Wells Fargo & Co. continued to dominate the origination landscape in the third quarter, funding $90 billion of product and amassing a market share of just over 25%—the largest reading ever for one lender.
According to final survey figures published by NMN, Wells’ next closest competitor was Chase, a unit of JPMorgan Chase, which funded $38.9 billion, which gave it a 10.92% share.
The entire mortgage industry, NMN found, originated $356 billion of home loans—its best quarterly performance of the year.
In the first quarter and second quarter lenders funded $353 billion and $291 billion, respectively. But compared to a year-ago production fell 20%.
Just two lenders among the top 10 managed to grow production compared to the year-ago quarter: PHH Mortgage (up 1%) and MetLife Home Loans (up 16%), the latter of which is for sale.
Not surprisingly, Bank of America had the largest production drop among both the top 10 and the top 50.
B of A, which is in the process of exiting the correspondent channel, originated $33.8 billion, a 54% decline from 3Q 2010. It ranked third behind Wells and Chase.
The bank’s decline in mortgages has been well documented in NMN and other publications.
Although it is committed to retail mortgage lending, it continues to lose many top-producing loan officers.
Its latest loss includes Columbia, S.C., area retail manager Steve Ray and 11 of his staffers who accepted jobs at Regions Mortgage.
B of A employees past and present confirmed to NMN that Ray left the megabank in early December. Ray declined to comment. Sources close to him said he was a six-year veteran of the bank after working for Wachovia for almost 20 years.
One B of A source said Ray grew tired of exceedingly slow loan approval times at the bank.
A spokesman at B of A declined to comment on Ray directly, but stressed that the bank is doing its best trying to keep current top performers and recruit from other lenders in the industry.
As reported by NMN this fall, the bank has lost dozens of top-producing LOs over the past year. They have departed for such firms as Wells Fargo, Prime Lending/Plains Capital and CMG Mortgage.
