In Q3, Planet Financial Group LLC [1], parent of national mortgage lender and servicer Planet Home Lending LLC [2] and Planet Management Group LLC [3], continued to report steady growth across its servicing, correspondent, and private-client channels.
Planet Home Lending's servicing portfolio ended Q3 at $45 billion, up 36% from $33 billion at year-end 2020. Total units rose to approximately 196,000, increasing 29% from approximately 152,000 at year-end 2020. The average loan size in the portfolio was $229,436 in Q3 2021 and $214,439 at year-end 2020. The company's third-party sub-servicing portfolio expanded significantly during the first nine months of 2021. It ended Q3 with approximately 30,000 active assets valued at more than $8 billion, including approximately $1 billion of interim serviced loans.
Planet Home Lending's total origination volume reached $7.2 billion in Q3 2021, up 31% from $5.5 billion in Q3 2020.
"The Planet Financial Group family of companies, which includes brands like Planet Home Lending and Planet Management Group, generated a strong third quarter this year, highlighting our ability to thrive in all market cycles," said Michael Dubeck [4], CEO and President of Planet Financial Group. "Even as the industry resets due to shrinking margins, Planet's momentum continued as we posted growth in our originations, servicing and asset management divisions."
Correspondent volume rose to a record $6 billion in Q3 2021, up 46% compared to Q3 2020's $4.1 billion. The volume increases were driven by the addition of new correspondent lending partners and rising volume from existing partners. Planet Home Lending is now the sixth-ranked government correspondent lender and is ranked 12th overall.
Total retail direct originations were $1.2 billion in Q3 2021, decreasing slightly from Q3 2020's $1.4 billion. Retention originations increased to $627 million in Q3 2021, up 7% from Q3 2020's $585 million. The company's Distributed Retail channel originated $584 million in home loans in Q3 2021, down somewhat from the $814 million the channel originated in Q3 2020.
Planet Home Lending's distributed retail recapture rate for refinances and purchases is 70.6% through Q3 of 2021, nearly four times the industry average of 18%, reported by Black Knight Inc. for Q4 2020.