A quarter-over-quarter rise in home lending was reported by BB&T Corp. But mortgage earnings and servicing were down, while all three metrics were lower on a year-over-year basis.
The Winston-Salem, North Carolina-based bank-holding company earned $876 million before income taxes, according to its fourth-quarter 2017 earnings report.
Income retreated from the same three months in 2016, when the total was $930 million, and the preceding three months, when BB&T earned $942 million.
During the final-three months of last year, mortgage banking income was $104 million, retreating from $114 million in the third quarter and off from $107 million in the fourth-quarter 2016. While BB&T only reported after-tax mortgage earnings in the latest report, previous reports included pre-tax income.
Single-family loan originations totaled $3.970 billion, improving from the prior quarter’s $3.463 billion. But business sank from $5.198 billion a year prior. Details about originations by channel were pulled from the latest report.
During the 12 months ended Dec. 31, 2017, mortgage production amounted to $14.950 billion, tumbling from $20.669 billion in 2016.
The financial institution said it serviced $118.424 billion in residential loans as of year-end 2017. The servicing portfolio dipped from $118.736 billion at the end of the previous quarter and fell from $121.639
billion at the end of the previous year.
The third-party portion of the latest portfolio was $89.124 billion, while the weighted-average servicing fee on loans serviced for others was 0.278.
Residential loans on BB&T’s balance sheet inched up to $28.725 billion from $28.657 billion. But the balance has fallen from $29.921 billion at the end of 2016.
BB&T withheld mortgage delinquency data from the latest report.
The balance sheet also included $21.263 billion in commercial real estate assets. CRE loans increased from
an upwardly revised $20.855 billion three months earlier and an upwardly revised $19.764 billion one year earlier.
There were 36,484 full-time employees on BB&T’s payroll, fewer than the upwardly revised
37,213 as of Oct. 31, 2017, and the upwardly revised 37,481 as of year-end 2016.
The bank operated 2,049 banking offices, cutting branch count by 78 during the quarter.
Another sharp drop is expected this year with 150 branch closures planned.
