Quarterly home-lending activity at PHH Mortgage tumbled, while the servicing portfolio has been cut to just a fraction of its year-earlier size. Good news is that losses were slashed.
In its earnings report for the final quarter of last year, the Mount Laurel, New Jersey-based company revealed that it suffered a $7 million loss before income taxes.
PHH, which is being acquired by Ocwen Financial Corp., slashed its losses from the last three months of 2016, when they were a whopping $206 million.
Losses were also significantly reduced from $78 million in the third quarter.
The year-over-year improvement in earnings reflected expenses that were cut to $116 million from $278 million.
Production earnings were $10 million during the fourth-quarter 2017, while the servicing loss was $7 million, and “other” income was a $10 million loss.
From Oct. 1, 2017, through the conclusion of last year, PHH originated 6,756 single-family loans for $3.462 billion. Business tumbled from the 10,643 loans that were closed for $4.944 billion in the third quarter and spiraled down from 18,518 units funded for $8.885 billion in the fourth-quarter 2016.
Fourth-quarter refinance share was
50.4 percent, fattening from 38.1 percent the previous period. All of PHH’s originations are generated through the retail channel.
Full-year mortgage originations came to 41,827 loans for $19.757 billion, significantly less than 79,462 loans that were originated in 2017 for $37.229 billion.
In the first-three months of this year,
loan production is likely plummeting based on total applications, which sank to $2.3 billion in the fourth-quarter 2017 from $5.7 billion three months earlier. Further evidence of first-quarter slowing are interest rate lock commitments, which plunged to $0.4 billion from $0.8 billion in the third quarter.
Primary servicing stood at
42,616 mortgages with a collective unpaid principal balance of $9.118 billion as of Dec. 31, 2017. The servicing portfolio receded from 45,677 loans for $9.663 billion three months earlier and has dramatically decreased form 567,647 loans serviced for $85.472 billion one year earlier..
The capitalized servicing multiple was 3.0, and the weighted-average servicing fee was 27 basis points.
Another 629,174 loans were sub-serviced most recently for $139.037 billion.
Based on the unpaid principal balance and excluding foreclosures and bankruptcies, delinquency of at least 30 days was 2.49 percent as of year-end 2017,
worsening from 2.34 percent at the end of the third quarter and 2.56 percent at the end of 2016.
The foreclosure and bankruptcy rate was 1.49 percent,
down from 1.55 percent the prior quarter and 1.96 percent a year prior.
