Existing MagicBlocks leadership and development staff are expected to join Beeline. The companies expect the deal to close in June, subject to negotiation and execution of a definitive agreement and employment agreements for MagicBlocks' founders. Final approval will also be required from a special committee of Beeline's board, SAFE noteholders and other customary conditions.
JPMorgan Chase's origination volume hit $13.7 billion in the first quarter, down 14% from the prior quarter and up 46% from the same period last year. Retail channels drove most of the production, accounting for 63.5% of the total. The bank's home lending revenues reached $1.23 billion in the first quarter, up 2% year over year.
A good example of how we're thinking about that in the mortgage business is we're looking at the full process including process, systems and technology that the Cadence colleagues use to originate mortgages, and looking at the full process that the Huntington colleagues use to originate mortgages, and we're evolving to take the best practices from both of those rather than simply providing Huntington's process to the Cadence loan officers and asking them to adapt.
Thanks to our incredible partnership with Tidalwave, we've been able to launch Flat Branch Home, Jamie Pandolfo, president of Flat Branch Home Loans, said in a statement. The future of technology is here, and we're embracing it for a better experience for our borrowers and our loan officers. Tidalwave has given us the opportunity to take our origination to the next level.
According to the company, the Bevri POS is designed to complete the 1003 loan application, collect and validate income and asset documentation, run Desktop Underwriter and Loan Product Advisor findings for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and generate underwriting outcomes earlier in the process. The system also aims to reduce repetitive data entry through autonomous task execution. The company also said the platform continuously evaluates next steps in a loan file, resolving gaps and surfacing insights for loan officers.
During the fourth quarter of 2025, residential revenue was up 8% annually to $428 million, mortgage revenue rose 39% on a yearly basis to $57 million and the rentals sector recorded a 45% year-over-year increase in revenue. For the full year 2025, the residential sector generated $1.704 billion in revenue, up 7% annually, while the mortgage operation generated $199 million in revenue, up 37% compared to the year prior.
VantageScore said the results demonstrate that rent is both a strong indicator of repayment risk and a tool for greater financial inclusion. The study analyzed the impact of this positive rental data on the renter's VantageScore 4.0 credit score. It found that adding consistent, on-time rent payments to credit files improves the predictive performance of the VantageScore 4.0 credit scoring model. The data helps to identify up to 11% more defaults in higher-risk score ranges and delivers a 3.7% increase in overall predictive accuracy.
Puerto Rico-based Popular Bank is exiting the mortgage business, according to an announcement made last week during the company's third-quarter earnings call. Specifically, as part of our ongoing efforts to improve profitability, we decided to exit the U.S. residential mortgage origination business and to close four underperforming branches in the New York metro area, said Jorge Garcia, Popular's chief financial officer. We will remain focused on areas where we feel we can invest to achieve improved operating leverage.
Founded in 2008 and headquartered in Melville, New York, Reliance is a fully integrated direct-to-consumer mortgage origination platform that has 315 employees, including more than 150 loan officers and sales managers, across six call centers. Reliance originates approximately $1 billion in mortgages each year across government, agency, non-agency/non-QM and second-lien loan products. The company's servicing portfolio of more than 16,000 customers and $3 billion in unpaid principal balance will move onto Carrington's platform once the transaction closes.
Cornerstone said the deal will expand its statewide market share, moving it into the top 20 Texas banks with less than $10 billion in assets, while reducing its cost of deposits by about 68 basis points. The merger is also expected to boost the bank's mortgage origination and servicing divisions by creating additional lending capacity and generating significant pricing and revenue synergies without compromising asset quality, according to the announcement.
What we recognized was, buying a home is a really complex process, and there are a lot of documents and requirements, and just one of those was verification of insurance. As it exists today, that process is complicated, so we saw an opportunity to say, how can we take that piece of it and just simplify it? Tuttle shared that HOIVerify can take a process that once took several days and perform it in seven seconds.
