Nationstar profit blunted by MSR write-down

Nationstar Mortgage Holdings posted net income of $7 million for the third quarter, its first under the new Mr. Cooper consumer-facing brand.

The results include a $48 million dollar write-down in the value of Nationstar's mortgage servicing rights. A year ago, Nationstar reported a net income of $45 million, and posted a net loss of $20 million last quarter.

The company adopted the Mr. Cooper moniker in August, the culmination of a multiyear process that included investments in operational changes, customer service training and product offerings. Nationstar remains the name of the publicly traded parent company.

Servicing earned $15 million in pretax income. With the largest portfolio in the history of the company, servicing profitability increased 11% from the previous quarter. About 39% of the portfolio is now subservicing, including the former CitiMortgage servicing portfolio recently acquired by New Residential Investment Corp.

Nationstar's servicing portfolio had an unpaid principal balance of $533 billion at the end of the third quarter and an all-time low delinquency rate of 3.2%.

"Nationstar continued to board new customers and grow both servicing and originations volume in the third quarter on the strength of our integrated business model and our focus on the customer," said Jay Bray, Nationstar's chief executive officer, in a press release.

Michael Nagle/Bloomberg

"We have boarded $128 billion in mortgage servicing this year while achieving solid operational results at 5 basis points in adjusted servicing profitability. We look forward to ending the year with over three million customers," he continued.

The origination segment exceeded the company's quarterly target of $40 million by posting $45 million in pretax income. Nationstar funded about $5.1 billion in loans in the third quarter, with 61% of the volume from the consumer-direct channel.

"Originations exceeded our target again this quarter with funded volume increasing 20%," said Bray. "We continue to focus on disciplined expense management even as we invest in our businesses, and we believe we have additional significant opportunities to drive further growth and efficiency over the long term."

The origination segment reported a pretax income over $40 million for 14 of the past 15 quarters.

Xome, the company's settlement services and real estate business, posted $17 million in pretax income. Third-party default inventory increased by 41% quarter-over-quarter.

Nationstar is making investments in expanding channels and product offerings with hopes of growing its purchase business, according to the company. It will also launch a digital mortgage application portal in the first half of 2018, aiming to target new and existing customers.