Mortgage bankers continue to talk about declining refi applications but purchase money firms remain mostly optimistic about their prospects.

The revised ranking for the first quarter shows that the top retail lender, Wells Fargo, produced $60.4 billion through this channel, or 12 percent of total originations for the period.

Freddie filed repurchase requests on some $361.6 million of 2012 originations during the first quarter of this year, according to figures compiled by Inside Mortgage Trends.

Depositories sold $396 billion of single-family mortgages into the secondary market in the first quarter, down 5 percent from the previous period.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke indicated that the central bank is leaning toward scaling down its MBS purchases later this year, and that rapidly rising mortgage interest rates don’t pose a major threat to the fledgling housing recovery.

Residential debt outstanding fell slightly in the first quarter, but the GSE/FHA share of the market continued to grow.

The amount of home-equity loans held by depository institutions continued to decline in early 2013, with little sign that banks, thrifts and credit unions are likely to ramp up their lending in the near future, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis and ranking.

Bank of America recorded $10.45 billion of mortgage repurchases and indemnifications during the first quarter of 2013, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of recently released call report data.

Roughly $148 billion of single-family agency MBS were issued last month, down almost 3 percent from April’s level. May was the slowest month for agency MBS issuance so far in 2013.

Freddie Mac's low activity fee could add more than $2 million to its bottom line.