Mark Fogarty

What will the legacy of the robo-signing scandal be? Will it be more careful servicers who don’t cut corners under pressure from huge pipelines of foreclosures? Will it be large settlement payouts by the largest servicers involved in the mess?

It’s said that Texas is weathering the recession better than most states. Though it does have a big state budget crisis like many other states do now, the state of its mortgage banking industry is better than most.

As the mortgage industry waits with bated breath for the Treasury Department to present its fix for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it’s good to remember that thoughtful people already have been suggesting solutions for this intolerable $150 billion chit against taxpayer dollars that the two represent.

What will 2011 hold for the mortgage industry? It is shaping up to be a poor year for originations, a big year for servicing, and a key year for the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

At the 2010 Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual convention I attended in Atlanta, some saw an attitude in the participants that had been absent in the past few years—confidence about the industry’s future.

A more robust recovery in the general economy will help lift the mortgage industry out of its current abject depression.

California is the short sales capital of the world. According to CoreLogic, which made a big study of the field earlier this year, more than a quarter of all short sales in the years 2008 and 2009 happened in California.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development, despite its name, has always been heavily involved in rural housing, though rural public housing and otherwise.