Adds detail and context

By Pete Schroeder

Jan 16 (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Thursday he would nominate Bill Pulte to be the next director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA).

"Bill needs no formal introduction to the Great Citizens of our Country, because they have seen, and many have experienced, his philanthropy firsthand," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

The FHFA regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage giants that have operated under U.S. government control since 2008. The regulator is expected to play a central role in any effort to return the pair, which back the majority of the nation's residential mortgages, to the private sector.

The Trump administration is expected to make ending the longrunning conservatorship of the pair a priority, after taking some steps to move them away from government control in his first term. The current FHFA head, Sandra Thompson, plans to retire on January 19, one day before Trump's inauguration.

Fannie and Freddie were created by the Congress in 1938 and 1970, respectively, to expand the secondary mortgage market and promote homeownership by providing access to easy financing.

By packaging mortgages into interest-paying securities that they then sold to investors, Fannie and Freddie helped expand the secondary mortgage market and enhance the pool of capital available for housing. But the subprime mortgage crisis weighed on their finances, and ultimately led to a government takeover of the pair that has persisted.

Pulte is a private equity executive and the grandson of William Pulte, the founder and chairman of U.S. homebuilder PulteGroup. He also is known for his philanthropic work via social media. He used the X platform, where he has 3 million followers, to distribute personal funds and raise money for people in need.

(Reporting by Rami Ayyub and Pete Schroeder; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

((Rami.Ayyub@thomsonreuters.com;))