Last night I spent some time collecting data from the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance regarding the monthly licensing activity of the Non-Depository Financial Institutions Division, i.e., the licensing activity of the mortgage industry inside Georgia. Before I began, I hypothesized the data would show a decrease in approval of licenses and increase in revocation of licenses some time around early 2008, roughly the time when people were starting to realize there might be a housing bubble and that it might be bursting.
Here’s a graph of the data I collected (click for larger size):
First, I thought it was interesting that July seems to be the month where the majority of the license revocations, expirations, etc., occur for the year. This might be a result of the seasonality of the housing/mortgage market or might just be the month where the government decides to release a large backlog of processed licensing decisions. I’m not sure.
Secondly, 
it looks I was not too far off with my hypothesis. Up until about December 2007, the amount of mortgage licenses approved outnumbered the amount of licenses revoked. Since that point in time, more licenses have been withdrawn or revoked per month than approved. This will be the trend until the mortgage market finds equilibrium.
Update: As an aside, though the publication reported the quantity of licensing decisions, the publication did not provide any context for the data. Data without context is next to meaningless. A simple historical chart such as the one I created could have easily been provided by the government and would have added so much more meaning to the data already provided. Is this just an example of how government often lacks initiative and foresight?
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