Will TRUMP Fix the Impending Real Estate Crash?!

Hey everyone. Welcome back to the channel. I'm Joe Homs. And today we're diving into a hot topic that's shaking up the real estate world. President Trump is back in the headlines with bold promises to rectify what some experts are calling a perfect bad storm in the housing market. We're going to break down what that means for real estate investors, homeowners, and anyone trying to make sense of today's crazy market. Whether you agree or disagree, there's no denying that real estate is at a turning point, and who's in office could play a big role in what's happening next.

weakness during what is normally a peak selling season. Prospective homebuyers are holding off, they say, due to some uncertainty related to tariffs and the economy and stubbornly high mortgage rates, even though they are way down from the highs. Rates slightly declining this week, the average 30-year now at 6.76%. Joining me right now is the U.S. Federal Housing— FHFA.

If you never watch this show, uh, Maria Bartiromo has been doing this for such a long time. The reason I watch it is she's always been very credible and she interviews people and gets basically the truth out of them. So let's listen to see what this guy has to say.

A director and the chairman of both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Bill Pulte, is with us this morning. Bill, great to see you.

Good to see you.

Thank you so much for being here.

Of course.

I'm so happy to talk about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with you, but you say under—

Real quick, has nothing to do with it. Well, I guess it does. Uh, Bill Pulte, there is a builder by the last name of Pulte. I wonder if it's related. You know, it possibly could be. I don't know. I would imagine probably so.

President Trump's leadership. Freddie Mac alone financed 224,000 mortgages in just the first quarter.

Tell us more. That's correct. But we have a lot of work to do after the last 4 years. We're going to have to reverse what Biden did. President Trump's the exact person to do it. I think he's going to do it. It's going to take a little bit of time because, frankly, there's so much devastation that's occurred in housing, Maria. You know, inflation just ravaged the housing market. People couldn't afford homes. People couldn't afford rent. And so thank God President Trump was elected, and we're focused every day at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on making sure that we can get mortgages and get the American dream back for all Americans.

So what did you—

so in case you don't know, uh, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are actually publicly traded organizations, and they're kind of semi-private, but their backstop and their— the umbrella is the federal government. So if you go out and get a loan from, let's say, any bank or mortgage broker, whatever, they package it up so that they can sell it to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. So they do basically the paperwork, get a fee, then they send it off to the federal government, and then the federal government buys it and backs that loan up.

You tried to clean out the place.

Well, we got rid of a bunch of different board members, and we basically are exerting the authority that the U.S. Federal Housing has and has always It's always been essentially the board chair, the board itself, the stockholders. And really what we're trying to do is run these things as businesses. What a novel idea, right? Instead of running it like a bureaucrat or an academic or a professor, President Trump hired a businessman and we're running them like businesses. Maria.

I guess this is like a really, really sad thing if you look at it. What the heck was President Biden doing his entire 4 years? It's like he was literally asleep at the switch. And we're finding out more and more, obviously every day, that He wasn't really the one that was running the country. And so what happens is exactly what happens here, is that nobody's paying attention. Nobody really cares. They just move one piece of paper over to the other and, you know, go forward. That's all they care about.

They're safer and sounder than ever before. We've got a great balance sheet. You know, our LTV is around 50% loan-to-value on our— on our—

now I'm going to take him at his word that the LTV is 50%, but like, that's really low. Like, you know, if somebody If somebody asked me, hey Joe, can you loan me $100,000? And okay, how much is the house worth? $200,000. That's 50% LTV. I'd go, yeah, sure, why not? If you don't pay me back, I foreclose on you and I have a $200,000 house. Like, that, that's a no-brainer, you know. So hopefully that's, you know, correct.

Balance sheet, we have $4.4 trillion at Fannie Mae, so things are very good. They will be very stable. We're very careful. But at the same time, we're making sure that these are assets that are used for the benefit of the American people.

So how does it work? Because these are also publicly traded stocks. Explain to investors how the U.S. government is overseeing this and yet they still trade publicly.

Yeah, so the, so the companies basically went into essentially bankruptcy in 2008, as everybody knows, and they went into conservatorship. And so I served through President Trump as the regulator as well as the conservator. And so you have these 2 different hats. It's quite unique what Congress has created in this position. But my main focus, Maria, is on creating value and helping Trump— helping President Trump restore the American dream for everyone. President Trump can do it alone. But what we're trying to do at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is really add support, especially on the financing and mortgage side. And I feel very confident President Trump's going to turn around the housing market. But the last 4 years in this housing market have been devastating for Americans.

What did Biden do that was so devastating?

Well, the big thing is inflation. I mean, you look at inflation, you look at drywall, you look at lumber. You know, President Trump had inflation under control. But when you have inflation ravaging the country, you have a supply crisis in housing that you have. It's just like a perfect bad storm. And President Trump's going to rectify it, in my opinion.

Well, he's already reined it in. I mean, look where oil prices are, look at rates. But what is it going to take to get mortgage rates down?

Well, I think President Trump's on that path. You know, he is— there's nobody who knows interest rates better than him. There's nobody who knows how to do this better than him. He's gotten oil prices down, gotten grocery prices down, egg prices down. I think that will flow through to mortgage rates.

Here's a quote from a TD Cowen report this morning: We believe the policy environment since the inauguration has improved considerably for banks, which should clear the way for them to return more capital to shareholders and get more aggressive on M&A. The deregulatory program that President Trump has instituted has not even become the topic of conversation. Everyone is focused on tariffs. Tell us about deregulation and what happens to these guys, Freddie Mac.

Before we go into that, I want to hear your comments about what happens if the Fed chair does start to lower interest rates and where we are now with housing prices. Do you see the housing prices going down or going up if more people Supply and demand. If more people are looking to buy houses, then I would think that the pricing would stay the same or even go up. So that the interest rates are high right now, that is putting a little bit of pressure on sellers to start lowering their prices that they're looking for on their homes. But I want to hear your comments.

Freddie and Fannie.

Well, I think he's going to do great on tariffs, to be frank. But on the regulatory side, we've cut— I think I've done over through President Trump over 50 orders. Executive orders at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, getting rid of these nonsense Biden programs. I mean, the bureaucracy that was there—they had never even seen an FHFA director at some of these companies, from what I've been told. I mean, that's crazy. I mean, these are these are trillions and trillions of dollars worth of assets, and so we're going in there and doing it. And I think that frankly, you've yet to see what's best to come from President Trump.

And and already, you hadn't seen an FHFA director. In the field, which is honestly, it's not, not unusual, not unusual at all, unfortunately.

Eddie, the analyst at Cowen, says change is occurring far faster than we have seen at any point in our 35 years of following financial policy. Now, as part of that policy, are you going to actually spin these out to the public? Or you still want to have this conservatorship as government predominant?

We'll see. This will be up to President Trump ultimately, but President Trump is the best dealmaker that the country and the world's ever seen. So if there's one person who could do it, it's him. Ultimately, it'll be up to him. What my job is, is to make sure that we have operational efficiency, that we keep our options open. Frankly, we had 16,000 people— can you believe this— at the 2 companies. Nobody was working in the offices. They were making popcorn and burgers and hot dogs for people that weren't even showing up every day. So I ordered them all back to work, and under President Trump's leadership, these These are going to be great American icons once again.

Wow, you just came in and you started throwing the gauntlet down at Fannie and Freddie.

President Trump makes it easy.

Good for you.

He makes it easy.

They weren't showing up to work, but they were still making food for the people like they were showing up to work. What were they doing, feeding it to the homeless or what? I have no idea what was going on there. The other thing I liked, what he talked about, was executive orders, and I'm so happy that Trump Literally calls the media into the White House, into the Oval Office, and signs executive orders in front of everybody. How much transparency do you need other than that? It's like, hey, this is what I'm signing. You know, if you want to make a comment on it afterwards, that's fine. But this is what I'm signing. It's not a backdoor deal. You know, it's not a room like I used to hear, room full of old white men smoking cigars. He's doing it right in front of the public. Everybody knows what he's doing. He's not hiding anything.

Also launched a public tip line to combat mortgage fraud, encouraging people to report any fraudulent activities. What's the fraud going on there?

We have significant mortgage fraud in this country. It doesn't matter who you are. Nobody is above the law. If you are committing mortgage fraud, you are a risk to the system, and we are going to take the appropriate Now, speaking of this, you actually referred Letitia James for criminal activity to the Department of Justice.

Tell me about that.

Well, the letter speaks for itself. I don't want to comment on any specific case, but I will say that, you know, people claiming that they live in certain states that they don't live in, people claiming other representations that are maybe not necessarily true, these are very big concerns to the mortgage market. It doesn't matter whether you're a, you know, a welder, a plumber, a politician, an attorney. If you commit mortgage fraud, you are a risk to the system. And if we see it, we're going to have to say something. And I encourage everybody, if they see mortgage fraud, say something. We will take the appropriate action.

Well, do you think that the DOJ is going to take that recommendation? You referred her for criminal activity, Letecia James.

Well, I would refer you to the DOJ and again, the The letter speaks for itself. I would just say, as I said, that, you know, occupancy fraud is a huge issue in the country where people are basically getting loans based on— and certain down payments and certain interest rates based on saying that they live in one area and not another, uh, as well as saying that they should qualify for loans that maybe they shouldn't have. So, uh, you know, just generally speaking, my thought is that mortgage fraud is rampant and we are doing everything we can. We've made a number of criminal referrals, not just the one that you mentioned, uh, and And we will continue to prosecute, uh, you know, within the confines of our statutory capability.

Bill, this is very—

What he's talking about, uh, that politician, and I know I'm not even going to speak her name, but it's not unusual. I mean, there's people out there that basically say, yeah, I want to get this loan, and at the end of the day, you're going to sign at the bottom your name, and there's wording at the bottom that says, you know, everything that you put down in this application is honest and truthful and under federal offenses and perjury and all that sort of stuff. If it's not, then we're going to come after you. You know, not that there is an FHFA policeman at every place that's doing loans, but there's always that possibility that somebody's going to find out. So yeah, definitely, you know, follow the law. In her case, I believe she had put down that her father was her husband, and they were trying to get a loan together. And on top of that, she did not even live in the state that she was trying to get a loan in. And the other thing she did was for a property that she did live in the state, she claimed it was a 4-unit building when it was actually 5. And the difference is anything under 4 units, you have the best interest rates out there possible, so single-family rates and stuff, even though it's multifamily. They don't consider it a commercial deal until it goes 5 and above. And obviously we'll see during the investigation, uh, that's what she was trying to do. She was trying to get favorable rates, which by the way, that's what she charged the president with. But, uh, you know, that's, that's a whole different story. So anyway, thank you for showing up. I appreciate it. Uh, check us out. And we'll be back with another video next time. If you got value from this video, hit that like button. Subscribe for more real estate breakdowns and market reactions. Drop a comment below. Do you think this is a perfect bad storm, and can it be fixed? Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.