Mortgage
Pulte pledges large MBS purchases as Fannie and Freddie holdings slide
By Real Estate Wire Staff, . Real Estate Wire.
Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte, who also chairs the boards at Fannie Mae and at Freddie Mac, wrote in a Friday X post that the pair of government-sponsored enterprises are moving to buy what he described as "large quantities" of mortgage-backed securities, according to Scotsman Guide. That announcement replied directly to a piece in Inside Mortgage Finance flagging three straight months of shrinking MBS holdings at the two companies.
The numbers behind that decline are specific. Per Scotsman Guide, Fannie and Freddie together owned $155.39 billion of MBS as of the July close, off from $161.68 billion when June ended and $162.38 billion when May ended. The two companies had built their combined position steadily from January through April, reaching $167.63 billion before the pullback began.
The program itself dates to January, when Scotsman Guide reported that President Donald Trump authorized purchases of up to $200 billion in MBS by the two enterprises, framing it as a mechanism to bring mortgage rates down. Scotsman Guide reported that rates did slide following that announcement, as the 30-year fixed product broke under 6%, a level not seen since 2022. They have since reversed course and are now near 7%, which Scotsman Guide ascribed partly to pressure on oil supply chains caused by the ongoing Iran war.
The gap between the $200 billion authorization ceiling and the $155.39 billion position at the end of July suggests there is room to add meaningfully before hitting the authorized limit. Whether renewed buying translates into rate relief is the harder question. The January purchases coincided with a rate drop, but correlation and causation are difficult to separate in a market responding simultaneously to inflation data, Fed signals and geopolitical risk. Owners equivalent rent was up 3.1% year on year as of August 2026, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, meaning housing costs are still running above the Federal Reserve's general inflation target even as the administration tries to ease mortgage rates through the secondary market.
What the reporting does not establish is how quickly the new purchases will show up in the monthly summary data, what pace Pulte has in mind when he says the buying is happening "as we speak," or whether the Federal Housing Finance Agency has set any internal target for where combined holdings should land. Pulte's statement was a social media post, not a formal policy announcement, and no timeline or volume schedule has been published.
For lenders and originators, the signal worth tracking is whether secondary market spreads tighten as the enterprises re-enter as buyers at scale. If the January pattern repeats even partially, there could be a brief window of improved rate conditions. If it does not, the more important story becomes why a $200 billion authorization produced only a temporary effect and what tools remain.