Though origination profit margins remain strong, the nation's largest servicers posted weak gains on their housing balances in the second quarter, according to survey figures compiled by National Mortgage News in its Quarterly Data Report.
In the second-quarter edition of the QDR, the newspaper said that the nation's largest processors of housing receivables — Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. — reported year-over-year changes of 4%, 2% and minus-6%, respectively.
Combined, the three companies control about 53% of the market, according to the newspaper's calculations. At June 30, B of A ranked first among all home loan servicers with a balance of $2.197 trillion followed by Wells ($1.81 trillion) and JPM Chase ($1.35 trillion).
Among the top 10 servicers, the only companies showing strong growth in the quarter were U.S. Bancorp's U.S. Bank Home Mortgage, up 17%, to $199 billion, and BB&T Corp., up 14%, to $91 billion.
This spring National Mortgage News reported that consumers were increasingly paying down their mortgage debts, and first-quarter servicing balances in the U.S. fell for the first time in well over a decade.
The decline in housing debt was caused both by mortgages being removed from the calculations due to foreclosure and by "cash in" refinancings in which a mortgagor reduces his or her debt by putting more cash into the deal.
