Quarterly residential production moved higher at JPMorgan Chase &Â Co. and is likely to continue expanding during the current quarter. The improvement was even more pronounced for earnings.
Mortgage originations expanded to $32.2 billion from the first quarter’s $31.7 billion, according to second-quarter earnings data reported today. Business was worse, however, than $41.1 billion a year ago.
Retail originators generated $15.3 billion of the latest volume, leaping from the first quarter’s $11.4 billion. Wholesale business was unchanged at $0.4 billion, correspondent production fell to $14.7 billion from $16 billion and negotiated transactions sank to $1.8 billion from $3.9 billion.
Home-equity origination volume was $0.3 billion, the same as the first quarter and half the level funded in the second-quarter 2009.
New business is likely headed higher, with second-quarter mortgage application volume surging to $52 billion from $39 billion three months earlier. Retail applications were up 37 percent and correspondent applications were 29 percent higher.
The New York-based company serviced $1.0552 trillion in mortgages for third parties as of June 30, less than $1.0750 trillion at the end of March. The servicing portfolio stood at $1.1175 trillion 12 months prior.
Mortgage holdings declined to $238.4 billion from $246.6 billion on March 31. Holdings were $270.5 billion a year earlier. Purchased credit-impaired loans accounted for $76.9 billion of the June 30 figure, .
The rate of 30-day delinquency on consumer loans, excluding government-insured loans, improved to 1.42 percent from the prior quarter’s 1.47 percent and the prior year’s 1.80 percent.
“Although we are gratified to see consumer-lending net charge-offs and delinquencies decline, they remain at extremely high levels and therefore returns in our consumer-lending businesses are still unacceptable,” JPMorgan Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said in the report.
Net income before taxes for mortgage banking and other consumer lending climbed to $630 million from the first quarter’s $448 million the second-quarter 2009’s $384 million. The improvement was driven by higher non-interest revenue and a lower provision for credit losses.
Second-quarter earnings for all of JPMorgan climbed to $4.8 billion from $3.3 billion the prior quarter and $2.7 billion the prior year.
“Our net income increased to $4.8 billion, including the benefit from a $1.5 billion reduction of loan loss reserves — which we do not believe represents normal ongoing earnings — partially offset by a charge of $550 million for the U.K. bonus tax,” Dimon said.
The retail financial services unit had 116,879 employees at the end of last month, more than 112,616 the prior quarter and 103,733 12 months prior. The business employed 6,785 sales specialists as of June 30, higher than 6,315 three months earlier.
Company-wide headcount ended the second quarter at 232,939, more employees than 226,623 at the end of the previous quarter and the 220,255 people working for the company on June 30, 2009.
