While home loan production squeaked by prior quarterly results, pre-tax mortgage banking earnings took a hit at BB&T Corp. The mortgage servicing portfolio also fell.
In its first-quarter financial report, Branch Banking and Trust Co. reported that it funded $4.035 billion in residential loans during the first three months this year.
Correspondent acquisitions comprised $2.3 billion of lending volume, while retail originations contributed $1.7 billion.
Refinance share was 56 percent, leaping from 39 percent in the fourth quarter.
Recent quarterly mortgage originations were $0.147 billion higher than the fourth-quarter 2014.
New business also finished ahead of first-quarter 2014 production, which came in at $3.804 billion.
The total mortgage servicing portfolio decreased to $121.079 billion as of March 31 from $122.257 billion as of Dec. 31 last year and $121.942 billion as of the same day a year ago in March.
The most recent amount included $89.192 billion residential loans serviced for third parties.
Residential loans on BB&T’s balance sheet dropped to $30.533 billion from $31.090 billion at the end of last year.
“Mortgage balances declined due to management’s continuing strategy to sell all conforming loan production and the impact of prior quarter loan sales,” the mortgage lender said in its earnings data.
The latest asset total also shrank from $32.897 billion as of March 31, 2014.
The rate of 30-day delinquency on residential loans was 2.10 percent as of March 31, 2015.
BB&T’s commercial real estate assets dipped to $13.374 billion from $13.457 billion as of Dec. 31, 2014. The company increased its CRE holdings, however, from $12.889 billion as of the end of the first-quarter a year ago.
Last month’s total consisted of $10.719 billion in commercial mortgages and $2.655 billion in loans for construction and development.
At $103 million for the first three months this year, the residential mortgage banking business earnings before taxes fell $29 million from the preceding three months. Still, recent income finished $2 million ahead of first-quarter 2014 earnings.
At the bank-holding company level, BB&T’s first-quarter income before income taxes dove to $788 million from the revised amounts of $880 million and $829 million earned in last year’s fourth and first quarters, respectively.
On the last day of March, BB&T accounted for 32,109 employees. Staffing was down from a revised 32,265 on the final day of 2014 and a revised 33,704 on March 31 a year ago.
According to the most current quarterly data, headcount “represents a quarterly average.”
BB&T originally reported it had 32,264 employees at the end of last year and 33,765 employees at the end of the first-quarter 2014.
