Quarterly home lending slipped at Ocwen Financial Corp. but is likely way up for the current period. The company reported a huge loss, while servicing subsided.
Residential loan originations
during the period that began on Jan. 1 and ended on March 31 came to $0.979 billion.
Business dropped off compared to the final three months of last year, when $0.987 billion was funded.
The West Palm Beach, Florida-based firm detailed the data, as well as other operational and financial performance metrics, in its first-quarter 2016 earnings report.
Activity also declined from the first-three months of last year, a period that saw $1.112 billion in production.
First-quarter 2016 business included $0.788 billion in traditional mortgages and $0.191 billion in reverse mortgages.
The retail channel was responsible for $0.111 billion of the latest activity, while wholesale lending totaled $0.424 billion and correspondent acquisitions represented $0.444 billion.
Business during the current quarter is likely to rise based on the fair value of interest rate lock commitments, which soared to $13.5 million from $6.1 million.
The third-party mortgage servicing portfolio finished last month at roughly 1.5 million loans for $223.731 billion.
The portfolio was was down from the end of last year, when Ocwen serviced $230.133 billion, and the same point last year, when 2.1 million loans for $337.125 billion were serviced.
In addition, Ocwen sub-serviced $13.350 billion as of March 31, 2016.
On its balance sheet were $2.771 billion in reverse mortgages at fair value. The total escalated from $2.488 billion at the end of last year.
Ocwen reported a delinquency rate of 13.0 percent, falling from 13.7 percent as of Dec. 31, 2015.
The decline was “primarily driven by improved collections and loss mitigation efforts.”
Representation and warranty obligations have been slashed to $32 million as of the third-quarter 2016 from $119 million a year prior.
Ocwen suffered a $102 million loss before income taxes in the first-three months of this year, not as bad as the $129 million loss in the previous quarter.
Losses swung
from a $43 million first-quarter 2015 profit.
Average U.S. employment as of the first-quarter 2016 was 1,540. Staffing was down from an average of 2,174 last year.
Another 6,167 average employees were offshore, reduced from 6,972 in 2015.
In all, Ocwen said it has a total of approximately 10,500 employees.
