The number of companies holding licenses to lend, originate, or service mortgage loans declined slightly in the first quarter of 2013 from one year earlier but the numbers of licenses held by those companies increased. The National Mortgage Licensing System issued its First Quarter 2013 report this week showing an 0.2 percent decline to 15,842 unique companies holding NMLS licenses compared to a year earlier but the number of licenses held by those companies was up 7 percent to 32,797.

The number of individuals holding licenses as Mortgage Loan Originators (MLOs) increased by 3.5 percent to 112,970 and the number of licenses held by those individuals jumped 22 percent to 252,555. MLOs who renewed expired licenses were counted as "new" licensees in the NMLS data.

There are 19,046 companies licensed to operate branches and a total of 34,295 branches authorized.

Numbers of companies and individuals licensed by NMLS do not necessarily include those doing business under federal registration by such agencies as the Office of Comptroller of the Currency. Dual licensure/registration is held by 101 companies and 2,973 individuals.

Applications for new company licenses have held steady over the last six quarters, averaging 1,400 per quarter. There were 1,494 applications in the first quarter of 2013, an increase of 54 applications from the first quarter of 2012. Applications for MLO licenses have increased steadily over the last year. There were a total of 83,362 applications submitted in 2012 and 27,059 applications in the first quarter of 2013, the highest number in NMLS's brief history.

Companies licensed by NMLS are involved in a number of businesses, the largest of which is mortgage brokering.

Eighty-one percent of companies hold a license in just one state. While the number of companies with just one license declined (to 12,838 in 2013 from 13,232 in 2012, or three percent), the number of companies who hold more than 10 state licenses is on the rise.

Seventy-five percent of MLOs are licensed in only one state however over the past year while the number of MLOs holding only one license has increased three percent, the numbers holding multiple licenses increased at higher rates with those holding more than 10 licenses jumping by 53 percent. The average number of state licenses per MLO is now 2.26 compared to 2.0 one year ago.

The average licensed company employes 6.5 MLOs, up from 5.8 a year earlier. There are an average of 14.5 licenses for MLOs in each company compared to 11.4 in the first quarter of 2012.  Mortgage Call Report Data submitted in NMLS shows there were a total of 3,282,904 loans worth $764 billion originated in 2012.