Mortgage-banking income reported by a diverse group of 33 lenders fell 16.0 percent from the second quarter of 2014 to the third, according to a new analysis by Inside Mortgage Trends. The 33 publicly traded companies, which include most of the top originators and servicers in the industry, had a combined $3.547 billion in net mortgage banking income during the third quarter. That was only 12.0 percent above the dreary $3.166 billion the group earned during the first three months of 2014, which was one of the industry’s least profitable quarters ever. The tepid third-quarter results came at a time when origination volume was unexpectedly strong – up 36.7 percent from the first quarter of 2014 – and many lenders have put ...