Bill Pulte has made headlines frequently since being confirmed as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) in March.

Less than a week after taking office as the head regulator of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, he ousted 14 board members at the two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) and appointed himself as chairman of both companies’ boards. Later that month, he rescinded a series of Biden-era housing policies, announcing the changes with photographs of paper orders posted on the social media platform X.

In May, Pulte’s public profile was raised when President Donald Trump announced he was “giving very serious consideration to bringing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac public.” Few details were provided in Trump’s social media post, leaving Pulte in the position of answering the media’s questions in TV appearances.

Shortly thereafter, Pulte began sharply criticizing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome “Jay” Powell’s reluctance to lower interest rates, using a similar line of attack as Trump’s. Like the president, Pulte later turned his social media focus to the ballooning costs of the Fed’s headquarters renovation project, and he was among a select group of invitees to accompany Trump on his high-profile tour of the Fed building.

The 37-year-old Pulte, a former private equity CEO, has an atypical governance style for a federal housing regulator, often preferring to make FHFA announcements on his personal X account rather than official agency channels. He typically prefers television interviews to print media, but he recently spoke with Scotsman Guide in a wide-ranging discussion that touched on numerous topics impacting the mortgage industry and the housing market.

‘The world is changing’

In recent months, Pulte has made two major pronouncements on X that may have significant impacts on the mortgage industry.

In June, Pulte ordered Fannie and Freddie to prepare proposals for considering cryptocurrency assets when conducting risk assessments for single-family loans. His proposed plan received a legislative boost this week when Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., introduced a bill that would require the GSEs to consider digital assets when assessing single-family mortgage eligibility.

“It’s great,” Pulte said of Lummis’ proposed legislation. “It just further reinforces the need to innovate and use technology and cryptocurrency. The world is changing, so we need to be able to change with the world or we’ll fall behind.”

The crypto proposal has raised concerns among some Democratic senators, who wrote in a letter to Pulte that the inclusion of the more volatile assets in mortgage underwriting “could pose risks to the stability of the housing market and the financial system.”

Pulte told Scotsman Guide that the “first and foremost thing is to make sure that there is safety and soundness in everything that we do.” He added he is “very confident in the great staff that we have in both [Fannie and Freddie] to make decisions that are in the best interest of the American people.”

Bi-merge still on hold, but still on the table

Two weeks after the crypto announcement, Pulte dropped another social media bombshell: Effective immediately, Fannie and Freddie would begin accepting the VantageScore 4.0 credit scoring model in addition to the industry-standard Classic FICO model.

Pulte said at the time that the move was designed to “increase competition to the credit score ecosystem,” and that it would expand credit access to “millions of forgotten Americans — people who live in rural areas, renters who pay their rent on time every month.”

A group of 23 U.S. representatives applauded the decision, writing in a letter to Pulte that “thanks to your efforts, the credit score models on which our housing market relies will be better able to capture creditworthy individuals, like those in rural areas and our veterans, without lowering underwriting standards.”

The editorial board of The Wall Street Journal took a starkly different stance, cautioning that “the big risk is that mortgage lenders will rely on VantageScore’s ratings to qualify marginal borrowers and make riskier loans.”

Pulte’s credit score announcement stressed that scoring requirements for loans delivered to Fannie and Freddie would remain “tri-merge,” meaning a single report that combines information from all three major credit bureaus.

Pulte’s predecessor as FHFA director, Sandra L. Thompson, had announced plans to shift to a “bi-merge” model that would use VantageScore 4.0 and a newer FICO model called 10 T to pull data from two different credit bureaus. Those plans were put on indefinite hold in January prior to Pulte taking office.

The current FHFA director told Scotsman Guide that he’s still open to exploring a bi-merge model in the future, saying “we always will keep our mind open for whatever is in the best interest of the American consumer.” But he stressed that the FHFA’s main focus now is expanding competition as a fulfillment of the Credit Score Competition Act, which was signed into law by Trump during his first term in the White House in 2018.

“The situation right now calls for kind of an interim step, and so we are just pausing it for the interim, keeping tri-merge just to make things as easy as possible for everybody,” Pulte said.

A frequent foil

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has been a persistent Pulte critic. She was one of five senators who sent him the open letter detailing concerns about the Fannie and Freddie cryptocurrency proposal. She was also the lead senator who penned a missive to the FHFA director in June, claiming that taking Fannie and Freddie public “could dramatically increase costs for families seeking to purchase a home.”

More recently, Warren called out Pulte in another letter for what she claimed was “abnormal behavior” for his frequent social media posts about Fed Chair Powell. She requested a copy of his schedule to “determine if he is doing his job.”

Pulte immediately shot back on X: “Elizabeth Warren sent me a really nasty letter saying that I spend too much time communicating with the public. Meanwhile, how much time did her staff WASTE putting together a letter that lists out each and every communication I’ve made?”

In April, Warren and nine other Democratic senators requested that the Office of Inspector General launch an inquiry into Pulte’s actions, including his overhaul of the Fannie and Freddie boards. She also questioned whether Pulte was legally permitted to serve as chair of the Fannie and Freddie boards while also serving as the companies’ primary regulator.

“We’ve complied with the law,” Pulte told Scotsman Guide.

“As I’ve said, the law is very clear that the director has two roles: namely, conservator and regulator,” Pulte stated. “Elizabeth Warren may not like that Kamala Harris lost to Donald Trump, but the law is the law. And I would encourage Senator Warren to follow the law.”

All roads lead to interest rates

Earlier this week, the ROAD to Housing Act of 2025 became the first bipartisan housing bill to advance through the Senate Banking Committee markup stage in a decade. Pulte sent a congratulatory social media note to Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., who chairs the committee, saying “we share the same commitment and passion for housing.”

When asked about the legislation and what he thinks needs to be done to address the nationwide housing shortage and affordability crisis, Pulte responded that while much of the bill does not fall under the purview of the FHFA, “generally speaking, we are in favor of expanding supply.” He then pivoted, saying the “No. 1 issue hurting supply right now is high interest rates.”

“Builders are concerned about putting shovels in the ground because you have Jay Powell, who is artificially keeping rates high for no logical reason whatsoever, and Jay Powell has to resign. And he can’t resign quick enough,” Pulte said.

Safe to say, Pulte is not a fan of the Fed chair. On any given day, his X feed may include multiple criticisms of Powell’s handling of monetary policy, his oversight of the Fed’s costly building renovation project, or both. During his interview with Scotsman Guide, adjectives Pulte used to describe Powell included tired, old, stubborn, selfish, arrogant and pompous. 

On Wednesday, Powell and the majority of his fellow Fed governors voted to keep the federal funds rate unchanged at a range of 4.25% to 4.5%. Pulte thinks that benchmark lending rate should be 3% lower than where it currently stands.

Pulte also took issue with press conference comments Powell made following the Fed’s monetary policy meeting this week. Responding to a question about high mortgage rates, the Fed chair said monetary policy isn’t the “main effect” on mortgage costs, adding that the national housing shortage “is not something the Fed can help with.”

“Powell’s a liar because he sat there today and said that he has nothing to do at the Fed with housing. He has everything to do with housing,” Pulte said. “I mean, interest rates are the mother’s milk of housing, and he is starving the housing market with these high interest rates.”

A burgeoning boondoggle

Pulte, whose grandfather founded the home construction company PulteGroup, drew on that housing background when assessing the Federal Reserve’s office renovation project, which was originally budgeted at $1.9 billion and now sits at an estimated $2.5 billion cost.

Referencing his tour of the under-construction Fed headquarters with President Trump, Pulte said the building contained more opulence than Palm Beach mansions he’s seen. He also questioned certain construction techniques, such as the extensive use of temporary plywood for protection instead of cheap construction blankets.

“It’s almost like they’re building a fake construction site with this plywood that they have all throughout the building,” Pulte commented. “It’s the most bizarre thing you’ve ever seen.”

Summing up his thoughts on the building project that has consumed much of the public discourse about the Fed in recent weeks, Pulte flatly stated: “It’s the stupidest construction project I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Change in the air

If Fannie and Freddie are taken public via a listing on the New York Stock Exchange, that could conceivably alter Pulte’s role. The FHFA has served as conservator of the GSEs since the 2008 financial crisis, and Fannie and Freddie were delisted and relegated to the over-the-counter Pink Sheets in 2010.

Pulte provided few updates on that behind-the-scenes process, though he did confirm that taking Fannie and Freddie public while keeping them under federal control hasn’t been ruled out.

“Our main focus is to do no harm and to make sure that the mortgage bond market is safe and sound and secure,” Pulte remarked. As for a potential initial public offering, he said that decision lies with President Trump.

“We’re studying a lot of different things right now, and we’ll be in touch when there’s an update on that,” he said.