Who wants a mortgage these days?

You know what it's going to take to get the mortgage industry back in gear? People who want to buy homes.

I've spoken in this space before about re-building, or earning, trust in our space. That will take a lot of work and it won't be easy. As important as that trust is, desire for homeownership is a prerequisite to getting our industry back on track.

If people feel like they can't qualify for a loan and they don't know what's available and whether they are paying too much or too little, they will simply hesitate and not buy. To me, that's a big concern. If people don't feel like owning a house is meaningful—and we've already seen statistics about a big part of the population that has abandoned their mortgage but will keep up the payments on their cars—if people don't feel like a house is a good long-term investment that's important for their future, we've really got problems.

I saw Doug Duncan speak at the recent Mortgage Bankers Association's annual convention in Atlanta. Doug, who was formerly the chief economist at MBA, has studied the economics of housing for a long time. What he shared with the audience was rather frightening.

According to Duncan, the number of Americans who would be more likely to rent rather than buy their next home if they were going to move increased from 30% in January 2010 to 33% in July 2010. Furthermore, 60% of renters (up by 6 percentage points since January 2010) would be more likely to rent if they were to move, even though 69 percent of renters think it makes more sense to buy a home (they know it makes sense, they just don't believe they can do it!).

Duncan went on to point out that not everyone things buying a home is a safe investment. In fact, during 2010 that number fell 3 more percentage points, that's 16 points below where it was in 2003.

The residential housing market has fueled our economy for years. If that goes away, I don't know if there is a replacement that will impact consumer spending to the same degree. I can't imagine what it could be.

A lot of originators will be spending time, money and effort on rebuilding trust in 2011. Someone better be thinking about how to rekindle the dream of homeownership in the minds of the American consumer or the only thing we'll be able to trust in the near future is the fact that our economy is in trouble.