San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co. has become the dominant U.S. mortgage lender, grabbing an unprecedented 28.8 percent share of all home loans issued nationwide last year, up from 11.2 percent in 2007, the year before it bought Wachovia, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Its home-loan production hit $524 billion last year, the largest annual total ever for one lender and greater than the output of the next five largest lenders combined, according to the publication Inside Mortgage Finance. The mortgage-banking operations of U.S. banks and thrifts reported profits of $31.9 billion last year, about six times the $5.2 billion notched in 2011 and the largest total in at least a decade, according to Inside Mortgage Finance. Wells recorded income of $11.6 billion from mortgage banking last year, up nearly 50 percent from 2011.
