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As mortgage rates drove down refinance activity last year, some of the state’s top lenders saw their long-term strategies bear fruit as they competed for a limited number of homebuyers still in the market.

“In this business, you have to be eternally optimistic and that’s the outlook of this organization,” said Bill Schettler, chief production officer at Total Mortgage Services. “We’re trying to provide a quality service to the public that is sustainable, and that’s what we’re about from are very core.”

Every year, The Warren Group, publisher of The Commercial Record, compiles the top 10 mortgage lenders among Connecticut’s credit unions, banks and mortgage companies, ranked by number of loans and loan volume in several origination categories. All loans were originated in 2022.

Even with borrowers turning to home equity loans and lines of credit in 2022, nonpurchase mortgages fell year-over-year by 46 percent. Lenders had about 54,000 residential nonpurchase mortgages in 2022 compared to more than 100,000 in 2021. Volumes declined by 54 percent in 2022 to $12.88 billion from about $28.27 billion in 2021.

Purchase mortgages also fell in 2022. Lenders had about 26,900 single-family purchase mortgages in Connecticut in 2022, a 21 percent decline from 2021. The volume of single-family mortgages declined 18 percent year-over-year, from $11 billion in 2021 to $13.5 billion in 2022. Condominium purchase mortgages fell year-over-year by 21 percent to about 6,000 loans in 2022. The volume of condominium mortgages fell by 16 percent to about $1.4 billion.

Who were Connecticut’s top lenders of 2022? See our rankings to find out.

Opportunity in Purchase Market

Milford-based Total Mortgage Services originated 1,266 single-family purchase mortgages for $428.73 million in volume, the most in-state. The company also had 726 condominium purchase mortgages, the most among lenders in the state last year. Rocket Mortgage had the highest condominium volume in Connecticut last year with about $60.5 million.

Navy Federal Credit Union led credit unions with $73.2 million in single-family purchase mortgages and 203 loans. Navy Federal Credit Union also had 38 condominium loans for $7.69 million, the most among credit unions.

U.S. Bank had the most single-family purchase activity among bank lenders with about 1,700 in loans and $1.1 billion in volume. Leader Bank had the most condominium loans among banks, with about 1,040 loans, while First Republic Bank had the highest volume with $628.5 million in volume.

The top Connecticut-based bank lender for single-family purchase mortgages in 2022 was Middletown-based Liberty Bank with 354 loans for $168.1 million. Liberty Bank topped all bank lenders with 52 small multifamily loans.

Liberty Bank’s long-time focus on purchase mortgages, even while managing activity during the 2020 and 2021 refinance boom, gave the bank an advantage in 2022, said Kurt Johnson, the bank’s retail lending sales manager.

While 2022 started out similar to the previous two years, Johnson said, the rapid rise in mortgage interest rates meant lenders had to adjust to the changing economic conditions.

“When things shifted somewhat dramatically across the board, some of the refinancing went away,” Johnson said. “But we had always been focused on the purchase market, and we just continued to do what we had always been doing.”

Relationships Key to Success

Maintaining referral sources and delivering on commitments have helped the mortgage team build relationships throughout its footprint, Johnson said. As the industry shifted in 2022, Johnson said, the bank continued to use these relationships to bring in new business. Last year also saw more opportunities for in-person meetings and events compared to the first two years of the pandemic, Johnson said, helping loan officers to reinforce those relationships.

Johnson added that having a range of residential lending products aimed at various segments of the market – including loans for first-time homebuyers, jumbo mortgages, multifamily products and constructions loans – let the bank meet borrowers’ need throughout the different areas of the $6.9 billion-asset-bank’s footprint.

While the mortgage sales team and loan officers are busy right now, low housing inventory and borrowers’ concerns about rates have meant that the activity does not always lead to loans, Johnson said. But he expects the work the team is doing now will position the bank well should inventory increase and rates stabilize later in the year.

“Being a local bank – one that has been here for a few hundred years – people trust us, and I think that also gets us a foot in the door perhaps in a few places where others might not,” Johnson said. “It puts us in a great spot here in the local market.”

Integral in Community

Despite growing nationally as an online lender after launching in 1997, Total Mortgage Services also focuses on community relationships to bring in business. The mortgage company started to build its branch network in Connecticut about eight years ago, hiring veteran mortgage professionals and developing its own loan officers, said Schettler, the chief production officer who has been with Total Mortgage Services since 2001.

“One of the keys to our success is having people that we hire and that we grow buy into our philosophy – and that really is community based,” Schettler said. “We want our loan officers to be an integral part of the communities in which they reside.”

Having community-based branches has let loan officers become involved with all aspects of their local real estate markets, Schettler said, and the network of referral partners they have built helps bring in business during challenging market environments.

While the industry faced new and unforeseen challenges in 2022, Schettler said Total Mortgage Services continued to focus on service and commitments to distinguish itself in the market.

“The market is certainly beyond our control, and we have to we have to figure out a way to fight that fight, regardless of rate environment,” Schettler said. “Largely, we’ve done that through maintaining our service level.”

Every loan gets the same amount of attention, Schettler said, adding that borrowers’ experiences with Total Mortgage Services have led to a significant amount of repeat business.

Schettler also pointed to staff throughout the organization and their ideas for improving the company as keys to Total Mortgage’s success.

“If they see something that we could be doing different, we almost require that you raise your hand, and there’s real power in that from a management perspective,” Schettler said. “Certainly you’re empowering your employees, and people like to work here for that