Despite a dip in purchase mortgage financing at Regions Financial Corp.’s, an increase in refinancing pushed overall home lending higher.
In its third-quarter earnings report, Regions said it originated $1.285 billion during the three months ended Sept. 30.
Production was a hair higher than $1.270 billion in the second quarter. But the pace slowed from $1.606 billion closed in the third-quarter 2013.
From Jan. 1 through Sept. 30, the Birmingham, Ala.-based company originated $3.521 billion.
“Mortgage originations continued to be driven by purchases of new homes which represented 75 percent of total originations,” the report said.
As refinance volume increased to $0.324 billion from $0.302 billion in the second quarter, refinance share rose to 25 percent from 24 percent.
But purchase financing, which made up the majority of Regions’ production, slipped to $0.961 billion in the third quarter from $0.968 billion three months earlier.
Although Regions didn’t report its servicing portfolio in the latest report, a prior 10-Q filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicated that the servicing portfolio was $27.261 billion as of June 30.
Residential assets on Regions’ balance sheet dipped to $23.232 billion from $23.251 billion and was down from $24.205 billion as of Sept 30, 2013. Last month’s total included $12.264 billion in first liens, $6.114 billion in first-lien home-equity loans and $4.854 billion in second-lien HELs.
On non-guaranteed residential first liens, delinquency of at least 30 days was 2.30 percent, 15 basis points lower than three months earlier and 30 BPS better than a year earlier.
HELÂ delinquency, however, rose to 1.65 percent from 1.58 percent at the end of the second quarter. But the HELÂ rate retreated from 1.79 percent as of Sept. 30.
The commercial real estate portfolio was cut to $15.834 billion from $16.363 billion as of June 30. One year prior, CRE loan holdings were $16.873 billion.
The most-recent CRE total reflected $8.666 billion in owner-occupied loans, $4.940 billion in investor CRE loans, $0.350 billion in owner-occupied construction loans and $1.878 billion in investor construction loans.
Late payments on the owner-occupied CRE loan portfolio was 0.51 percent, improving from 0.68 percent three months earlier and 0.66 percent a year earlier.
On investor CRE loans, the 30-day rate plunged to 0.88 percent from 1.49 percent in the second quarter and 2.38 percent in the third-quarter 2013.
Mortgage income was $39 million, less than the $43 million earned in the second quarter and $52 million earned in the year-earlier period.
Third-quarter 2014 mortgage income included $25 million in production income, $21 million in servicing income and $7 million in losses on mortgage servicing rights.
Prior to income taxes, earnings from continuing operations at Regions Financial rose to $449 million from $424 million and was also better than $417 million twelve months prior.
Across the entire organization, Regions reported staffing of 23,599, growing headcount from 23,416 as of mid-year 2014. The number of employees diminished, however, from 24,068 at the same point in 2013.
Regions operated 1,671 branch outlets, two fewer than as of June 30.
