First American Financial Corp., Santa Ana, Calif., had net income of $34 million in the second quarter. One year prior, the company had net income of $29 million.
These are the first results posted by the "new" First American; its former parent split the company into two publicly traded businesses (the other being CoreLogic) on June 1.
Closed orders were down by 30% in this year's second quarter as opposed to 2009's, 309,000 vs. 438,100. Still, the Title Insurance and Services segment had a pretax margin of nearly 7%.
Average revenue per order was up 20% because the mix of business shifted to resale transactions, where First American can charge a higher premium.
But later in the quarter, the company noted, open orders for refinance transactions began to grow, and this trend accelerated in July. Total open orders for the quarter were 410,000 vs. 566,300 last year.
The company said open orders per day in July are up 8% over June.
Commercial title revenue went from $52 million in the second quarter 2009 to $62 million for this year's second quarter.
