Trump very seriously weighs taking Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac public after years of government control

President Trump said he is “giving very serious consideration” to returning mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the private sector — with a massive public offering of stock — after more than a decade in the government’s hands.Analysts have said the move could spark a major windfall for the US government — but also warn it could raise mortgage rates, worsening the nation’s housing affordability crisis.“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are doing very well, throwing off a lot of CASH, and the time would seem to be right.Stay tuned!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social late Wednesday.He added that he will make a decision in the near future after speaking with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and William Pulte, who leads the Federal Housing Finance Agency.The companies play a key role in the nation’s housing finance system, buying mortgages from lenders and packaging them into mortgage-backed securities.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been under a government conservatorship since the 2008 financial crisis, with the US extending lines of credit to the firms, overseeing their operations and owning vast majority stakes in both.Shares in Fannie Mae, or Federal National Mortgage Association, and Freddie Mac, also known as Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp, jumped 41.5% and 40.9%, respectively, by approximately 3:15 p.m.ET.The US government could reap more than $250 billion and erase about $8 trillion in liabilities from the federal balance sheet by selling its stake in Fannie and Freddie, according to estimates from James Thorne, chief market strategist at Wellington-Altus Private Wealth, in a post on X. “I think it’s very likely because they need the money,” Chris Whalen, chairman of Whalen Global Advisors, said on Thursday.“The reason they’re talking about this is they need the cash in order to make their tax cuts and budget reconciliation bill work,” he added.The GOP’s spending bill includes signi...