Senate confirms Bill Pulte as FHFA director

The U.S. Senate confirmed businessman Bill Pulte as new director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency Thursday afternoon. 

The nomination of the philanthropist and head of investment firm Pulte Capital Partners passed through the chamber by a vote of 56 to 43. 

Three Democrats, Sens. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., and Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich. joined all 53 of their Republican colleagues in confirming Pulte. Alsobrooks and Gallego are also members of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, which sent Pulte's nomination to the floor for a vote last week. 

As the new FHFA head, the grandson of the founder of home-construction company PulteGroup will lead oversight of government-sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as the Federal Home Loan Bank system. The FHFA ensures the government-sponsored enterprises meet government mandates to provide liquidity in the housing market. Pulte steps into the position without prior government experience but has played a part in housing and community reinvestment within Detroit in his other roles. 

The home finance industry previously welcomed the nomination and were quick to congratulate Pulte after his confirmation. 

"Our members stand ready to work with Director Pulte … to increase affordable and sustainable homeownership and rental housing opportunities for all Americans while ensuring a robust secondary mortgage market for single-family and multifamily lenders of all sizes and business models" said Bob Broeksmit, CEO and President of the Mortgage Bankers Association in a statement. 

Voicing his group's approval, U.S. Mortgage Insurers President Seth Appleton said the organization "strongly agrees with Director Pulte's statement in his nomination hearing that taking risk away from the taxpayers and giving it to the private market is a win and USMI and its members look forward to working with Director Pulte and his team at FHFA."

The commercial and multifamily real estate sector also saw good reason to welcome Pulte. "It's a good sign that somebody from this sector of the world is heading up FHFA," said Lisa Pendergast, president and CEO of the CRE Finance Council in an interview, noting his background in financing housing development. 

"What we would love to see for multifamily is greater focus on developing and having these agencies serve sort of the underserved." she said.

The National Association of Home Builders also said it planned to work with Pulte on efforts to create supply. 

"We stand ready to work with Director Pulte to help address the nation's housing affordability crisis by promoting policies that ensure stable and liquid mortgage markets for single-family and multifamily housing," NAHB Chairman Buddy Hughes said in a statement.

The new director's term will last for five years, with Pulte taking over as director from Sandra Thompson, who served under the Biden administration before announcing her retirement prior to President Donald Trump's inauguration in January. 

During his confirmation hearing, Pulte indicated he supported easing government regulations, while agreeing to uphold the mandate of the Federal Home Loan Bank system that requires member institutions to allot 10% of profits toward affordable housing. 

On the topic of releasing the government-sponsored enterprises from conservatorship, Pulte said any such move would need to proceed carefully in order to avoid creating conditions that would lead to a housing crisis. 

The new director did not express outright support or opposition to privatizing the GSEs during his hearing, but in a post on social media platform X immediately following his vote, Pulte wrote, "President Trump won a historic mandate to fix Washington, and that is exactly what we will do with Fannie and Freddie after these last 4 years' housing crisis."

Later, he posted on X that "There are over 15,000 employees between Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac" and added the two government-sponsored agencies have been underperforming.

More pressing on the Trump agenda, though, is likely tax reform. "The whole GSE reform will be a later conversation just because everybody's focused so much on tax," said CREFC managing director David McCarthy, who is also the group's chief lobbyist and head of legislative affairs.

"How he crafts his role, we'll see that soon," McCarthy said.