Part economic history, part public history, A History of Mortgage Banking in the West is an insider’s account of how the mortgage banking sector worked over the last 150 years, including analysis of the causes of the 2007 mortgage crisis. Beginning with the land and railroad development acts that encouraged settlement in the west, E. Michael Rosser and Diane M. Sanders trace the laws, institutions, and individuals that contributed to the economic growth of the region.

Using Colorado and the west as a case study for the nation’s economic and property development as a whole since the late nineteenth century, Rosser and Sanders explain how farm mortgages and agricultural lending steadily gave way to urban development and housing mortgages, all while the large mortgage and investment firms financed the development of some of the state’s most important water resources and railroad networks. Rosser uses his personal experience as a lifelong practitioner and educator of mortgage banking, along with a plethora of primary sources, academic archives, and industry publications, to analyze the causes of economic booms and busts as they relate to real estate and development.

Rosser’s professional acumen combined with Sanders’s research experience makes A History of Mortgage Banking in the West a rich and nuanced account of the region’s most significant economic events. It will be an important work for scholars and practitioners in regional and financial history, mortgage market practice and development, government housing and mortgage policy, and financial stability and of great significance to anyone curious about the role of the federal government in national housing policy and the inherent risk in mortgages.

E. Michael Rosser is a member of the School of Mortgage Banking Master Faculty. He has served as president of the Colorado Mortgage Bankers Association, on the Colorado State Housing Board, and on the Colorado Foreclosure Prevention Task Force. He has received numerous awards from the Mortgage Bankers Association throughout his career including the Distinguished Service Award and Lifetime Achievement Award for his long commitment to industry education.

Diane M. Sanders has a BA and MA in history from Colorado State University, where she won the Meyer Nathan Memorial Award for compassion and service. Focused on preservation and cultural resource management under the guidance of the Public Lands History Center, she researched and wrote a historic furnishings report of the Murie Ranch in Grand Teton National Park for the National Park Service.