The Pulse of the Mortgage Default Servicing Industry: DS News Tracks The Great Mess of 2008
Last year was undoubtedly a year for the record books in both the financial and housing sectors, as the nation’s economic crisis pushed mortgage default servicing to the forefront of mainstream business news in America.
In its January issue, DS News, the only news source dedicated entirely to the mortgage default servicing industry, takes an in-depth look at “The Great Mess of 2008.”
No year since the Great Depression has been as financially tumultuous as 2008. What was widely described as a subprime crisis turned out to be something more – a financial cataclysm that involved record home foreclosures, a steep decline in home values, and subsequent reductions in the worth of mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt, bank stock values, and related assets and holdings. By year-end, storied institutions had collapsed or merged, credit lines had contracted, and the federal government took on the largest financial obligations in U.S. history.
Rick Sharga, SVP of RealtyTrac, an online foreclosure marketplace, is one of many industry experts featured in DS News’ January article. According to Sharga, over the past year, media sources such as DS News helped bring to light significant problems within the housing market, especially relative to foreclosures. Sharga told DS News that the media’s coverage of such issues has helped “people understand what role the housing market meltdown had in the overall drop-off in the country’s economy and how important it is to get the housing market stabilized if we’re going to get the economy turned around.”
In addition to over 35 in-depth interviews with default experts from across the mortgage servicing gamut – including authorities on home retention, foreclosure, loan modification, property preservation, REO, and auctions – DS News’ January issue features an extensive timeline of financial and housing-related events that make up “The Great Mess of 2008,” compiled by Peter G. Miller, a nationally syndicated columnist and author of “The Common-Sense Mortgage.”
Source: DS News