Residential loan production picked up steam in March after a tepid January and February, while originators – both banks and nonbanks alike – kept a close eye on expenses in an effort to maintain positive cash flow. Bill Dallas, CEO and president of Skyline Home Loans, Calabasas, CA, said his company funded $650 million in the first quarter, a modest 5.8 percent decline from the same period a year ago. Roughly 75 percent of Skyline’s production was purchase loans, the exact opposite of what the company did in the year-ago quarter. “Over the past five months, since the election, the landscape has been...