Mark Fogarty

Mortgages for Gulf War veterans have more than tripled since 2008, which along with a spirited outreach program and the post-crisis credit squeeze, has helped fuel a steady increase in Department of Veterans Affairs lending.

Mortgage denials in 2013 were comparable to those recorded a decade ago, analyses of HMDA data show, challenging perceptions about how easy lending really was during the era of "pulse" loans and "fog-a-mirror finance."

Curt Culver has got a lot to keep him busy after he steps down as Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corp.'s CEO, including serving on the board of his family's eponymous restaurant chain.

Competition from traditional homes and distressed sales, the limited availability of conforming mortgages and an underdeveloped secondary market have prolonged a slump in manufactured housing that started in 1998.

While lenders do not ask consumers about sexual orientation, a look at Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data on same-sex couple applicants raises questions about possible discrimination against gays and lesbians.

Charlie Keating, who died Tuesday, epitomized an era today's mortgage lenders would do well to remember as low-yielding portfolio assets tempt them to take bigger risks.

I myself am a HMDA wonk, but one with a rather love-hate relationship to the numbers. I love what they reveal, but hate the headaches that come from wrestling with data.

Before considering the question of when a secondary market for nonconforming loans might return, one should ask whether it should be revived in the first place. That's what participants in a recent panel discussion at the Mortgage Bankers Association's National Secondary Market Conference in New York pondered.

A New Mexico mortgage banker is pursuing an aggressive growth strategy, acquiring mortgage banking and mortgage brokerage companies all over the country.

The Community Reinvestment Act has taken a bad rap as having helped cause the mortgage crisis, but it never recommended making loans to people who can't repay them. Hopefully it can be replicated in other countries where lending inequalities need correcting.

R.K. Arnold has retired as the chief executive and president of Merscorp Inc. of Reston, Va. Paul Bognanno will succeed Arnold on an interim basis.

An American Indian bank, Bank2 in Oklahoma City, wants to partner with New Mexico tribal housing entities to drum up more Indian mortgages in the state.

Lanalle Smith, executive director at Navajo Partnership for Housing, said the community development financial institution has ambitious plans to branch out into housing project development on or near the reservation to go along with its scattered site financings.

With all the attention recently on the effects of the tax credit for first-time homeowners, it's easy to forget there's one on the multifamily side as well. The Low Income Housing Tax Credit, after a bad couple of years, is poised to return to its former status as the premier production conduit for affordable multifamily housing.

The seizure on Jan. 22 of Charter Bank, Santa Fe, by the Office of Thrift Supervision, underlines what could be a new trend in the mortgage business — lenders involved in both residential and commercial mortgage lending brought low by a double dip in two bad markets.

The Mescalero Apache tribe completely missed the home-building bubble of the late 1990s and the early years of this decade. But the long housing drought has ended for the New Mexico tribe with the dedication this month of 30 single-family homes, the first residential construction on the 460,000-acre Native homeland since 1996.