The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board has published two scathing criticisms of the housing policies espoused by President Donald Trump and Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte.
In the editorial “How to Increase Mortgage Defaults,” the Journal’s editors faulted Pulte’s announcement that the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) will now be able to use VantageScore’s credit scoring model.
“The big risk is that mortgage lenders will rely on VantageScore’s ratings to qualify marginal borrowers and make riskier loans,” the Journal’s editors wrote. “The left-leaning Urban Institute last year found that VantageScore’s scores on average were higher—that is, better—than FICO’s. Mortgage lenders have seen their business shrink as interest rates have risen and home sales have slowed.”
The editorial also cited rising mortgage delinquencies along with a warning from VantageScore that “the housing sector may be demonstrating early signs of borrower financial stress.”
“With home prices falling in some previously hot markets, more recent borrowers are finding themselves underwater,” the editorial continued. “Now is not the time for the Administration to ease lending standards and increase risks for taxpayers who stand behind some $7.7 trillion mortgages backed by Fannie and Freddie. Caveat, Mr. Trump.”
The editors also faulted the president’s plan to re-privatize the GSEs in “Return of the Housing Monsters,” predicting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac “will invariably revert to their reckless ways” if Trump’s plans go into effect. It also warned that “hedge funds that own common shares in Fan and Fred are pressuring the Trump Administration to release them” and singled out one hedge fund executive in particular for pushing this effort.
“Bill Ackman, whose Pershing Square Capital manages funds that own shares in Fannie and Freddie, has pitched a plan that involves the government taking the two firms public, canceling its preferred shares, and easing their capital requirements,” the editors warned. “This would be a $355 billion gift to current shareholders and increase the risk of a future bailout.”
Although the Trump administration has yet to put forth a specific plan on GSE reform, the Journal’s editors cautioned against a scenario that would “unchain the monsters in a way that would give the government and private investors a mutual incentive to expand risk at taxpayer expense. Americans have seen this horror movie before, and it didn’t end well.”
The Wall Street Journal is owned by News Corp (NASDAQ: NWSA) through its subsidiary Dow Jones & Company.












This picture doesn’t even look like tRump! Is this his body double??
More fake news and fake people!!!
Pulte and company are all about selling as many houses as quickly possible and letting the public pick up the bill when the mess hits the fan.
I agree. That Trump image looks fake.
He looks thin, much younger, healthy and even a bit nice.
It can’t possibly be Trump!
More fake news from the communists now in charge at the WSJ.