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Countrywide Credit Industries Inc., the Pasadena-based mortgage banker which rode the mortgage refinancing wave to rise from relative obscurity to become the nation's top loan originator, is facing its biggest challenge now that the refinance wave has broken, according to industry experts.
Countrywide last month reported record earnings for the fiscal year ended Feb. 28 of $179.5 million, or $2.91 a share, up 28 percent from the year-earlier $140.1 million, or $2.48 a share.
At fiscal year-end, Countrywide had $85 billion worth of loans in its servicing portfolio, compared with $54.5 billion a year before.
But as the company announced record earnings, it also released numbers which seem to signal that the refinance market has peaked.
It reported it originated $3.9 billion in loans in February, down 7 percent from January's $4.2 billion and a decline of 22 percent from December's $5 billion.
Nationwide, as interest rates have increased, "the refinance boom is ending," said Rob Rosenblatt, director of surveys for the Mortgage Bankers Association of America in Washington, D.C.
Mortgage bankers have concentrated marketing efforts on refinance...