Home lending activity was off at Ocwen Financial Corp., though not as much as at its peers. Losses rose from the prior quarter but fell from a year prior.
The
West Palm Beach, Florida-based organization experienced a pre-tax loss of $30 million during the period started on Jan. 1, 2017, and ended March 31.
Ocwen provided the numbers, along with other operational and financial results,
in its earnings report for the first quarter of this year.
Losses worsened from $10 million three months earlier but were reduced from $102 million one year earlier.
“I am pleased that our servicing business had its third consecutive profitable quarter and that our origination business returned to profitability this quarter,” Ocwen President and Chief Executive Officer Ron Faris stated in the report.
During the first-three months of this year, total loans originated came to $1.114 billion. Business slipped from $1.286 billion in the fourth-quarter 2016 — though it was down less than the roughly one-third declines reported by many other mortgage bankers. But mortgage production was ahead of $0.979 billion in the first-quarter 2016.
The latest volume consisted of $0.841 billion in forward loans and $0.273 billion in reverse mortgages.
The total mortgage servicing portfolio, including sub-servicing, finished the first quarter of this year at $202.369 billion.
The total was down from $209.092 billion as of Dec. 31, 2016, and $237.081 billion as of March 31, 2016.
In the prior report, sub-servicing made up $4.330
of the total — roughly putting the latest primary mortgage servicing balance at an estimated $198.039 billion.
There were $3.916 billion in reverse mortgages held for investment as of the most-recent date. The balance
was $3.566 billion at the close of 2016 and $2.771 billion on the same date in 2016.
Delinquency closed out March 2017 at 10.7 percent. The
rate improved from 11.2 percent as of year-end 2016 and 13.0 percent as of the same point in 2016.
The report indicated that
Robert J. Lipstein has joined Ocwen’s board as an additional independent director.
