Although company-wide earnings ascended at SunTrust Banks Inc. — mortgage income, originations and third-party servicing were all down on a quarterly basis.
First-quarter 2018 earnings data indicate SunTrust earned $792 million before the provision for income taxes during the three months ended March 31.
Income at the Atlanta-based bank-holding company improved form $629 billion in the same three months during 2017 and $668 million in the prior three-month period.
Income from just the mortgage business was $90 million, deteriorating from $111 million in the first-quarter 2017 and $104 million in the fourth-quarter 2017.
Included in the latest mortgage earnings was $36 million in production income, sinking from $61 million the prior period due to lower production volume and lower gain-on-sale margins. Another $54 million came from servicing income, climbing $11 million as a result of higher servicing fee income and lower servicing asset decay.
The financial institution closed $5.145 billion in loans during the first-quarter 2018 — including $1.700 billion in retail originations and $3.445 billion in correspondent acquisitions. Overall business was cut from $6.302 billion in the prior quarter and $5.491 billion a year prior.
Most recently, refinance share was 37 percent,
no different than in the previous quarter.
With $7.0 billion in first-quarter applications versus $7.1 billion the preceding period, second-quarter mortgage production is unlikely to be much different than the last quarter.
SunTrust serviced $164.683 billion in mortgages — including $135.333 billion in loans serviced for others. Total servicing portfolio retreated from $165.448 billion three months earlier and $164.484 billion one year earlier.
On SunTrust’s balance sheet were $38.017 billion in residential assets — including $0.611 billion in guaranteed mortgages, $27.165 billion in loans with no guarantees and $10.241 billion in home-equity assets. Residential holdings declined from $38.322 billion as of year-end 2017 and $38.170 billion at the close of the first-quarter 2017.
Delinquency of between 30 and 89 days on non-guaranteed mortgages was slashed to 0.24 percent from 0.55 percent at the close of 2017 and reduced from 0.26 percent on the same date in 2017.
Home-equity delinquency fell to 0.65 percent from 0.71 percent but crept up from 0.63 percent at the same point last year.
Also in the investment portfolio were $0.256 billion in residential construction loans.
The balance sheet additionally contained $9.003 billion in commercial real estate assets — including $5.362 billion in commercial mortgages and $3.651 billion in commercial construction loans.
CRE assets were diminished versus $9.121 billion at the end of the fourth quarter and $9.282 billion at the close of the first-quarter 2017.
Commercial mortgage delinquency climbed to 0.03 percent from zero and was the same as a year earlier.
March 2018 ended with 23,208 people on the payroll.
Staffing was reduced from 23,785 at the end of last year and 24,215 at the same point last year.
SunTrust operated 1,236 full-service banking offices, 32 fewer than as of Dec. 31, 2017.
