Over the past dozen years, one of the best things I’ve done on the road is to gather top industry officials around me and have a freeform, on-the-record roundtable of industry issues.

Neil Morse was a gifted mortgage writer, an indefatigable road warrior, a thoroughly professional public relations executive, and finally as a colleague for his work with our conference group. He died way too soon (he was 62).

One of the easiest ways to get my attention is to follow me on Twitter and shoot me a message. I'm @mortgagenewz.

I occasionally get invitations to speak at mortgage industry events (in addition to chairing our own SourceMedia conferences). My reaction is always bifurcated. On the one hand I'm always flattered people think my outlook on the business is worth listening to. On the other hand I'm always worried I will say something exquisitely stupid.

Feeling hungry for news about the servicing market? Then join me for a free breakfast at the Mortgage Servicing Conference!

If it's springtime it's time for one of the things I anticipate the most in the mortgage calendar.

The struggling housing market needs to look to every possible financing source. So, how are housing bonds doing? According to our sister publication, The Bond Buyer, housing bonds were off last year. But in a small victory, they were not off as much as the entire market.

The commercial mortgage market didn't get as much press, but it went into the tank shortly after the residential market did. However, if projections by the Mortgage Bankers Association turn out to be right, it is recovering steeply in that V shape that has so far eluded the residential side.

The Mortgage Bankers Association's annual convention was set for Orlando in 2005. So far, so good. I'd been to a million meetings in Orlando, and here was one more. The trouble was, Florida was also set for a visit at the same time by a monster hurricane named Wilma.

Fannie Mae's latest housing forecast is in, and it predicts a stagnant mortgage market for the next two years, at about $1 trillion in originations for each of 2012 and 2013. Not what industry officials want to hear, especially after five rocky years starting in 2007.

The mailbag for the week between Christmas and New Year's was, as you might expect, pretty light. Both messages I received were about the same story, which claimed that four of ten home sales in 2011 were cash-only deals, no mortgage. Our two correspondents questioned the particulars of that story.

Only a couple of comments in this holiday week, but they are good ones. The first corrects some loose language in a Chicago ordinance, while the second identifies with the prevailing mood in the industry.

The Federal Housing Administration is on everybody's mind recently. With new jumbo lending authority it is poised to take even more share away from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. But will FHA mortgagors refinance? Our Nov. 21 article sparked a number of replies about why it is hard to refi an FHA loan.

This week's crop has some opinions and some questions. As to the opinions, everyone is entitled to their own! For the question by Mr. Roper, I believe 62 is the minimum age for someone to be qualified for a reverse mortgage. For the question by Ms. Lange, Ocwen is publicly traded and not owned by DeutscheBank to my knowledge.

Great batch of recent letters, adding detail to content we posted. These are all pretty self-explanatory. I can answer Mr./Ms. Gardner's question, though- the mortgage industry has retracted employment by 50% since the go-go years! That's a data point to reflect over!