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May 22, 2025 - Triggered - Donald Trump Jr
46:59
House Rules: The Future of Fannie & Freddie, Plus Much More with Bill Pulte | TRIGGERED Ep.243
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Hey guys, and welcome to another huge episode of Triggered.
Today, we have director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Bill Pulte, who is off to a great start in supporting homeowners and homebuyers, great, hardworking, middle-class Americans so they have the ability to live their American dream.
And he's also rooting out the fraud in the mortgage industry.
The FHFA is one of those agencies you don't hear.
But it actually has a huge role to play in delivering the America First agenda.
It's trillions of dollars.
Here's Director Pulte recently discussing this mission to restore integrity to the agency and to enforce the rule of law.
Under President Trump's leadership, 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.
You 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 steps within our statutory capability.
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 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 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, Letitia James.
Well, I would refer you to the DOJ, and again, 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 certain down payments and certain interest rates based on saying that they live in one area and not another, as well as saying that they should qualify for loans that maybe they shouldn't have.
So, 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, and we will continue to prosecute.
You know, within the confines of our statutory capability.
Bill, this is a very important and informative interview.
We appreciate it.
You got it.
Thank you so much.
Bill Pulte joining us this morning.
So we'll hear all about this with much more with Director Pulte in a few moments.
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Well, guys, joining me now.
The director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Bill Pulte.
Bill, good to have you here, buddy.
Good to see you, Don.
Always good to see you.
Well, thank you again, director.
You've been off to a great start to use your position to really enact change and root out fraud and abuse, which is something that's just been so rampant in so many of these agencies.
But when you talk about your agency, I mean, that's literally trillions of dollars.
Could you first just talk about the scope and parameters of your job?
Because I don't think people understand the magnitude of it.
I mean, you make a major bank seem like a little itty-bitty baby bank.
And what you're really trying to accomplish over there.
Yeah, it's funny.
We were just talking actually in the other room about $300 billion, if you can imagine it.
And I said, wow, that's a lot of money.
And they're like, well, that's, you know.
More than the size of a bank.
But yes, we oversee about $7.8 trillion, if you can believe that here, in form of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are the two mortgage giants.
And so I oversee federal housing, which oversees those two entities.
And then we have about another trillion dollars at a bank called the Federal Home Loan Banks.
And I'm very grateful to you, very grateful to the president.
And, you know, look, we're doing a phenomenal job, and it's thankfully due to the president.
The president empowers us to get done what needs to get done.
Also, Elon Musk, they give us a lot of air support, as you know, to enact the change, and we're taking costs out.
And, Don, we've saved hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars just in a short seven weeks being here.
Yeah, I know you said when you first basically showed up, I saw something go pretty viral online where you did one of these videos, you know, walking through buildings full of empty offices.
And when you're imagining seven-plus trillion dollars, I imagine there should be a pretty significant workforce.
16,000 people.
Yeah, how many?
16,000 people.
Yeah, that's a lot.
But I guess hardly anyone was actually in the office working.
I mean, you pay for the real estate, you manage the real estate, you have to upkeep the real estate, and no one's even there.
What shocked you most about sort of the state of the agency when you started seven weeks ago?
Yeah, I would say, Don, that people are MIA.
16,000 people are working from home.
And look, we can't lower what has happened in the last four years with this Biden inflation if we have people working from home and not writing mortgages every day.
You know, inflation has gotten out of control.
Home prices have skyrocketed.
People can't afford the American dream compared to the president's first term.
And so we need a lower cost.
Well, how the hell can we do that when people are working from home?
So we got everybody back to work and people love it, Don.
I mean, the...
The energy is electric.
When I first showed up, people were like, well, what's going to happen?
These days, people are high-fiving me in the hallway, asking for selfies.
I mean, we're in a mortgage company here.
We're not a Trump or something.
We're just mortgage guys.
But that's the energy that is being brought to these entities.
And frankly, until we showed up, nobody really cared about these entities, frankly, in my opinion.
So, I mean, you talk about you're not a Trump or anything, but you're a Pulte.
And for those who don't know, I mean, Pulte Homes, one of the largest home builders in America.
Perhaps there was a time where you guys may have been the largest.
Yeah, we were number one for a long time.
When our family ran it, we were number one.
So, I mean, so you actually come from a family of people who understands these things.
It's like I talk about my father and his ability to have success.
It's because...
He's actually done these things in the real world.
He's actually signed the front of a paycheck, not just the back.
He's had people's livelihoods and their well-being and their families dependent on their success each and every day.
And that's something that's so lacking in government.
Talk a little bit about just your family's background, because I think it's so important that a guy that actually understands not just the mortgage industry, but the housing industry, selling to regular people around the world for generations.
It's probably important to have any $7 trillion agency that does exactly that.
Exactly.
And, you know, our family founded Pulte Homes, as you had mentioned, which went on to be a Fortune 500 home builder, the largest home builder in the country.
But I made my money, actually, interestingly, in air conditioning, of all things, buying, growing, and selling air conditioning companies.
And so we're taking that same business-type approach to these companies.
And, Don, one of the things that was interesting was that these companies could get around the president's executive orders.
Because they're technically in conservatorship, which is almost like some people call it like a bankruptcy trustee almost.
And so what we did was we came in and executed the president's vision, even though they're in conservatorship and are running these things like businesses.
The president hired a businessman and we're going to run these things like businesses for the benefit of the American taxpayer.
And Don, these were once great American icons in the 60s, 70s, 80s.
One of them was founded in the 1930s by FDR.
We're going to make these great American icons once again.
Talk a little bit more in detail about the conservatorship standpoint, because it does seem like so much of this show is focused on the government intentionally or figuring out ways to get around the whole, hey, you report to the president, but no, no, no, you report to the unelected bureaucrats who are probably all enriching themselves along the way and have side deals with their buddies or whatever it may be in government.
You know, again, $7 trillion, you know, the lending arm of the U.S. government.
I mean, it feels like it should be in control of the president or who the people elect to fix the problems that are very real in the housing industry.
I think that's probably a big part of why they elected Trump, because he gets it like your family.
Talk a little bit about that, because, again, so much of what we see these days seems to be the end run to avoid any real accountability to report to an elected official and just have the bureaucrats running the show.
Well, I gladly serve the president.
And people don't, though, however.
I mean, I went into this entity, one of the top people, I don't want to say who it was, Don, but top people.
Wouldn't shake my hand, I think, in many ways because the person didn't like the president.
That was just my opinion and reading of it.
But it's crazy.
I mean, the people, what they've gotten away with in these companies is over with.
We are removing people who are bad news.
We're removing people who are committing fraud.
We've referred.
Many people in the Department of Justice, Don, we found foreign nationals from North Korea and China inside of these companies.
So we've got our hands full.
We're cleaning it up.
But like you said, we have $7.8 trillion.
This is the future of our kids and our grandkids.
And frankly, we've got to figure it out.
We've got $35 trillion in debt.
We had massive Biden inflation.
We've got a great president now, and we need to get the mortgage market there, too.
So I'm delighted to be doing it.
I left my day job for this, and there's nobody I'd rather serve than the president.
So you mentioned the waste, the fraud, the abuse, China being in there, taking advantage of these things at the expense, probably, of the American taxpayer.
How much of that was just...
Known but overlooked because either people were in on it or it was part of the swamp or whatever it may be.
I know you've done a real deep dive into all of these things to actually discover these things.
And there's no reason that the agency has to spend as much as it has or employ as many as it has when so much of this stuff seems to be literally only there for the benefit of either the deep state, the Democrat Party apparatus, or the swamp in general.
Well, Don, you're exactly right.
I was just in this room like 10 minutes ago, and the gentleman was telling me that he found another $100 million, okay, of waste.
I mean, this is literally what my days have become like.
You know, $100 million used to be a big number for me.
Still is, you know, in terms of net worth.
But I'm sitting here, and this guy's telling me this.
And then, so you normalize all these savings, Don.
Then you normalize the word fraud.
I hear fraud like a bunch.
Now, it's not systemic, so the mortgage market is safe.
The mortgage market will be safer under President Trump.
We're hearing fraud too much, and people are way too comfortable throwing this word fraud out.
So I've told people when we hear the word fraud, alarm bells need to go off in their head, and we need to do something about it.
And Don, as I said, we fired over 100 people who are facilitating fraud or involved in fraud in these companies.
We've referred people to the DOJ for mortgage fraud, and we're going to root it out.
It doesn't matter whether you're a politician, whether you're a lawyer, whether you're famous.
If you commit mortgage fraud, we're going to come after you.
Well, we'll talk about some of the politicians shortly, because it seems like they're certainly doing that.
But can you talk about, you know, perhaps you having the real opportunity to protect the homeowner?
What does this mean to the homeowner?
People who are going either through Fannie Mae, homebuyers, you know, again, by rooting out the fraud, restoring integrity to the industry, and actually holding those who abuse that power accountable.
Just how much mortgage fraud is really out there?
Well, think about it.
You had professors and academics and politicians in this job beforehand.
This president, for the first time ever, hired a businessman to go in there and run these things.
And my focus is making sure that the market is safe and sound, but that we're lowering costs.
Because as you know, Don, and you travel the country, people can't afford a home.
People can't afford their rent.
They can't afford until President Trump got in their groceries.
And so we've got a lot of work to reverse everything that's gone on these last four years.
And so to answer your question for the homeowner, we want to get the title insurance costs, the closing costs, the mortgage insurance costs.
We want to get all of these things down.
And so we need to restore housing in this country.
The American dream is what America was built on.
In the last four years, we haven't had it, and I'm very confident that your dad and our president is going to get it turned around.
Yeah, I mean, you mentioned whether it's title insurance or closing costs or all of these things.
Yeah, they are ridiculously high.
I mean, in real estate transactions, I mean, sometimes they can be points.
Points in, points out, points this.
Do any of these things actually do anything?
And what kind of, you know, if you're talking about points in and out, how much do you think you can actually cut that?
Because that's a really big deal.
You know, you buy a half a million dollar home, you know, a point is not an insignificant amount of money.
I mean, that's a lot.
It's just $5,000 just to get into.
That may be a little higher than the median home price, but $350,000, $400,000 probably.
You could probably tell me exactly.
It's a lot to the average person.
It compounds.
So you have these costs, and then you go and you borrow money to pay for these costs, and then you have to pay for it every month when you go to pay your mortgage.
So it kind of spirals out of control.
And to your point, you have the 10-year note, you have the 30-year note, but then on top of it, you have these closing costs, and they can be significant.
And also what can be significant are the down payments.
You know, it's a whole deal.
We're looking at everything, Don.
And I just, I can't say how grateful I am for the president's genius in terms of looking at everything.
And same with Elon's.
You know, they'll look at anything.
And if it's in the right, if it's in the interest of the American people, we are looking at it.
From title insurance to mortgage insurance to mortgages to how we're building homes to how we're financing homes to manufactured homes.
We are doing it.
We are on it.
Yeah, so, you know, for everyone else who isn't sort of, you know, again, I spent most of my career as a real estate guy.
I know you did, too.
You know, back in my business school days at Warden, we spent a lot of time with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac.
Can you explain to the American people what is it exactly that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac actually do?
And how do you think that role should change or evolve?
You know, what happened in 2008 and, you know, the sort of the real estate collapse?
And what's the effect of that today?
Because it does seem, when you're talking about the money that you're talking about, you know, if you're going to save points on something, I want to save points on trillions of dollars, not, you know, I want to save points across the board no matter where it is.
But, I mean, that's a major agency.
You know, what's the effect of that today?
Well, the good news is I think we have a president who understands how much money is in this agency and how much money are in these companies.
I don't think that, certainly the last president, but I don't think a lot of presidents fully understood it.
It's just when there was a crisis.
One of the things I've observed about this president is that there's hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars involved.
Now, Franklin Delano Roosevelt set out this path for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac back in the 1930s, to answer your question.
And what he decided to do is basically with the GI Bill and otherwise, over the decades, was be able to get people liquidity.
Be able to get people, which is a fancy word for money, get people money to be able to buy mortgages.
What happened was, over the years, you know, classic swamp behavior, right?
If you work for a Democrat or you work for some crooked politician, you could get put on Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac's roles.
It blew up in 08. These guys, they were committing fraud, from what I understand, and they were doing a lot of other bad things, okay?
So this thing blew up, and it wasn't supposed to be in conservatorship forever.
It shouldn't be in conservatorship forever.
However, what we're focused now is trying to get it back more towards its original roots, providing liquidity, stability, and affordability.
And they veered away from all this with all this DEI stuff, lending people money, And we're going to keep going.
And as I said, we're doing a full-scale review of...
Everything.
Everything is on the table.
And the one determining factor is what is in the best interest of the American people.
So, you know, the mortgage industry is actually really tied to American safety, security, prosperity, really the American dream.
And especially where you're at, I mean, that is for, you know, middle class, hardworking, blue collar families.
You know, and I think that's such a big part of why my father's doing that, right?
It's probably far less for the elite and all of this.
How did it get off track under Obama and Biden?
There was their so-called fair housing rules, but it was really just an arm of the equity agenda.
What's the roadmap to fixing all of that madness?
Well, the roadmap, and you know this well, is, you know, my grandfather used to tell me the fish rots from the head.
And leadership starts at the top.
And we have a president who actually gives a damn about these things.
I mean, I'm here at Fannie Mae in New York today, if you can believe that.
That's one of our satellite offices.
I'm actually in these buildings.
They've never seen an FHFA director, U.S. federal housing director, in these buildings.
So it starts with leadership.
We've got to be here.
We've got to be in the game.
And we've got to count.
And I see this everywhere across the cabinet.
I'm not...
Technically in the cabinet, but I see it across all these cabinet members.
Everybody is in the game.
We are working our ass off and we're excited about doing it.
And I just couldn't be more excited about it.
I'm telling you, the feeling is electric in these mortgage companies.
I mean, these things are not sexy, but they're becoming like places people want to work at.
And that's what we want.
And frankly, I think these things are worth billions and billions, maybe eventually trillions of dollars.
I mean, that's a big deal.
I mean, when you're dealing with someone who's actually passionate about doing that, actually passionate about helping Americans, that's a much bigger deal than a bureaucrat that shows up there.
They're pushing paper across the desk.
We'll deal with it later.
So, you know, I think that's really important.
In places like California, though, I'd ask, you know, where homelessness is out of control, where prices are insane.
What role can your agency play in that?
Can you do more to hold the states themselves accountable to make sure that, again, these kind of benefits are actually available to the people they're intended to benefit?
It's a very good question.
I actually have an important meeting tomorrow on some of this stuff.
Eventually, it's an administration-wide decision in terms of how do we make sure that when we're giving all this money...
That we are not enabling some of these municipalities, both from a federal financing standpoint, and some of that would fall under the jurisdiction of HUD, not us.
But in the case of mortgages, I think you're dead on in terms of it needs to be looked at.
It needs to be looked at very well.
But we'll see what happens.
You know, again, we've only been on the job seven weeks, so we haven't gotten to that.
But I would just encourage...
These municipalities don't engage in nonsense, whether that's DEI stuff, whether that's being racist and discriminating based on race, or whether it's, frankly, mortgage fraud.
Because we see a lot of people thinking, I don't know if you saw this, but the Maryland prosecutor, Baltimore prosecutor, was charged with mortgage fraud.
And she actually, as I understood it, got convicted of...
Some level of fraud and ended up having to do some work.
She had to stay at home in terms of being in prison.
So my point being is just like, the stuff needs to stop.
The mortgage fraud needs to stop.
The politicians with the fraud needs to stop.
And we need municipalities who are going to work with us to get more units built and get people back in homes in this country.
So how do you actually track sort of the...
The funds, right?
How do you track and audit all of this?
I mean, obviously, you know, it's trillions of dollars.
How do you conduct that oversight and get those mechanisms in place to make sure that it's done right and that, you know, as little as possible, you know, sort of slips by the wayside?
Well, first things first is we got to track it exactly like you're talking about.
It wasn't tracked from my perspective with the FHFA director.
Don, I showed up and I said to the team, I said, I want to see how much mortgage issuance we're doing every day.
Now, Don, we're doing like $750 million a day.
Two and a half billion dollars of mortgage issuance a day.
Think about that.
Those are crazy numbers.
Two and a half billion of mortgage issuance a day.
In some days, yes, correct.
Across all of our pipelines.
So my point being is, because it's a long story, but Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac actually own a company called Common Securitization Platform, which is this modern technology platform.
It's actually a very well-run business.
It's very valuable.
And we have all the pipes where all the mortgages run across our platform.
So I said to them, I said, I'm the director.
I said, I'm the conservator and the regulator.
I think I should be seeing, I think the director should know what the volume is.
And they looked at me like, you know.
I've never seen this before.
So, you know, but think about it like Ukraine, right?
Like, let's say we gave, I don't know, 200 billion to Ukraine or something like that.
Well, we're doing, you know, that in like 200 days at this agency and like nobody's watching it in my view.
So anyway, you know, I could get going on it, but we just got to start tracking it.
Then we're going to audit the right parts.
We're going to audit places where people don't want us to look.
So stay tuned.
We know we've only been in this for like seven weeks.
So, you know, Bill, obviously, you know, politics is cyclical and everything.
How do you make sure that whatever implementations you put in there actually last?
Because I think once the American people, a big part of all of this was the transparency, once American people see exactly what's going on in these places, it's a lot harder for them to say, hey, you know, there's a new president, let's just revert back to the old ways.
How do you codify some of this stuff so it stays in place after your tenure?
Oh, it's a great question.
It's like a lot of the other Trump policies.
How do we make sure that it stays intact, right?
Because you get these politicians like Biden, they came in, and in many ways, I think that they did some illegal stuff in terms of giving aid to people based on race or areas where they were only of a certain race.
So it's a great concern, Don.
I don't have an easy answer for you.
I would just say all I'm trying to do is find out where these illegalities are going on, where this mortgage fraud is going on.
Communicate it to the public, and hopefully they'll, you know, see what was really going on here.
You know, you saw Doge and USAID and stuff like that.
Our agency, because we oversee 7.8 trillion, you know, we just got to keep communicating with people so people can know how bad it was.
Never go back there.
I don't know.
I mean, do you have another idea?
I'd like to codify these things into law with Congress, or at least, you know, make it so transparent that if it ever slips back, people have a way of seeing it.
So they can say, no, no, no, no.
Enough is enough.
Because those are always the games.
It's like, oh, we're doing these things for all the right reasons and the media will back you.
And then you see all the right reasons.
You're like, wait, those aren't the right reasons.
Maybe they should be posting some of these numbers out there that I have access to as director, right?
And getting transparency out there.
So I have a lot of different ideas.
Give me a little bit more time on the job and we'll try to figure it out.
But yes, I agree.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
If we just get these numbers out there, a lot of people will audit these numbers and we won't have all this crime and grift that's going on in the mortgage market.
So you mentioned HUD earlier, housing and urban development.
That's going to be sort of, you know, demographically, you know, the lowest income tier in that.
You know, how big is that?
And then, you know, what are the different roles?
And how do they overlap so you can work together?
Because, again, I think we've got to create affordable housing or ability for people to get housing across all spectrums.
Obviously, your focus is probably going to be more middle class just because of the nature of where you're lending.
But I imagine that's trillions as well.
And there could probably be a lot of synergies to make this affordable for everyone.
Yeah, so interestingly, HUD is about a $74 billion agency.
So in terms of the numbers that we're talking about, you know, its annual budget is $74 billion.
They do have about a trillion at Ginnie Mae and FHA, which is essentially like government subsidized, government guaranteed version of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
So think about it in terms of, you know, we've got about $8 trillion.
They have about a trillion.
But what's interesting about HUD and us, To your point, you have different tiers of pricing in homes, but we together, along with the president, can say, hey, look, this is what we want to do in terms of housing supply.
This is what we want to do in terms of mortgage lending on some of the things that HUD controls.
For instance, HUD controls a certification called the HUD certification.
Novel name.
And basically, that's a...
Very, very important HUD certification.
You may know this from your days in construction.
If we can do that, give more HUD certification to these manufactured homes and provide a mortgage, right, you could see a boom in this housing market like we haven't seen in a long time.
Maybe ever, frankly.
So we're working intimately with HUD and with us.
And obviously, a lot of these decisions will ultimately be up to the president.
But I'm very convinced.
I'm very optimistic that the president will get this housing market booming again.
It's just we're going to need a little bit of time to reverse what's happened the last four years.
I mean, oh, yeah, no, you can't, you know, no one expects these things to change overnight.
We got four years to get it done and to get it done right.
So that's that's a really big deal.
And I'm glad you're working on it.
You know, we talked a little bit earlier.
You mentioned sort of.
China.
What about foreign ownership or foreign beneficiaries of these mortgages?
We've covered a lot about farmland in America and sort of the subversive ways Chinese government's trying to either buy up farmland for their food production at the expense of ours or around military bases.
Does that impact home ownership?
Are Chinese nationals or other people who aren't exactly allies, are they able to get Yes, it's a great question.
It's a very astute question, frankly.
And, you know, it's something that, and I got to be careful with what I say, but, you know, this morning I was actually looking at this, specifically the amount of foreign buying of mortgage-backed securities.
So without saying too much about what we have going on there, everything's fine.
But it's something that we need to keep a close eye on.
We are keeping a close eye on, both with the mortgage-backed securities as well as with regard to the land, the land that people are buying.
The mortgage-backed securities, Don, you know, these are good instruments.
People are – we've been underwriting since the crash in 2008 pretty good mortgages in this country.
And the Chinese, as well as some other – Areas are coming in and they're buying some of these mortgage-backed securities.
So, you know, I don't want to get too far out of my skis.
Some of this has to do with tariffs and stuff with the MBS purchases.
But, you know, we're looking at all of it and we want Americans buying American homes and we're doing everything we can to lower the cost after these last four years of devastation.
Yeah, I mean, talk about sort of, you said, you know, since 08, obviously, I think the world knows the world had sort of hit a wall, the banks were playing all sorts of games.
You know, I think a lot of people were upset there wasn't full accountability to that.
No one knew what was going on, but everyone sort of knew what they were going on with some of the, you know, the junk bonds or, you know, the subprime loans and lending.
Was that something that, you know, was also going on at HUD and sort of ignored?
You know, I know a lot of this stuff sort of...
Bush got blamed for a lot of that, but it really started under Clinton, where everyone should be in a million-dollar home.
It's like, well, that's wonderful, but if you're getting a million-dollar home and you're already extending yourself and you're doing so at all-time low interest rates, if anything changed, people were then very surprised they could no longer afford our mortgages.
What was going on at HUD, since I think people understand the story of what was going on in sort of the regular banking side?
Well, at HUD, it wasn't as prevalent as maybe it was at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
I mean, HUD definitely has it, but because we exist outside of HUD and because people were in charge of these two entities away from government control, they were able to get away with underwriting these loans, to your point, that almost blew up the entire economy, essentially almost did.
And so that's why they're in conservatorship now.
So I hope one day, you know, we can have a great company that does not have to be governed and in conservatorship.
And, you know, we're working hard to keep all of our options on the table.
But first things first is we can never have a mortgage market and under President, we can never have a mortgage market have that type of problem.
And under President Trump, we won't let that happen.
So, I mean, it feels like a part of that may be AI.
I know there's a new story about how you're actually using AI.
In the underwriting process.
What's the latest on that?
Because, you know, one of the things that I've, you know, sort of always voiced my frustrations for and I understood as a real estate guy, you know, we talked about points in and out and everything.
But, you know, you're literally paying points for someone to look at a piece of paper, pass it across the desk, title insurance or otherwise.
You know, what's the latest on the use of AI to streamline, to speed up some of these processes, you know, to carve out sort of these middlemen who are middlemen and maybe they're gainfully employed, but they don't really add any value in the process.
Correct.
Well, it's just rife with a lot of money to be made.
And why can't we pass that on to consumers?
You may have seen that we found a way where...
Lenders can pass on to up to $1,500 per loan.
That may not seem like a lot, but $1,500, as we all know, goes a long way.
So when I showed up on this job, Don, seven or eight weeks ago, that was one of the first things I asked.
And I was told specifically at Freddie Mac that some of our computer systems were based on the 1970s and 1980s.
And I'm sitting there thinking, in some ways, isn't this like a national security issue?
I mean, we've got $7 or $8 trillion that's on these rails that are built out of the 1970s and 1980s.
So, you know, I think you'll see us probably work with the Palantirs of the world and some other technology firms to try to figure out AI.
Maybe Elon's group will see.
I mean, I don't know if they have it, but, you know, anytime we can, you know, leverage people who are very bright.
And again, that's, you know, we're agnostic.
We don't care.
If somebody has great AI, whether it's OpenAI or Grok or Palantir, we'll look at it.
So more to come on that, but we're seven weeks in and we've launched one product and we're hoping to launch many more AI projects.
That's great.
I mean, I think that can streamline so much.
And so many of the things that I saw and was frustrated with as a real estate professional when that was my primary focus, that's a really big deal.
But we touched on it earlier.
We'll get to it.
Of course, the Pulte name, again, it's synonymous with home building.
How does your family's success and your business acumen shape your mission?
And drive your work to help everyday common sense Americans.
What do you remember about your upbringing and what you learned from your grandfather in that process?
Well, I was the only Pulte in Pulte Homes other than my grandfather.
And much like you with your father, you have a certain relationship with your father.
I have a certain relationship with my grandfather, which was amazing.
He'd be blown away, Don, that you're...
Dad appointed me to this job.
He'd be very impressed.
He'd be very proud.
You know, he developed essentially the modern day subdivision, if you want to know the truth in the country.
And so to see now his grandson, you know, in charge of this, he would be very happy.
And he'd just say, do a good job.
He used to call me Billy.
He'd say, Billy, do a good job.
Go get it done.
Get rid of the fraud.
Get rid of the, you know, throw these bad actors out and lower the cost and get people in the home.
Owning a home, Don, is owning an illiquid security that is one of the best assets that somebody can own.
And when people can't buy a home, they can't pass on that wealth to their kids and to their grandkids.
It's critical.
It's way more than a car, in my opinion.
It's way more than, in many ways, owning stocks or bonds.
Stocks and bonds are very important.
But owning a home, as you know better than anyone, is a generational gift.
And I'm grateful to my grandfather for giving me that opportunity.
And hopefully in this role, we can lower the cost and get people back in homes.
So what is the story of how Pulte Homes got started?
So my grandfather, his name was Bill Pulte as well.
He founded Pulte Homes in 1950 at age 18 in Detroit.
Classic American entrepreneur.
And today, Don, we've built over 800,000 homes, if you can believe that.
So from one home to over 800,000, I think that's the most of any builder in the country.
He basically built the country in many ways in terms of a subdivision.
I was very close with him.
It's funny, I was spending time with your father recently, and I called up my dad, who's a great guy.
And I said, Dad, I said, You know, the president reminds me so much of grandpa, you know, and it's just that work ethic.
It's just, you know, how to make things simple, the persistence.
You know, your father, my grandfather, they just had, you know, your dad wasn't a Depression-era guy, but just the resilience of the American.
Well, my grandfather was, so he sort of, he got it and understood.
He went through it.
And so, you know, we're also third generation in many ways.
My father did.
You know, something very different.
My father, my grandfather built sort of, you know, low and middle income, you know, rental apartments in Brooklyn and Queens.
You know, that was his thing.
And my father had a vision to take that to the next level and change the skyline of New York and, you know, build ultra luxury.
And so, you know, very different, but very similar.
Very similar.
Very similar.
And in fact, I've talked with your dad about Trump Homes, I believe they called it at one point, or your grandfather called it Trump Homes at one point when he was first starting out.
So the similarities are pretty amazing.
And, you know, just...
Just, my grandfather was a great guy, and he would be 93 now, and he just, you know, taught me so much.
But his persistence, he's just like your father.
You know, your dad, he just never gave up.
And your dad went through so much more than he did, but just never, ever give up.
And these two guys, and those depression era guys, they just don't make them like him anymore.
Now, I do have to ask this one.
I understand you may be limited in terms of what you can say about it because it's an ongoing investigation, but you started talking about rooting out the fraud from politicians or people who are able to manipulate these things.
I saw that you guys were the ones that found the potential Letitia James.
Fraud, the mortgage fraud, where she's the resident, so she got favorable interest rates.
She's married to her dad to get favorable interest rates.
She has the number of units slated different than what's actually on the certificate of occupancy so that you can get favorable interest rates.
I don't know if you can talk about that much, but I know I'd get killed if I didn't ask, because I know that originated from you guys, because some of those were loans from your organization.
Can you tell us what's going on there?
What's beyond?
And if you can't because it's an ongoing investigation, I also understand that.
But it seems like she was literally like it's par for the course for the Democrats.
She was literally doing all of the things that she accuses other people of doing and tried to jail and or bankrupt them for doing.
Well, I can't comment on any specific case, and I don't want to comment on that specific case.
My letter that I wrote to the DOJ, our letter, speaks for itself.
I want to say, however, just as a general matter, that Fannie Mae, we have $4.4 trillion.
We have another, let's call it $3.5 trillion at Freddie Mac.
We cannot have people of influence, people of prominent status, people of knowledge.
Or any person.
It doesn't matter whether you're somebody of knowledge or experience or fame or what have you.
If you commit mortgage fraud, we are going to come after you.
And that is irrespective of political party.
That is irrespective of everything.
If you commit mortgage fraud, we will come after you.
So I can't comment on the specific case.
I will just say that our agency is laser focused on it.
We've launched a tip line.
Fraud tips at FHFA.gov.
I encourage people to do it.
We're getting a lot of our tips from there.
And where we see fraud, we will say something.
So if people see something, say something.
Well, listen, I think that's so important.
And to use, perhaps, to use her famous line, no one is above the law.
It seems to me they say those things with great irony across the board in the Democrat Party, but no one's above the law.
And I'm glad you guys are checking it out.
Well, we'll check out any place where we see mortgage fraud.
We will continue to prosecute within the confines of our jurisdiction.
And we've got great partners at the FBI and DOJ.
And our agency, Don, I'll just leave you with this note.
We have a great inspector general, for example, and we have a great team at our main agency.
And over the years, FHFA has prosecuted and jailed many people for mortgage fraud and other things.
And it's absolutely critical because we can never have an 08 again.
People lying about their income.
Lying about where they live.
People saying that they live in one state, but really they live in another.
So again, I'm not commenting on a specific case.
Just as a general matter, we can't have this happen.
And certainly while I'm in charge and under President Trump, we are going to do everything we can to get rid of mortgage fraud.
Well, FHA Director Bill Pulte, thank you very much.
Keep up that great work and let's make housing affordable again.
Really appreciate it, man.
We're on it.
Thank you, Don.
Thank you.
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