With these comments, Pulte is demonstrating that he, like his boss Donald Trump, subscribes to the standard Yellen-Bernanke inflationist model of monetary policy: the job of the central bank is to forever force down interest rates, churn out more easy money, and devalue the currency.

Pulte claims publicly that this somehow makes homes more affordable. As we’ll see below, though, the Fed’s easy-money policy of recent decades has not made home more affordable. Rather, Fed policy has helped to relentless increase home prices through the Fed’s asset purchases, interest rate policy, and monetary inflation. //

There are many factors that affect mortgage rates, of course, but over the past thirty years—and especially since 2009—falling interest rates have coincided with rising home prices. In fact, falling interest rates slightly precede rising home prices, suggesting a causal relationship.