Trump Announces $200B Mortgage Bond Purchase

In an effort to tackle the housing affordability crisis, President Donald Trump recently ordered the purchase of $200 billion in mortgage bonds, Reuters reports. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said his representatives would move forward with the purchases, which Federal Housing Finance Director Bill Pulte confirmed would be carried out by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The two government-controlled entities plan to buy mortgage-backed securities from the public market as a means to influence mortgage rates and borrowing costs.

"I am instructing my Representatives to BUY $200 BILLION DOLLARS IN MORTGAGE BONDS. This will drive Mortgage Rates DOWN, monthly payments DOWN, and make the cost of owning a home more affordable," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

Some housing industry experts, however, believe the purchase would have minimal impact on housing affordability over the long term. According to housing market platform Redfin, a $200 billion purchase of mortgage bonds is modest compared with past efforts. Historically, measures by the Federal Reserve to ease rates involved buying far larger amounts of mortgage-backed securities and Treasury bonds, which had a stronger influence on lowering long-term interest rates. For instance, between 2008 to 2010, $300 billion in Treasury bonds and $600 billion in mortgage-backed securities were purchased.

Trump’s call to purchase $200 billion in mortgage bonds recalls what the Federal Reserve did when it bought those same types of bonds during the pandemic and its aftermath, as part of an effort called quantitative easing.

But compared with the Fed's much larger bond purchases, $200 billion would have a "fairly small impact" on mortgage rates, said Redfin's head of economics research, Chen Zhao, perhaps bringing borrowing costs down by 10 to 15 basis points.

"Mortgage rates have already declined from roughly 7% in early 2025 to the low 6s now, and we’ve actually seen very minimal pickup in demand in the housing market/increase in transaction volume," she said.