Despite Its Exit From Wholesale, Wells Has Best Production Quarter of the Year

Wells Fargo originated $139 billion of new residential mortgages in the third quarter, its best production quarter of the year.

The strong performance comes despite its announced exit from wholesale lending, a disclosure that came in early July. (Although Wells was the nation’s largest wholesale funder, the channel accounted for about 6% of its total origination base. The bank is also in the process of ending several joint venture lending relationships it has with realty firms.)

In the first and second quarters the nation’s largest residential originator funded $130 billion and $131 billion of home mortgages, respectively.

In 3Q the bank continued to ride the refinancing wave with solid originations which generated millions of dollars in mortgage banking fees.

Wells reported Friday morning that it earned $2.8 billion from mortgage banking activities in 3Q down 3.3% from the second quarter. Compared to a year ago, its mortgage income rose 53%.

In the third quarter of last year it funded $89 billion of home loans.

The megabank ended the third quarter with $97 billion of loans in its pipeline. At the end of 2Q its pipeline totaled $102 billion.