The residential lending arm of Citicorp funded $18.6 billion of one- to four-family mortgages in the third quarter, an impressive 66% gain from the prior period, according to figures released Monday morning.
Compared to the same quarter a year ago, loan production by CitiMortgage rose 56%.
(According to research conducted by National Mortgage News, it appears that Citi is expanding its presence in wholesale lending again too.)
Although its loan production results were impressive, it appears that Citi is continuing to mark down the value of its mortgage servicing rights.
At September 30, its MSRs carried an asset value of $3.9 billion, compared to $6.2 billion a year ago, a decline of 36%. (At June 30, CitiMortgage serviced $678 billion in residential loans. A comparable figure for Sept. 30 was not readily available at press time.)
Regarding foreclosures, company chief financial officer John Gerspach said the bank has found no issues with the way its servicing operation processes foreclosures, indicating it has no plans to follow other large banks in suspending foreclosure sales pending a review of their practices.
Gerspach said Citi has reviewed its procedures, calling them "sound." He made the comments during a conference call with reporters to discuss the bank's third-quarter earnings.
Meanwhile, Citigroup continues to whittle down the residential holdings of its affiliate, Citi Holdings. That unit had residential real estate holdings of $136 billion at Sept. 30, a 14% decline from a year ago. But delinquencies in Citi Holdings rose slightly to 4.78%.
