Quarterly growth was recorded for mortgage assets, earnings and originations at Bank of America Corp. Contraction continued, however, in the mortgage servicing portfolio.
BofA revealed in its second-quarter earnings report that income before income taxes was $8.4 billion. Results were far better than the $6.8 billion earned in the same period last year.
A slightly bigger improvement was made compared to the first-three months of this year, when the bank-holding company generated $6.6 in pre-tax profit.
Bank of America Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan commented on the results, “Against modest economic growth of 2 percent, we had one of the strongest quarters in our history.”
Mortgage banking income climbed to $230 million from $122 million in the first quarter. The segment came up short, however, of the $312 million earned in the second-quarter 2016.
From April 1, 2017, through mid-year, BofA originated $17.936 billion in residential loans. First mortgages made up $13.251 billion, and home-equity loans accounted for $4.685 billion.
Business was better than $15.495 billion in the first quarter. Mortgage production has slowed, though, from $20.617 billion in the same three months last year.
Total first-half 2017 residential lending amounted to $33.431 billion.
The bank continued to reduce the size of its third-party servicing portfolio, which was cut to $284 billion as of June 30, 2017, from $296 billion three months prior and $353 billion
at the middle of last year.
Capitalized mortgage servicing rights dipped to 70 basis points from the prior quarter’s 72 BPS but was much higher than 51 BPS in the same period during 2016.
Residential assets on the balance sheet grew to $259.388 billion from $257.758 billion as of March 31 and $257.530 billion as of June 30, 2016.
Commercial real estate holdings expanded to $59.177 billion from $57.849 billion the preceding period and $57.612 billion at the same point the preceding year.
The 210,904 people on BofA’s payroll was mostly the same as in the previous period but off more than 4,000 employees from the same date last year.
As of the conclusion of last month, 4,542 financial centers were in operation, 17 fewer than three months earlier.
