WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly 50 mortgage lenders have folded due to the subprime crisis as part of a natural thinning of the industry, the leading trade association for those lenders said on Wednesday.
"About 50 (lenders) have suffered the consequences and many of those would have been our members," said John Robbins, chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association, addressing the Reuters Global Real Estate Summit via teleconference from Washington.
"Will subprime bring more consolidation to our industry? Well, our industry has been consolidating over time," he said.
The lender failures that have resulted from the subprime crisis have not taken an appreciable toll on the MBA membership, Robbins said.
"There is always a natural cleansing of the hive coming off record years," Robbins said of the consolidation since the multiyear housing boom that ended in 2005.
(Reporting by Patrick Rucker)
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