More than half of home loans originated by Impac Mortgage Holdings Inc. are generated through the wholesale channel, and mortgage production more than doubled last year.
Fourth-quarter residential loan originations were $0.813 billion, according to earnings data released Wednesday.
Volume improved from 3,013 loans for $0.696 billion in the three months ended Sept. 30. Business was also better than the fourth-quarter 2011, when Impac originated $0.345 billion.
Full-year mortgage production totaled $2.420 billion, more than doubling from 2011 — when the Irvine, Calf.-based firm closed $0.883 billion in home loans.
A majority of last year’s business was generated by mortgage brokers, while the retail channel accounted for 28 percent and correspondent acquisitions were 17 percent. Retail loan production averaged $60 million last year, and correspondent volume increased from just $3 million in January to a monthly average of $33 million for all of 2012.
A strategy of increasing the mix of purchase financing led Impac to double the number of purchase-money transactions between the first and fourth quarters of last year.
Impac said it has enhanced its product line to include more programs that are less sensitive to changing interest rates, including FHA 203(k) home improvement loans, reverse mortgages, Home Affordable Refinance Program refinances and intermediate adjustable-rate mortgages.
Impac said its mortgage servicing portfolio finished last year at $2.177 billion, exploding from just $0.605 billion as of Dec. 31, 2011.
Impac had a less than $1 million loss in the fourth quarter, swinging from a nearly $1 million profit a year earlier. Losses exceeded $3 million during all of last year at Impac, swinging from 2011 profit of more than $3 million.
The report indicated that a larger-than-anticipated decline in the origination pipeline that resulted from an uptick in interest rates and pushed mortgage earnings down from the third quarter.
