According to MortgageDaily.com, a source of mortgage news for the mortgage industry, more than 200 mortgage-related firms ended operations or failed last year, the highest number since the site began tracking the data in 1998. The previous record was set in 2007, but 2009 now marks the worst year in the industry.

Up from the revised 124 closings in 2008, the closings of 225 mortgage-related operations were tracked in 2009 at the Mortgage Graveyard – a journal of failed lenders maintained by MortgageDaily.com. As banks account for most of the country’s residential originations, MortgageDaily.com said the annual surge in mortgage-related failures was fueled by a 400 percent spike in bank failures. In addition, credit union failures, including corporate and state-regulated institutions, were up by more than a third.

Ocala, Florida-based Taylor Bean Whitaker Mortgage Corp was among last year’s most notable failures. The company was forced into bankruptcy after it was suspended by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) in August. Lend America, based in Melville, New York, lost FHA approval in November and suffered a similar fate. Tied to the failure of Taylor Bean, Montgomery, Alabama-based Colonial Bank was seized by the Alabama State Banking Department in August and sold to BB&T.