Regions Financial Corp.’s home lending business fell below $1 billion for the first time since Mortgage Daily began tracking its originations. Loan performance improved except for on investor commercial mortgages.
Residential loan production amounted to $0.966 billion during the three months ended March 31, Regions said in its first-quarter earnings report.
It was slowest month for the Birmingham, Ala.-based company since at least 2008 based on the oldest available data collected by Mortgage Daily.
Fourth-quarter 2013 volume was $1.238 billion, while $1.819 billion was originated during the same three-month period in 2013.
Refinances accounted for 31 percent of first-quarter 2014 business, off from 35 percent in the previous quarter.
Regions didn’t release servicing data, but in its annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the third-party servicing portfolio was reported at $28.5 billion as of Dec. 31, 2013.
Regions owned $23.284 billion in residential assets, trimming its holdings from $23.457 billion as of Dec. 31, 2013. As of the same date in 2013, the total was $24.421 billion.
The March 31, 2014, balanced included $12.136 billion in first liens, $6.008 billion in first-lien home-equity loans and $5.140 billion in second-lien HELs.
Delinquency of at least 30 days on non-guaranteed home loans was cut to 2.55 percent as of last month from 2.79 percent as of the end of last year. The rate was 3.27 percent on March 31, 2013.
On HELs, delinquency fell to 1.73 percent from 1.96 percent and was 1.78 percent a year earlier.
Commercial real estate assets crept up to $16.624 billion as of last month from $16.555 billion three months earlier. But Regions has reduced its CRE portfolio from $17.459 billion as of the end of the first-quarter 2013.
The first-quarter 2014 total was comprised of $9.257 billion in owner-occupied commercial mortgages, $5.338 billion in non-owner occupied properties and $2.029 billion in construction loans.
Delinquency on owner-occupied CREÂ loans sank to 0.43 percent from 0.65 percent as of Dec. 31 and was better than 0.59 percent as of the first-quarter 2013.
Investor CRE loan delinquency soared to 1.45 percent from 0.76 percent but was still better than 1.52 percent as of a year earlier.
At $40 million, mortgage income was off from $43 million in the prior period. Income was far better at $72 million in the first-quarter 2013.
At the bank-holding company level, income from continuing operations prior to income taxes jumped to $435 million from $333 million in the fourth-quarter 2013. Income was off, however, from $447 million in the same period last year.
As of the end of last month, associate headcount was 23,687, fewer employees than the 24,255 as of the end of last year. Staffing, however, stood higher than 23,466 as of the same date last year.
Branch count was cut to 1,673 from 1,705 as of Dec. 31, 2013.
