Despite that decline, the company notched its second-best quarterly earnings ever over that period.

The investments, part of a post-merger effort to wring out more profits, include new commercial and mortgage lending platforms.

The company’s 4Q originations were down from the same time in 2019 and the number of overall loans for 2020 marked a decline from the year before.

While some industry forecasts predicted origination volumes would fall 7% quarter-to-quarter in 4Q, early earnings numbers from Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citi and PNC Bank show they were down just 3% when purchased loans are excluded.

But will the company's second attempt to go public come to fruition in a market where two lenders already put their offerings on hold?

The company had canceled its planned pricing of the deal at the end of October over stock market volatility.

Strong earnings expected in the next year will provide the best opportunity in decades to raise capital and monetize equity, Stephen Curry of Endurance Advisory Partners argues.

Noninterest income has bolstered profits this year. But its growth is expected to slow over the next two years, making for a gloomy earnings outlook unless vaccine distributions and the economic recovery are relatively swift.

The results are in the middle of the range provided before the company went public in October.

Originations from all sources, including commercial and reverse mortgages, total $9.2 billion.

Rick Thornberry discusses the company's third-quarter results and the decision to drop traditional appraisals.

The company reached a new record high for closed loan volume, and reported a cyclical drop in gain-on-sale margins reflecting changes in its product and channel mix.

The company, which earned $535 million in net income in 3Q20, has been prioritizing purchase volume and managing costs to account for a possible decline in originations next year.

For most of the underwriters it was a strong quarter, but concerns remain over government-sponsored enterprise reform and potential claims after forbearances end.

The company is finding it challenging to ramp originations back up after spending most of the second quarter on the sidelines.

Compared with the second quarter, the title insurer had 154,000 more orders opened and earned $89 per residential file.

The origination boom generated another profit for the company in the third quarter, when also it obtained a novel source of liquidity to support its servicing operations.

Lenders pushed back against the notion that city dwellers' pandemic-driven flight to suburbia would hurt them. They say fewer landlords have sought deferrals as vacancy rates remain low and rent collections have stabilized.

The upcoming shift may help to prepare the government-sponsored enterprise for a conservatorship exit by reducing interest-rate volatility in Fannie’s earnings.

The government-sponsored enterprise also saw a 22% increase in net worth from the second quarter.