2008 will go down in the record books as one of the worst years ever for the residential mortgage market. And nowhere is that more apparent than in the attendance numbers at next month’s Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual convention in San Francisco.
According to preliminary numbers released by the MBA, attendance at this point for this year’s convention is just 1,968 – or less than half of last year’s 4,010 attendance. The drop is even more pronounced if you consider that 2007’s attendance at a convention in Boston wasn’t particularly strong and reflected a mortgage industry already in turmoil and the collapse of the subprime lending industry. San Francisco is traditionally the most popular location for MBA’s annual convention. Although the theme for this year’s convention is “Winning Strategies for the New Age,” many MBA members are in survival mode and have greatly limited travel.
