As Trump Pushes Housing Affordability, His Mortgage Chief Undermines It

[CousinIT]

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/14/business/economy/housing-pulte-fannie-freddie.html

Archive: https://archive.ph/yziUT

Under Bill Pulte, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have pulled away from efforts to help low-income people buy homes.

Since assuming oversight of the nation’s housing finance system, Bill Pulte has promised better access to homeownership, garnering headlines with far-fetched ideas like a 50-year mortgage. His boss, President Trump, has said he would bar Wall Street from buying single family homes and buy $200 billion in mortgage bonds in a bid to ease lending.

But the regulator Mr. Pulte leads, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, has also been making changes that could make it harder to buy homes. It has been repealing rules and guidance, firing teams of people focused on fair lending and climate risk, and reducing its focus on low-income borrowers.

The actions, taken as a whole, will raise costs for people who can least afford to pay, according to advocates for affordable homeownership.

“Every single action seems small, but it’s a brick that’s being removed from a wall, and it starts to crumble who can still get a mortgage,” said Sharon Cornelissen, director of housing for the Consumer Federation of America. “There’s such a stated commitment to tackling our housing crisis, so it’s ironic that a lot of these actions do the opposite.”

[dutch777]

1. And tariffs add to material costs per home as well. Most of Trump's ideas like bond purchase are too little...

...to move the dial. The wall streeters buying homes are less than 2% of the overall national market although a few places like Phoenix and Atlanta they are 20% but that is the exception. Barring them is fine but like the bond buy won't meaningfully change the market. Of course as more people lose their jobs or don't get regular pays raises, fewer will be looking for homes so prices will fall as demand does. Trump would of course claim victory from that even though it means overall economic conditions are weakening. But why pay attention to details like that!? He's in a box and flailing just to look like he is doing something.