, providing support for both affordable and workforce housing.
The Loan We All Own shares the risk — its lenders, originators, owners, investors, and Fannie Mae, all invested in each other. The Loan We All Own can weather any storm; it's a model for all seasons and all markets — past, present, and future.