Mark Fogarty

It was surprising to find, looking at the 2010 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data, that $1 trillion in mortgage applications went unfunded that year. That's nearly 40% of a total of $2.6 trillion in apps.

The Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma’s tribal mortgage program has passed $100 million in originations through more than 1,000 loans, a number unthinkable even a dozen years ago.

Only a couple of comments in this holiday week, but they are good ones. The first corrects some loose language in a Chicago ordinance, while the second identifies with the prevailing mood in the industry.

The Federal Housing Administration is on everybody's mind recently. With new jumbo lending authority it is poised to take even more share away from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. But will FHA mortgagors refinance? Our Nov. 21 article sparked a number of replies about why it is hard to refi an FHA loan.

Here's some advice to mortgage executives who have accumulated a lot of expertise in the business world—pass on what you've learned. Pay it forward.

I met with the members of our sister publication Mortgage Technology's advisory board during the recent SourceMedia Mortgage Technology Conference in Miami. I was interested in what they thought the next year would bring to the technology niche.

This week's crop has some opinions and some questions. As to the opinions, everyone is entitled to their own! For the question by Mr. Roper, I believe 62 is the minimum age for someone to be qualified for a reverse mortgage. For the question by Ms. Lange, Ocwen is publicly traded and not owned by DeutscheBank to my knowledge.

Great batch of recent letters, adding detail to content we posted. These are all pretty self-explanatory. I can answer Mr./Ms. Gardner's question, though- the mortgage industry has retracted employment by 50% since the go-go years! That's a data point to reflect over!

A lot of mortgage applications went unfunded last year. A whole lot. In fact, a full $1 trillion in apps went unfunded for a variety of reasons. Compared to the $1.6 trillion that did get funded, that's a big turndown rate of 38%.

The mortgage bust has inspired a big wave of rethinking about the value of home owning. The mantra of "the American dream of homeownership" has often been turned into a statement like "not everyone should be a homeowner."

This blog, bringing President Truman’s dictum “the buck stops here” into the digital age, consists of comments and story feedback forms that come to me from readers of nationalmortgagenews.com and affiliated sites, with my own occasional comments in reply.

It could well be that the new government refinancing program announced last week will turn out to be the turning point in the recovery of the home loan industry.

A lot of technology ingenuity and utility from both lenders and vendors was recognized in Chicago recently when our sister publication Mortgage Technology gave out its 12th annual Technology Awards.

The numbers show it. Between midyear 2010 and midyear 2011, the originations share of the top five mortgage lenders dropped by more than 250 basis points.

Five bad years seem enough for the mortgage industry to be down in the basement. What will it take for the business to start to turn the cycle next year?

Ex-Presidents seem to love the mortgage industry. After seeing former President George W. Bush at a recent industry show in Dallas, I have now seen all the living ex-presidents in mortgage-related sightings!

Servicers these days face a choice: sell servicing released or retained? The servicing-released option has gained enough traction that GNMA president Ted Tozer is worried about having too few Ginnie Mae issuers (the little guys are selling FHA and VA product servicing-released to the big guys).

The hiring situation in the mortgage business has been dismal. Total employment has fallen from a high of more than 500,000 at the top of the market to less than half of that currently.

With this issue, National Mortgage News is completing its 35th year of independent coverage of the mortgage industry, and is getting ready to tackle its 36th.

The mortgage industry took a deadly hit on Sept. 11, 2001. Dozens of mortgage bond traders and analysts were killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center, especially at firms like Cantor Fitzgerald and Sandler O'Neill. A former chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York died heroically. Mortgage activity in the country slowed to a trickle (but never stopped).