Invoice Pulte, Director of the Federal Housing Finance Company, talking on CNBC’s Squawk Field on Sept. 4th, 2025.
CNBC
Shut kinfolk of the federal official who has accused a Federal Reserve governor of improperly claiming main residence on two properties have declared the identical standing on two houses in two completely different states, public data present.
Mark and Julie Pulte, the daddy and stepmother of Invoice Pulte, President Donald Trump’s appointee as director of the Federal Housing Finance Company, since 2020 have claimed so-called “homestead exemptions” for residences in rich neighborhoods in each Michigan and Florida, based on the data. The exemption is supposed to offer a reduction to owners on taxes for properties they use as their main residence.
Native tax officers in each states informed Reuters that claiming a couple of house as a main residence is not usually allowed of their jurisdictions and could possibly be punishable by fines or again taxes. After Reuters contacted tax officers in Bloomfield Township, Michigan, to inquire in regards to the twin claims, Darrin Kraatz, director of assessing, on Thursday mentioned the township “as of at present” would revoke the exemption on the Pultes’ residence there.
In response to public actual property data, and a resident on the Michigan home on Thursday night, the house was rented out by the Pultes this yr, a transfer that additionally violates guidelines for the exemption. “Revised tax payments shall be issued to the Pultes, together with all relevant penalty and curiosity,” Kraatz mentioned by e-mail. He did not reply to a follow-up query in regards to the worth of any cost now due and Reuters could not decide a exact determine for earlier tax funds they’ve made.
Officers in Florida, citing the declare for exemption in that state as older, mentioned any battle with the second exemption would should be addressed in Michigan.
A house listed as bought by Mark and Julie Pulte, on a quiet cul-de-sac in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, U.S., September 4, 2025.
Rebecca Prepare dinner | Reuters
Reuters was unable to succeed in Mark or Julie Pulte for remark. Representatives at Mark Pulte’s enterprise and a Pulte household basis did not reply to cellphone calls or emails in search of remark for this story.
Officers on the FHFA, the federal company led by Invoice Pulte, did not reply to a request for remark. The information company was unable to succeed in him in any other case.
The declare of a couple of property as a main residence has been the idea for Invoice Pulte’s accusations in opposition to Lisa Prepare dinner, the Federal Reserve governor Trump fired in consequence and who has since filed go well with in opposition to the president to struggle the dismissal. Pulte referred the matter to the lawyer basic, prompting a probe of Prepare dinner by the Justice Division.
Along with that formal motion in opposition to Prepare dinner, Pulte in current days has made a number of public statements in opposition to her, accusing her of defrauding mortgage lenders and the general public. “Monetary fraud is an enormous deal,” Pulte wrote final weekend on X, the social media website, to his three million followers. “Do not do it!”
He additionally criticized Prepare dinner after studying she rented out one of many houses that she had declared as a main residence. “Lisa Prepare dinner’s declared ‘PRIMARY RESIDENCE’ is being RENTED out to tenants,” he wrote in one other X publish.
Prepare dinner has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. “How Governor Prepare dinner described her properties,” her lawyer wrote in a press release on Thursday, is “not fraud.”
Within the storage of the Michigan home, on a quiet cul-de-sac with wood-shingled houses and manicured yards, a person informed Reuters that he lives on the property as a tenant and would not know the identify of the house owner. He declined to be recognized by identify or say via whom or how lengthy he has been renting the property.
A drone view exhibits a house listed as bought by Mark and Julie Pulte at Royal Palm Yacht & Nation Membership in Boca Raton, Florida, U.S. September 5, 2025. REUTERS/Marco Bello
Marco Bello | Reuters
‘They obtained fortunate’
The Pulte household, which rose to prominence with a housing empire began in Michigan by Mark Pulte’s father, is lively in conservative circles. Each Mark and his spouse, electoral data present, have made a number of marketing campaign contributions to Republican candidates and causes.
Along with founding his personal housing firm in Florida, the place he has specialised in constructing luxurious properties, Mark Pulte is a senior official at a Pulte household basis. His high-profile actual property actions have included the 2021 sale of a property for $122.7 million, a report for Palm Seaside on the time. Years earlier, the property had been amongst Trump’s Florida holdings.
In his feedback to Senate officers for his affirmation as director of the federal housing company, Invoice Pulte thanked his father and stepmother for his or her help. He mentioned he grew up visiting development websites of houses constructed by his father and grandfather. In previous public statements he has mentioned that Mark helped finance Pulte Capital Companions, the Florida-based personal fairness agency Invoice based.
The homestead exemptions claimed by Mark and Julie Pulte, eight tax and actual property specialists informed Reuters, would usually be permissible solely in a uncommon exception that may be made for a pair by which spouses are conducting fully impartial lives – dwelling individually on the two addresses, separating their funds and submitting their taxes individually. Reuters could not decide whether or not the Pultes certified for such an exemption or had used such grounds to justify their homestead claims.
“It isn’t one thing that both state usually allows you to get away with,” mentioned Lisa Bender, a longtime actual property agent in each Michigan and Florida. Bender mentioned she personally is aware of the ins-and-outs of the homestead exemptions as a result of she additionally owns properties in each states. “I want I may declare each,” she mentioned. “Someway they obtained fortunate.”
No mortgage data exist for the Michigan and Florida properties, which suggests the Pultes probably paid for the houses in money, actual property specialists mentioned. By paying decrease taxes on each houses, they added, the couple is contributing lower than they in any other case would to public coffers, together with funding for space colleges.
On properties like these owned by the Pultes, the exemptions can add as much as 1000’s of {dollars} in financial savings every year. On the Florida house, in Boca Raton, the exemption saved the Pultes an estimated $158,000 in taxes for 2025, based on officers with the tax assessor’s workplace in Palm Seaside County, the property tax jurisdiction. The county granted a further exemption on the property as a result of the home – a waterfront house with marble flooring, in-ground pool, and a ship dock – surpasses a sure worth threshold, the data point out.
The Pultes purchased the Boca Raton home in 2016 for $4.25 million and later transferred the title to a authorized entity by which they’re each listed as beneficiaries, the data present. Mark Pulte filed the exemption request.
On the Michigan property, listed as a four-bedroom house with sauna and bought for practically $1 million in 2020, each spouses are named on a belief that owns the home. Julie Pulte claimed the exemption there.
When contacted by Reuters in regards to the twin exemptions, Nery Mejia, an exemptions supervisor for the Palm Seaside County Property Appraiser’s Workplace, mentioned the workplace would look into it. In a follow-up by e-mail, she mentioned the paperwork in Florida is legitimate and predates the Michigan declare. “Primarily based on this,” she wrote, “the matter ought to be dealt with by Michigan.”
It is not clear how a lot the Pultes could have saved every year due to the Michigan declare, however on Friday property data already indicated the exemption there may be now zero.