Shift in Mortgage Servicer Concentration

Although the three-biggest mortgage servicers reduced their servicing portfolios during the first quarter, a trio of rising stars each added mortgage servicing rights on more than $100 billion in loans to their own portfolios. While overall mortgage originations were off from the fourth quarter of last year, several players still managed to grow their businesses. The second-quarter forecast is for stronger mortgage production.

Residential lenders operating in the United States originated 6.2 percent less in loans during the first three months of this year than they did in the final three months of 2012, according to Mortgage Daily’s First-Quarter 2013 Mortgage Lender Ranking.

But the home loan business improved 13.8 percent from the first quarter of last year.

The findings are based on data collected by Mortgage Daily through its quarterly origination survey, publicly reported data and quarterly earnings reports from a total of 35 firms that generate at least $1 billion in annual production. At least six firms were identified that didn’t report first-quarter data but did previously generate at least $1 billion in quarterly volume.

Estimated first-quarter 2013 mortgage originations by all lenders worked out to $505 billion in closed loans.

Based on the U.S. Mortgage Market Index from LoanSifter and Mortgage Daily and using a 60-day lag for processing time, second-quarter business is poised to increase 13 percent over the first quarter. That puts estimated U.S. mortgage originations at around $571 billion during the second quarter.

Wells Fargo & Co. maintained its dominance of the U.S. mortgage market with $109 billion in first-quarter production. Market share, however, slipped to 22 percent from 23 percent at the San Francisco-based company.

Rankings for the second through sixth positions also didn’t change from the fourth quarter.

The biggest decline among reporting lenders during the first quarter was at Ally Financial Inc., where mortgage production tumbled 38 percent from the fourth-quarter 2012. Ally is executing a plan to wind down its consumer mortgage lending business.

Provident Funding Associates LP saw a 28 percent drop in fundings. PrimeLending was down 24 percent, HomeStreet Inc. had a 22 percent decline, and USA Mortgage reported a 21 percent decrease.

The best improvement over the fourth quarter was at Stonegate Mortgage, which had a 36 percent increase.

Bank of America Corp. and SunTrust Mortgage each boosted business by 11 percent, followed by a 10 percent increase at Nationstar Mortgage LLC and a 7 percent rise at Citigroup Inc.

In all, 15 mortgage bankers reported increased activity compared to the fourth-quarter 2012.

Wells Fargo, BofA and Chase maintained their respective No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 positions among the country’s biggest servicers of home loans — though each reduced their servicing portfolios from year-end 2012.

Servicing portfolios reflect both third-party servicing and residential loans held for investment.

But Ocwen Financial Corp. — which more than doubled its mortgage servicing portfolio from the fourth quarter to $469 billion as of March 31 — leapt into the No. 4 position, displacing Citi in the process.

Nationstar grew the loans it owns mortgage servicing rights on by more than $100 billion to end of the first quarter at $312 billion — landing the Lewisville, Texas-based company in sixth spot.

Walter Mortgage Co. became a top-10 mortgage servicer by pushing its mortgage servicing portfolio from less than $80 billion at the end of last year to more than $200 billion as of the end of March.

Ocwen, Nationstar and Walter are all poised to expand originations from refinancing their rapidly growing portfolios. Quicken Loans Inc. is also positioned to capitalize on a fast-growing servicing portfolio.