The two GSEs have been under conservatorship since the global financial meltdown of 2007-08, and it’s not yet clear whether the Trump administration ultimately plans to continue that arrangement.
In May, Trump said that he was “giving very serious consideration” to bringing the mortgage giants public, although Pulte later suggested they might stay under conservatorship during an IPO.
Ending conservatorship has been a long-standing Republican priority. During Trump’s first term, then-FHFA director Mark Calabria introduced reforms aimed at making it easier for Fannie and Freddie to exit majority government ownership.
But critics of the idea say mortgage rates would likely rise in the short term if the GSEs went public because conservatorship has made more explicit the US government’s implicit guarantee over the mortgages they securitize.
Advocates of the move say selling Fannie and Freddie stock could help cut into the huge national deficit and give money back to taxpayers. But for now, it’s unclear how long it would take to move forward with an IPO as large and complicated as a Fannie-Freddie offering would likely be.
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