Quarterly mortgage loan originations fell at Regions Financial Corp. But delinquency on home loans, home-equity products and commercial mortgages improved, while earnings soared.
Mortgage production volume was $1.6 billion during the first three months of 2012, according to earnings data released Tuesday.
Business fell from $1.8 billion closed in the fourth quarter. Production during the first three months of 2011 was the same, however, at $1.6 billion.
While Regions didn’t report its servicing portfolio size, a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicated that the portfolio finished last year at $41.1 billion, including $26.7 billion in loans serviced for third parties.
Residential first mortgages on the books ended the second quarter at $13.611 billion, less than $13.784 billion three months earlier and $14.404 billion a year earlier. Delinquency of at least 30 days on home loans was 4.10 percent, better than 4.14 percent as of Dec. 31 but unchanged from the same quarter last year.
First-lien home-equity loans on the balance sheet slipped to $5.760 billion from $5.884 billion and were $6.100 billion in the same period last year. Second-lien HELs, meanwhile, dropped to $6.882 billion from $7.137 billion and were $7.774 billion at the same point in 2011.
HELÂ delinquency improved to 1.93 percent from the fourth quarter’s 2.23 percent and from the year-earlier period’s 2.59 percent.
Commercial real estate loans owned by the bank finished March at $20.087 billion, easing from $20.868 billion at the end of last year. CRE assets were $24.821 billion as of March 31, 2011. Of the most-recent number, $10.931 billion was owner-occupied and $9.156 billion was investor.
Owner-occupied CRE delinquency was 0.70 percent, slipping 1 basis point from the prior quarter and 20 BPS better than the same quarter the prior year. Investor CRE loan delinquency climbed, however, to 1.35 percent from 0.91 percent but tumbled from 2.67 percent in the first-quarter 2011.
Regions owned $1.236 billion in commercial construction loans, off from $1.362 billion as of the end of the fourth quarter and way off $2.325 billion a year prior.
Mortgage income came in $77 million, $20 million better than in the third quarter and $32 million more than the first-quarter 2011.
Net income before taxes at the bank-holding company swung from a fourth-quarter $63 million loss to a $321 million profit. Income was also dramatically better than the $21 million earned in the year-earlier period.
As of the end of last month, 23,619 people worked at the Birmingham, Ala.-based bank. Headcount finished last year at 23,707 and was 24,356 a year prior.
Regions concluded the first quarter with 1,722 banking offices, four fewer then at the end of last year
