Residential loan originations were lower last year at SunTrust Banks Inc., while mortgage delinquency turned sharply higher. The servicing portfolio, however, expanded.
Atlanta-based SunTrust revealed in its fourth-quarter 2017 earnings report that
income before the provision for income taxes was $668 million during the period.
Earnings were slightly better than the $660 million earned a year prior.
But income at the bank-holding company declined from $765 million the prior quarter.
Mortgage earnings worked out to $104 million during the most-recent three months, including $61 million in production income and $43 million in servicing income. The total slipped from $107 million in the third quarter but inched up from $103 million in the fourth-quarter 2016.
During the fourth-quarter 2017, single-family loan originations came to $6.302 billion — including $2.215 billion in retail lending and $4.087 in correspondent production. Business was a little better than $6.153 billion in the prior three-month period but sank from $8.665 billion in the same-three months during 2016.
Refinance share widened to 37 percent from 32 percent in the third quarter.
Full-year 2017 originations amounted to $24.371 billion, falling from $29.359 billion the preceding year.
The first quarter of this year is shaping up to be slower than the final quarter of last year based on new loan applications, which fell to $7.1 billion in the fourth-quarter 2017
from $7.7 billion in the previous three-month period.
As of the close of last year, SunTrust serviced residential loans with a collective unpaid principal balance of $165.448 billion. The servicing portfolio expanded from $165.273 billion at the end of September and $160.175 billion at the end of 2016.
Most recently, third-party servicing accounted for $136.071 billion of the total. The ratio of net carrying value of mortgage-servicing rights to unpaid principal balance was 1.257 percent, while the annualized servicing fee was 30 basis points.
SunTrust’s investment portfolio included $38.322 billion in residential assets, slightly less than $38.403 billion as of Sept. 30, 2017, and $38.586 billion as of year-end 2016. The most recent total was comprised of $0.560 billion in guaranteed mortgages, $27.136 billion in non-guaranteed mortgages and $10.626 billion in
home-equity assets.
On the non-guaranteed mortgages, delinquency of between 30 and 89 days was 0.55 percent, jumping 28 BPS from
three months earlier and 23 BPS from one year earlier.
Home-equity delinquency fell, however, to 0.71 percent from 0.85 percent — though it rose 3 BPS from year-end 2016.
On Suntrust’s $0.298 billion in residential construction loans, delinquency was 2.33 percent — skyrocketing 205 BPS from three months previous.
The balance sheet contained $9.121 billion in commercial real estate assets, including $5.317 in commercial mortgages and
$3.804 billion in commercial construction loans. CRE holdings were trimmed from $9.202 billion three months earlier but up from $9.011 billion one year earlier.
CRE loan delinquency was non-existent as of the latest period, falling from 0.02 percent at the conclusion of the third quarter and the conclusion of 2016.
Headcount ended last year at 23,785 people. Staffing was cut from 24,215 at the end of the third quarter and 24,375 at the end of 2016.
With 1,268 full-service banking offices in operation, SunTrust has eliminated seven branches since Sept. 30.
