Quarterly home lending activity at Wells Fargo & Co. moved lower, as did its servicing portfolio and mortgage income.
Fourth-quarter
residential loan production was $44 billion, according to earnings data reported Wednesday.
Business was down from the three months ended Sept. 30, when Wells Fargo funded $48 billion.
Mortgage production also diminished compared to the fourth-quarter 2013, when $50 billion was originated.
For all of last year, Wells Fargo’s mortgage originations amounted to $175 billion, sinking from $351 billion in 2013.
At $27 billion in fourth-quarter 2014 retail originations, there was no change from the
previous period. Correspondent originations, though, fell $4 billion to $16 billion.
Refinance share in the latest three-month period was 40 percent, widening from 30 percent in the third quarter.
First-quarter 2015 production is shaping up to improve modestly based on new applications, which inched up to $66 billion in the fourth quarter from $64 billion three months earlier.
The application pipeline crept up to $26 billion from $25 billion.
The San Francisco-based firm reported a managed servicing portfolio of
$1.747 trillion, less than the $1.772 trillion serviced as of the end of the third quarter. At the end of 2013, the managed servicing portfolio was $1.823 trillion.
The latest total
included $1.405 billion in third-party servicing.
In addition, another $0.005 trillion was sub-serviced for others.
Residential assets ended December at $325.103 billion,
drifting up from an upwardly revised $324.212 billion at the end of September. Mortgage assets were an upwardly revised $324.457 as of the end of 2013.
The Dec. 31, 2014, investment portfolio included $265.386 billion in first mortgages and $59.717 billion in junior liens.
Wells Fargo’s total commercial
mortgage servicing portfolio rose to $0.568 trillion from $0.547 trillion and was $0.526 trillion at the end of 2013.
The report indicated that $456 billion
of the commercial mortgage servicing portfolio was for third parties.
An additional $0.007 trillion in commercial mortgages were sub-serviced for third parties.
Commercial real estate loans on the balance sheet ended the fourth-quarter 2014 at
$130.724 billion, more than the $130.154 billion owned as of Sept. 30 and $129.361 owned as of Dec. 31, 2013.
CRE assets as of the most recent date reflected $111.996 billion in commercial mortgages and $18.728 billion in construction loans.
Unresolved repurchase demands and mortgage insurance rescissions finished last year at 839 loans for $0.183 billion. That was down from 981 loans for $0.220 billion at the end of the third quarter.
Mortgage income
came in at $1.515 billion, decreasing from $1.633 billion in the prior report and slightly lower than $1.570 billion in the year-earlier report. The quarter-over-quarter decline was attributed to lower gain-on-sale revenue reflecting seasonally lower origination volumes.
Company-wide income before income taxes dropped to $8.3 billion from $8.6 billion in the third quarter and $8.2 billion in the fourth-quarter 2013.
As of the end of the fourth quarter, Wells Fargo employed 264,500 team members, expanding its staff from 263,900 three months earlier but off from 264,900 a year earlier.
