Record number of mortgage companies failed in 2009

Dennis Norman

MortgageDaily.Com tracks mortgage company failures on it’s website The Mortgage Graveyard.  According to The Mortgage Graveyard 225 mortgage-related firms in the U.S. ended operations or failed in 2009, higher than any year since they began tracking data in 1998. This was an increase of over 80% from 2008 which saw 124 firms fail.

The annual surge was fueled by a spike in bank failures — which increased more than 400 percent. Banks account for most of the country’s residential originations. Credit union failures, including corporate and state-regulated institutions, were up by more than a third.

Here in St. Louis it appears lenders have fared better and, according to MortgageDaily.com there was only one failure in 2009 and that was Gateway Bank.  According to a story published November 9, 2009 by Mortgage Daily.Com the Missouri Division of Finance reported it took possession of Gateway Bank after “several unsuccessful attempts by the bank’s ownership and management to sell or find new capital. The bank had been an aggressive lender and faced a $2,500 civil money penalty by the FDIC in June and another in May 2008.”

We are likely to see the disappearance of many mortgage companies, or their merger’s with bank partners, in 2010 as a result of tough new rules that took effect January 1st favoring bank-operated mortgage companies over independent mortgage brokers and mortgage bankers.

 

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