Thrifts Fund $203 Bill in Q2

The thrift industry funded $203 billion in home mortgages in the second quarter, a 6% decline compared to the same quarter last year, according to new figures released by the Office of Thrift Supervision.However, compared to the first quarter, residential production rose 36%. Washington Mutual, Seattle, the nation's largest thrift, funded $76.35 billion in mortgages during the second quarter, or 38% of the thrift industry's total residential production, according to calculations done by MortgageWire and the Quarterly Data Report. Second quarter production was healthy thanks to rate declines this spring, which caused refinancings to increase. The OTS said the thrift industry, as a whole, earned $3.38 billion in the second quarter, a 4.2% decline compared to the same quarter last year.