A Phil Hall Op-Ed: Three months ago, Bill Pulte took to X to cheer the decline of the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage below the 6% level for the first time in four years.
“President Trump, single-handedly, lowered mortgage rates. He’s the best,” declared Pulte on his personal X account – he never uses the government-issued account tied to his job as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). In a separate X post, Pulte gushed, “The 30 Year Mortgage Rate going BELOW 6%, and now being in the 5%’s, is DIRECTLY because of President Trump’s genius move to BUY $200 Billion in Mortgage Bonds and his CRUSHING of inflation. NO OTHER PRESIDENT would have been able to reverse Joe Biden’s 8% Mortgage Rate!”
Last week, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose to a nine-month high. And how did Pulte react to this unfortunate bit of news? Well, he didn’t say a peep.
Indeed, Pulte has said next to nothing during this month regarding his responsibilities or the state of the housing market. There have been zero updates this month on two major projects announced for his agency – the planned initial public offerings of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (which appears to have been indefinitely placed on the proverbial back burner) plus Pulte’s role in encouraging builders to create 2 million new homes (which he last mentioned in January).
So, what exactly has Pulte been up to this month? Well, there was a bizarre telephone interview with Steve Bannon’s podcast where he didn’t seem to realize that the Trump administration has been in office since January 2025.
“It’s almost criminal what’s going on in this country where people can’t afford a home anymore,” he told Bannon, utterly oblivious that home prices have been rising since President Trump came back to the White House.
He also appeared to be ignorant on the contents of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, claiming falsely that “for the first time ever, we’re getting rid of these corporations that go in and gobble up these homes, and they make it impossible for people to live in.” Uh, where in the legislation does that happen?
If this month is any indication, it appears Pulte spent too much of his time retweeting President Trump’s social media posts on issues that have nothing to do with housing. Thus, we have the FHFA director parroting the president on making Venezuela the 51st American state, destroying Iranian military craft, imagining former Presidents Obama and Biden and Rep. Nancy Pelosi swimming in garbage, and depicting Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker as a disgusting glutton.
Pulte also shared videos of Trump at his golf courses and Agricultural Secretary Brooke Rollins talking about protecting ranchers and farmers.
But there hasn’t been a single X post by Pulte regarding his job, his duties and his responsibility to the housing market. Even more amazing, he made no mention of his interview from earlier this month where he predicted Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook would be indicted based on his accusations that she committed mortgage fraud.
If Pulte’s X account is a portal to his professional life, one has to ask an obvious question: What does this guy do all day? When Trump nominated him to run the FHFA, a lot of people were excited over the prospect of having a financial professional in charge of that agency. At this point in time, I’ve seen no evidence of any action by Pulte that could be charitably mistaken for professional behavior.
The Trump administration has already seen the departures of Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for failing to do their jobs correctly. Maybe the administration needs to clean house a little further by cleaning out their housing regulatory and bringing in someone who understands the requirements of the position and is capable of generating measurable results.
Phil Hall is editor of Weekly Real Estate News. He can be reached at [email protected].
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