New Residential already seeing the benefits of Caliber deal

Powerhouse lender/servicer New Residential Investment Corp. had an impressive third quarter, with reported earnings of $177.5 million from July to September, up 136% quarter-over-quarter.

According to NRIC’s third quarter earnings released on Tuesday, the growth was spurred mainly by the REITs acquisition of mortgage lender Caliber Home Loans in August.

The acquisition of Caliber cost NRIC approximately $1.68 billion. But the deal is already paying off, helping push the real estate investment trust’s total gain on sale margin to 1.61% in the third quarter, up from 1.31% in the second quarter.

NRIC noted in their earnings that channel diversification and the combination of Caliber and Newrez LLC, the REITs other mortgage arm, propelled gain-on-sale margins by 30 basis points.

Michael Nierenberg, who heads New Residential, gave the industry a glimpse of where things stand after the acquisition, noting in a statement that the “integration of Caliber and Newrez mortgage platforms is well underway.”