A surge in secondary marketing gains helped push up how much mortgage bankers earned on their quarterly loan production.
Average originations for independent mortgage bankers and mortgage subsidiaries of chartered banks that participated in the current and prior-quarter surveys were 1,954 loans for $481 million during the first quarter,
Mortgage production moved up from three months earlier, when average originations amounted to 1,791 loans for $424 million.
The metrics were detailed in the Quarterly Mortgage Bankers Performance Report Q1 2015 from the Mortgage Bankers Association. A total of 359 companies participated in the survey.
A year earlier, average production was 1,238 loans for $274 million.
Participating lenders closed an average of 2.4 loans per production employee each month during the latest period.
Average closings per sales employee dropped to 120 loans from 131 loans in the final three months of 2014 but improved from 111 in the first three months of 2014.
At firms that originated less than $50 million in the first-quarter 2015, average monthly closings per sales employee were 5.1. The average jumped to 8.3 at companies that closed more than $250 million.
Loans spent an average of 18 days on warehouse lines, one day less than last year’s fourth quarter and unchanged
from the first three months of last year.
Origination fees averaged 45 basis points, less than the 52 BPS earned on fourth-quarter 2014 production and the 54 BPS earned in the first-quarter 2014.
Origination fees jumped to 63 BPS at lenders that funded less than $50 million during the most-recent period, while they plummeted to 31 BPS at firms with production in excess of $250 million.
Human resource expense worked out to 201 BPS on first-quarter 2015 originations, off from 203 BPS the prior quarter and 236 BPS one year prior.
Net secondary marketing income improved to 299 BPS from 268 BPS and was also better than 277 BPS in the first quarter of last year.
After all was said and done, independent mortgage bankers earned 63 BPS in net production per loan, soaring from 30 BPS three months prior and swinging from an eight-basis-point loss 12 months prior.
The quarter-over-quarter improvement in net income was the result of secondary marketing gains, which leapt to 211 BPS from 179 BPS in the final quarter of last year.
Net production income at companies with less than $50 million in production was only 22 BPS versus 73 BPS at companies with more than $250 million in originations.
At mortgage firms that derive all of their business from the retail channel, net first-quarter 2015 production income was 65 BPS, while it dropped to 42 BPS at lenders that generate at least three-quarters of their originations
through the wholesale channel.
