Something is going very right over at MetLife Home Loans.

Through Sept. 30, the company made 548 percent more mortgages in Massachusetts than in all of 2008, from about 700 mortgages to 4,527, according to a Banker & Tradesman analysis of deed data obtained from The Warren Group, Banker & Tradesman’s parent company.

MetLife is the most dramatic example, but it’s not alone in posting eye-popping increases in mortgage and refinance closings thus far in 2009.

The big winners are a split between a handful of correspondent or wholesale lenders, as well as retailers – many of which, however, interact with customers primarily online. Some of this year’s success stories include national outfits such as Michigan-based Quicken Loans, primarily an online retailer, and California-based Provident Funding Assoc., which does wholesale and retail lending. Both had more than a 100 percent increase in total loans – purchases and refinance – bringing their totals up to 2,663 and 1,380, respectively.

Other winners are closer to home. Winthrop-based MSA Mortgage, which does a mix of retail and wholesale lending, did 330 refinance deals last year, compared to more than 819 so far in 2009, an almost 150 percent increase.

For these lenders, the cleared playing field may have provided advantages.

In 2007, Massachusetts had more than 500 mortgage lenders licensed through the Division of Banks. In 2008, that number shrank to 361, and as of Dec. 1, the Division lists only 258 mortgage lenders licensed in Massachusetts.

Robert Deeb, principal of MSA Mortgage, said it’s true that the lender crowd is smaller these days, but that circumstance has worked in combination with the company’s solid strategy. MSA found itself well-positioned in 2009 largely thanks to the company’s relatively conservative, steady business practices during the easy-money days of the past few years, he said.

Toe In The Water

In MetLife’s case, it was a matter of one key purchase, said spokesman David Hammarstrom. MetLife Home Loans bought Tennessee-based wholesaler and retailer First Horizon Home Loans in September 2008, which Hammarstrom said helped boost MetLife’s numbers both locally and nationwide late last year and into 2009.

First Horizon Home Loans had a number of offices around Massachusetts, mostly clustered in the more densely populated, and profitable, eastern part of the state. Warren Group data shows the company originated 3,750 total loans in the state in 2007, and 2,159 in 2008. Those offices are now doing business as MetLife, according to phone and Internet messages.

MetLife’s banking arm only had a minor presence in the mortgage field before last year, and agreed to purchase First Horizon’s ability to originate and service in the spring of 2008, closing the acquisition Sept. 1.

Much of the mortgage industry was in turmoil at the time, but Hammarstrom said MetLife had an advantage – it had a very small presence to start with, and did not take on any of First Horizon’s previous loans, meaning it entered the industry with a largely clean slate.

Aside from that, MetLife had long planned to get into home mortgages, Hammarstrom said. The company had success with its early forays into the business, and when it found a deal it liked, it went ahead with it.

“[For most of 2008] we were in the mortgage business on a beta test, and we watched the market go kaflooey when we didn’t have much more than a toe in the water,” he said.

Paul Gershkowitz, president of Needham-based Greenpark Mortgage, added another factor: access to warehouse lines of credit.

Warehouse lenders offer a line of credit to mortgage bankers, and then retain the mortgage note to resell to investors.

Access to such lines can boost business by allowing lenders like Greenpark to offer lower rates, Gershkovitz said – but warehouse lenders only tend to work with mortgage bankers who emerged from the economic crisis with strong financials and a good reputation. If a company was strong to start with, that extra weapon allows it to eat up even more of the market.

For its part, Greenpark had an increase of 83 percent in all loans last year, to almost 2,000 purchases and refinances.

“The companies that have survived, in the long run, are the ones that ran their company the right way,” he said.