Massachusetts’ top residential and commercial lenders had a decidedly mixed year in 2010 – some banks had a minor rally in one lending category, only to sag in another. Still, a few locals managed to outstrip competitors and rise in the ranks.

Meanwhile, the inescapable juggernaut that is Bank of America, while still a major foe, scaled back lending considerably across a number of categories.

An analysis of 2010 lending data from The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman, shows that national or regional banks often shied away from many types of lending, while smaller banks stepped up their efforts compared to the prior year. Credit unions and mortgage companies, at the same time, tended to hold steady with or drop from 2009 levels.

The most noticeable shift from 2009, however, is the diminished presence of Bank of America. The bank was still No. 1 in Massachusetts in single-family purchase loans for 2010, with 2,321, but that’s a big slip from 2009’s 3,616 loans. It also scaled way back on refinance or non-purchase loans, sitting at 15,683 last year compared to 23,155 in 2009. At the time, that production put it well ahead of its nearest competitor, RBS Citizens, which wrote 12,339 non-purchase loans. But in 2010, Citizens took over the top spot with 15,707 non-purchase loans.

Small Is Mighty

Smaller banks appear more likely to have made more loans last year, with Bank of Canton, Harwich-based Cape Cod Five Cent Savings Bank and Rockland Trust making some gains.

But it was Arlington-based Leader Bank that appears to have made the greatest strides in 2010, rocketing up the single-family purchase loan list to No. 6 at 488 loans. In 2009, it occupied the No. 9 slot, with 287 mortgages. It was the same story in refinance loans, where Leader had 3,579 loans compared to 2,137 refinance loans previously.

Credit unions, meanwhile, registered little change in the rankings, and top lenders made fewer loans in general. No. 1 Greylock Federal Credit Union, based in Pittsfield, sank from 2,144 non-purchase loans in 2009 to 1,424 in 2010, and similarly slid downward in single-family and multifamily loans. But other credit unions held steady. Springfield-based Freedom Credit Union made its first appearance on a top-10 list with 94 purchase loans in 2010, putting it in fourth place.

Among mortgage companies, Walpole-based Mortgage Master held firmly onto the top spot in purchase loans, but pared the number of single-family loans it wrote to 1,423 last year, from 1,575 single-family mortgages in 2009. Mortgage Master’s refinances experienced a similar decline. MetLife Home Loans, which became a major player in Massachusetts after it bought First Horizon Home Loans in September 2008, apparently continued to make good on its purchase by increasing lending in single-family, condo and multifamily loans – though it did drop considerably in refinance activity, to 3,576 last year from 5,013 in 2009.

NE Moves Mortgage, in keeping with the “up-and-down” theme, increased single-family and multifamily lending, but slipped a bit in condo loans.

Bank of America’s retreat proved favorable for bankers who deal in mortgages above $750,000 – so-called jumbo loans – as Boston Private Bank’s surge in lending in that category put it in the top spot. It grew from 54 loans in 2009 to 87 last year.

While other lenders’ rankings didn’t change, the overall number of jumbo loans increased for most banks. Salem Five Mortgage Corp., which cropped up frequently in various lending categories, took the top slot among mortgage companies, with 34 jumbo loans, and also grew considerably in commercial mortgages – to 47 loans from 28 in 2009.

With commercial lending, in both real estate as well as industrial and manufacturing mortgages, Rockland Trust came out on top. It increased commercial mortgages from 178 in 2009 to 201 last year, but saw a slump in industrial and manufacturing loans, falling almost 30 percent to 38 such loans last year. TD Bank and Sovereign Bank hung onto the silver and bronze medals in both commercial categories, respectively, but Eastern Bank and Cape Cod Five both ramped up lending in commercial mortgages, with Eastern growing from 47 to 68 loans, and Cape Cod Five rising from to 63 from 52.

David Floreen, senior vice president of the Massachusetts Bankers Association, said it’s not surprising that different lenders saw different results for the year. A lot of factors vary widely from community to community, including the local economy, housing availability and competition from other lenders.

“I can’t speak for every lender, [but] I would say that the overall market attitude from the bankers’ perspective is that 2010 was a reasonable year,” Floreen told Banker & Tradesman. “Some did better, some did fewer loans – to some extent it reflects the local economy in which they were operating.”