SunTrust Banks Inc. saw a bigger quarter-over-quarter decline in home lending than many of its peers. But its mortgage servicing grew.
Before the provision for income taxes, the Atlanta-based bank-holding company earned $629 million during the three months ended March 31.
SunTrust delivered the data, along with other financial and operational metrics, in its earnings report for the first-quarter 2017.
Earnings were trimmed from $660 million the prior period and $644 million a year prior.
Mortgage earnings climbed to $111 million from $103 million in the fourth-quarter 2016 but dropped from $122 million in the first-quarter 2016. The total for the first-three months of this year included $53 million in production income and $58 million in servicing income.
From Jan. 1, 2017, through the end of last month, residential loan originations came to $5.491 billion. Business tumbled from $8.665 billion in the final-three months of last year — with the 37 percent quarter-over-quarter decline at the high end for the industry. But home lending was better than $4.952 billion in the first-three months of last year.
First-quarter 2017 production consisted of $2.292 billion in retail lending and $3.199 billion in correspondent acquisitions.
Refinance share was slashed to 46 percent from 58 percent in the fourth-quarter 2016.
Second-quarter 2017 originations will likely be even lower based on applications, which fell to $7.7 billion in the first-quarter 2017 from $8.3 billion the previous period.
SunTrust serviced $164.484 billion in mortgages as of last month. The servicing portfolio
expanded from $160.175 billion at the end of 2016 and $148.941 billion at the same point in 2016. The third-party portion of the most-recent number was $135.633 billion.
The ratio of the carrying value of mortgage servicing rights to loans serviced was 1.213 percent,
the same as the prior quarter.
Residential assets on SunTrust’s balance sheet were trimmed to $38.170 billion as of March 31, 2017, from $38.586 billion three months earlier and $38.616 billion one year earlier. Last month’s balance consisted of $0.549 billion in guaranteed mortgages, $26.110 billion in non-guaranteed mortgages and $11.511 billion in home-equity assets.
On the non-guaranteed mortgages, delinquency of between 30 and 89 days was 0.26 percent, down 6 basis points from the fourth-quarter 2016 and 9 BPS better than the first-quarter 2016.
Home-equity delinquency
fell to 0.63 percent from 0.68 percent the prior period but worsened from 0.59 percent a year prior.
The bank owned $9.282 billion in commercial real estate assets as of the most-recent date. CRE assets grew from $9.011 billion as of Dec. 31, 2016, and $8.532 billion as of March 31, 2016. The latest CRE total was comprised of $5.067 billion in commercial mortgages and $4.215 billion in construction loans.
Commercial mortgage delinquency was 0.03 percent, up a basis point from year-end 2016 but 3 BPS better than at the same point last year.
March 2017 concluded with 24,215 full-time equivalent employees on the payroll. Headcount was reduced from 24,375 people at the end of last year. But staffing increased from 23,945 the same point last year.
SunTrust operated 1,316 full-service banking offices as of the most-recent date, fewer than 1.367 as of year-end 2016.
