It has been hypothesized that there are many fewer mortgage brokers and retail lenders competing for the business these days, what with the "market collapse".  A recent article in the Birmingham News had one Mortgage professional estimating that over 50% of his competition had disappeared.  Here is the link to the story:

http://www.al.com/business/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/business/1201338920172750.xml&coll=2&thispage=2

While it seems logical that a ton of people may have found new professions, the number of active mortgage broker and lender licenses haven't decrease anywhere near 50%.  At the end of 2007, there were 530 active offices on the web site.  Today, there are 508, but over 50 still show an expiration of 2007.  Assuming the worst, and that all 50 of these offices go out, that still only a reduction of about 80 offices, or about 15% less than 2007.  The fact is that we will never really know how many people have left the profession, since individuals are not required to be licensed.  Hopefully, this will change soon, and everyone that touches a loan will be required to register or be licensed by the state,  but that's a topic of discussion for another day.