Summit Credit Union No. 1 for Wisconsin Home Loans in 2021

Two credit unions were among the nation’s 25 biggest credit union mortgage lenders last year on the strength of their leading positions in their home state of Wisconsin, according a CU Times analysis.

Data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act showed Summit Credit Union of Madison, Wis. ($4.9 billion in assets, 227,353 members as of March 31) had both the largest number and value of originations in 2021 in Wisconsin. Its Madison neighbor, UW Credit Union ($5 billion, 314,472 members), fell from No. 1 in 2020 to second place in 2021.

HMDA data shows Summit and UW Credit Union made more than 99% of the value of their loans in Wisconsin last year. Even so, NCUA data shows that Summit ranked No. 24 and UW Credit Union ranked No. 25 among the nation’s 5,048 credit unions in 2021 based on the value of their originations of residential real estate.

The state-level rankings were the same whether counting total originations in HMDA data, which includes both 1st and 2nd liens, or narrowing the data to count only 1- to 4-unit residential loans (of any lien type) where the borrower was planning to use the home for a primary or secondary residence. It was further narrowed to exclude loans “primarily for a business or commercial purpose.”

There were few commercial loans to weed out for Summit and UW Credit Union. It made a difference at Landmark Credit Union of Madison ($6.1 billion, 371,394 members), where business lending is big. While Landmark ranked No. 5 with $1.8 billion total originations in Wisconsin, it was No. 6 for residential loans.

Narrowing HMDA data to residential loans also allowed a close comparison to NCUA data, which reports the value of residential originations both under the new report classifications launched in the first quarter of 2022 and in previous reports.

The NCUA origination values show the same change in rankings from 2020 to 2021 for Summit and UW Credit Union.

One of the advantages of the NCUA data is that allows comparisons of more recent periods — although only among credit unions. At this point, the most recent data is for originations in the first quarter of 2022, which shows UW Credit Union regaining the No. 1 spot among credit unions with $471 million in residential real estate in the first quarter, down 34% from a year earlier. Summit’s originations fell 20% to $467 million.

The detailed analysis for Wisconsin was spurred by a June 21 news release from Summit announcing that HMDA data showed it had the highest count of mortgages originated in Wisconsin last year.

Kim Sponem, Summit’s president/CEO, said in the news release that the credit union has been the largest mortgage lender for more than a decade in Dane County, which includes its headquarters in Madison.

The CU Times analysis of HMDA data shows Summit made 57% of its $2.4 billion in residential loans last year in Wisconsin. By count, it made 8,278, or 46%, of its total of 17,891 Wisconsin originations in its home county.

“We’re proud to be the No. 1 home lender in the state of Wisconsin,” Sponem said. “We will continue to help thousands of members buy their first homes or refinance their current homes so they can save thousands on their mortgage payments.”

HMDA data also showed credit unions as a whole accounted for 24% of the value of residential originations in the state in last year’s HMDA sample, down from 25% in 2020. It’s a sample because smaller institutions are exempted from reporting. Those reporting can differ from year to year, but in this analysis lenders were included only if they reported both years.

Residential originations by the 192 credit unions in the sample fell 3% to $12.9 billion, while loans by the other 664 lenders rose 2.2% to $41.6 billion.

The results show three of Wisconsin’s top six residential lenders in 2021 were credit unions:

1. Summit Credit Union originated $2.6 billion in residential loans in 2021, up 6.5%, according to HMDA data. NCUA shows its residential originations for the first quarter were $467 million, down 20% from 2021’s first quarter.
2. UW Credit Union, Madison, Wis., originated $2.4 billion in residential loans in 2021, down 8.9%, according to HMDA data. NCUA data shows its first-quarter originations fell 34% to $471 million.
3. Rocket Mortgage of Detroit ($32.8 billion in assets) originated $2.2 billion in residential loans in 2021, up 7.3%, according to HMDA data. Nationally, its volume fell 48% in the first quarter, according to its earnings report.
4. Associated Bank of Green Bay, Wis. ($34.5 billion in assets) originated $2.1 billion in residential loans in 2021, down 2.2%, according to HMDA data.
5. Fairway Independent Mortgage Corp. of Madison, Wis., originated $1.7 billion in residential loans in 2021, up 8.3%, according to HMDA data.
6. Landmark Credit Union originated $1.6 billion in residential loans in 2021, down 9.4%, according to HMDA data. NCUA data shows first-quarter loans fell 49% to $221.8 million.