Wednesday, March 5, 2008 - Doug Foster Appointed Commissioner of Texas Savings & Mortgage Lending Department

Pictured Left to Right:  Doug Foster, SMLD Commissioner, Jerry Rutledge, DREI, CREI, President Alliance Academy, Rachel McNamara, Vice President Alliance Academy, Gary Ackright, Texas Finance Commissioner.

We are pleased to announce that Doug Foster has been appointed as the new Commissioner of the Savings and Mortgage Lending Department.

Doug has been with the department for nearly 23 years, most recently as the Director of Examinations.  He has also served twice as the Acting Commissioner when former Commissioners Jim Pledger and Danny Payne resigned.

Commissioner Foster is well respected within the department and the mortgage broker industry for his honesty, integrity and capability.

Commissioner Foster spoke recently at the Dallas Association of Mortgage Brokers (DAMB) monthly meeting.  He presented a Texas Mortgage Market Update as well as providing the latest information about mortgage licensing in Texas.

Mortgage Broker Annual Reports, which were due at the end of March, included over 5600 filings completed.  Yet, 1500 had not filed their annual reports, of which it’s estimated that 750 of those are still active.  The Commissioner suggested, the rest are probably inactive “drop-outs.”  Failure to file an annual report could result in licenses being revoked.

In the Auditing/Compliance division of the Department, they are making changes to allow for an increase in their speed of responses.  Audits and enforcement cases are moving much faster now, which means they are examining more mortgage brokers.

Regarding loan production trends in Texas, the Department has released the following statistics based on Annual Reports.  In 2007, Texas Brokers generated 163,500 loans totaling $25,900,000.  That is down from 2006, when we generated 251,700 loans for a total of $38,460,000.  We hit a peak in 2003 during the refi boom, originating 341,100 loans totaling $49,130,000