The definitions below are used to define terms for purposes of this part:

Align or alignment means to cause to be sufficiently similar, or have sufficient similarity, as to produce a conditional prepayment rate (CPR) divergence of less than 2 percentage points in the three-month CPR for a cohort, and less than 5 percentage points in the three-month CPR for a the fastest paying quartile of a cohort (or less than the prevailing percentage thresholds for alignment set by FHFA, per § 1248.5(c)).

Cohort means all TBA-eligible securities with the same coupon, maturity, and loan-origination year where the combined unpaid principal balance of such securities issued by both Enterprises exceeds $10 billion.

Conditional Prepayment Rate or CPR, also known as the constant prepayment rate, means the rate at which investors receive outstanding principal in advance of scheduled principal payments. This includes receipts of principal that result from borrower prepayments and for any other reason. The CPR is expressed as a compound annual rate.

Covered Programs, Policies, or Practices means management decisions or actions that have reasonably foreseeable effects on cash flows to TBA-eligible MBS investors (e.g., effects that result from prepayment rates and the circumstances under which mortgage loans are removed from MBS). These generally include management decisions or actions about: Single-family guarantee fees; loan level price adjustments and delivery fee portions of single-family guarantee fees; the spread between the note rate on the mortgage and the pass-through coupon on the TBA-eligible MBS; eligibility standards for sellers and servicers; financial and operational standards for private mortgage insurers; requirements related to the servicing of distressed loans that collateralize TBA-eligible securities; streamlined modification and refinance programs; removal of mortgage loans from securities; servicer compensation; proposals that could materially change the credit risk profile of the single-family mortgages securitized by an Enterprise; selling guide requirements for documenting creditworthiness, ability to repay, and adherence to collateral standards; refinances of HARP-eligible loans; contract provisions under which certain sellers commit to sell to an Enterprise a minimum share of the mortgage loans they originate that are eligible for sale to the Enterprises; loan modification offerings; loss mitigation practices during disasters; alternatives to repurchase for representation and warranty violations; and other actions.

Fastest paying quartile of a cohort means the quartile of a cohort that has the fastest prepayment speeds as measured by the three-month CPR. The quartiles shall be determined by ranking outstanding TBA-eligible securities with the same coupon, maturity, and loan-origination year by the three-month CPR, excluding specified pools, and dividing each cohort into four parts such that the total unpaid principal balance of the pools included in each part is equal.

Material misalignment means divergence of at least 3 percentage points in the three-month CPR for a cohort or at least 8 percentage points in the three-month CPR for a fastest paying quartile of a cohort, or a prolonged misalignment (as determined by FHFA), or divergence greater than either of the corresponding prevailing percentage thresholds set by FHFA, per § 1248.5(c).

Misalign or misalignment means to diverge by, or a divergence of, 2 percentage points or more, in the three-month CPR for a cohort or 5 percentage points or more, in the three-month CPR for a fastest paying quartile of a cohort (or more than either of the corresponding prevailing percentage thresholds set by FHFA, per § 1248.5(c)).

Mortgage-backed security or MBS means securities collateralized by a pool or pools of single-family mortgages.

Specified pools means pools of mortgages backing TBA-eligible MBS that have a maximum loan size of $200,000, a minimum loan-to-value ratio at the time of loan origination of 80 percent, or a maximum FICO score of 700, or where all mortgages in the pool finance investor-owned properties or properties in the states of New York or Texas or the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

Supers means single-class re-securitizations of UMBS.

Three-month conditional prepayment rate (CPR3) means the annualized measure of prepayments for a three month interval calculated as follows:

To-Be-Announced Eligible Mortgage-Backed Security (TBA-Eligible MBS) means Enterprise MBS (including Freddie Mac Participation Certificates, Giants, MBS, UMBS, and Supers; and Fannie Mae MBS, Megas, UMBS, and Supers) that meet criteria such that the market considers them sufficiently fungible to be forward traded in the TBA market.

Uniform Mortgage Backed Security or UMBS means a single-class MBS backed by fixed-rate mortgage loans on one-to-four unit (single-family) properties issued by either Enterprise which has the same characteristics (such as payment delay, pooling prefixes, and minimum pool submission amounts) regardless of which Enterprise is the issuer.