Countrywide Home Mortgage: One More Year of Housing Slump to Go

Echoing the sentiments of the National Association of Realtors, the CEO of the nation’s biggest mortgage lender seems to think the U.S. housing market slump will continue through 2007.

Mortgage lending has slowed as rising inventories in the housing market led to a “hard landing” for the industry after a decade of strong growth, said Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide Financial Corp.

“We have another year of adjustment, or transition” in the industry until consumers believe home prices won’t decline, Mozilo said. “Various events will make the change take place and one of them is” a decline in available homes.

Mozilo said he expects the industry will see lending volume grow progressively from 2008 to 2010 due to a build-up of home loan demand. Until then, the industry will continue to consolidate and eliminate excess capacities.

The Calabasas, California-based company said last week it has funded $375 billion in residential home mortgage loans so far this year, down 7 percent from the same period of 2005.

Its pipeline of mortgages that haven’t yet closed totaled $61 billion in October, down 14 percent from ‘05.