Those billions of dollars disappearing from the stock market over the last few years haven’t all evaporated into paper losses. Instead, a good chunk of them have “fled to safety,” which is how credit union executives explain the tidal wave of money flowing into their own and other financial institutions.

About $50 billion poured into American credit unions last year, reports the Credit Union National Association, and most of it looks to be long-term.

Reports filed with the National Credit Union Administration, the industry’s federal regulator, reveal local credit unions are snagging their share of this money. Savers at North Island Financial Credit Union poured $89 million in new dollars into their piggy banks in 2002, bringing their collective savings balance to $939 million, a 10 percent hike. San Diego County Credit Union saw even more growth in its members’ nest eggs, 19.5 percent, ballooning its savers’ combined wealth to $1.85 billion.

But until those deposits are turned around into loans, says Kim Bannan of the California Credit Union League, they can languish in relatively low-earning investments, which has made credit unions — like most other lenders — eager to get those dollars back out in the form of loans.

Enter what has become the dominant form of credit union lending in San Diego and the United States — mortgages.

Gone are the days when their stock in trade was the auto loan. While “car loan” and “credit union” may have been synonymous for generations of working Americans, the Credit Union National Association reports that, as of last summer, mortgage loans overtook car loans as the largest slice of the typical credit union’s lending portfolio.

Many local credit unions are following this trend. At USE Credit Union, for example, Senior Vice President Karen Harrison says nearly half of her loan cache is in mortgages, including 30- and 15-year fixed firsts, 15-year seconds, a home equity credit line and an equity-based Visa. Car loans, once the mainstay of all credit union lending, comprised just 28 percent of the portfolio at the end of last year.

Likewise at San Diego County Credit Union, the county’s largest. Lisa Paul-Hill, vice-president of lending, says real estate loans make up two-thirds of the debt SDCCU holds. New and used vehicle loans are only about a fourth of the $1.2 billion loan portfolio.

Even Paradise Valley Federal Credit Union, one of the county’s smaller CUs, held half its $30 million loan collection in mortgages as of year’s end. CEO John Pressler reports that proportion had declined to about a third by mid-February.

Like banks, thrifts and loan brokers — their counterparts in real estate lending — most mortgage activity is in refinancing existing loans. Marla Shepard, CEO of First Future Credit Union, estimates that up to 85 percent of the loans in her $21 million funding pipeline are refis.

SDCCU’s Paul-Hill says that of the 188 new loans in the pipeline as of mid-February, 126 were refinances from other lenders, 55 were internal refis and seven were new purchase loans.

“We are not specifically promoting refinances, but we’re hoping that our regular loan promotions are making our members aware that real estate loans are available,” Paul-Hill says. “There is still a perception out there, I think, that credit unions aren’t full-service institutions.”

Although credit unions have offered real estate loans for 30 years, many others outsourced their members’ mortgage requests. Among those referring out was Paradise Valley, which still sends members seeking adjustable rate loans to outside lenders.

So in addition to putting more deposit dollars to profitable work, credit unions have found that offering mortgages reduces the chance that a member may be picked off by another institution.

“That’s important, but it’s is not the main reason we got into mortgage lending,” says Linda Rossi, marketing vice president at San Diego Metropolitan Credit Union. “We have begun real estate lending for member service, and because of our desire to be a full-service financial institutions that, and money pouring in from the stock market.”

Even selling existing mortgages on the secondary market leaves members vulnerable to competitive cross-selling. “We used to sell mortgages to Countrywide,” Shepard recalls, “but our members ended up being aggressively marketed to so we began selling only to Fannie Mae or other government agencies that don’t cross-sell.”

But, credit union executives agree, members don’t like their mortgages to be sold at all in the secondary market.

“Our members ask us right up front, ‘Are you going to be selling my loan?’ says Paradise Valley’s Pressler. “We show them that we have sold zero loans over the last few years, and they appreciate that. For a lot of our membership, to have their loan sold takes away the personal touch that they like.”

Although Paradise Valley does not originate mortgages over the Internet, many other credit unions do, some with so-called instant approval. First Future, for example, offers four-minute online approvals for FHA conforming loans. Other credit unions have similar e-services. Even so, they say members prefer their loans to remain in-house.

As a result, many local credit unions are holding and servicing the real estate loans they make. USE, for example, isn’t selling any loans on the secondary market, nor is San Diego Metropolitan, nor, for the moment, is SDCCU.

“Sixty-six percent is a lot of our portfolio,” observes Paul-Hill, “and with the very low rates, we want the ability to make new loans. Fannie Mae has the right of first refusal to buy our loans, but we’d like to retain the servicing. It’s a great member tool, so members can log on and see how their loan is. We’re still discussing this but, given our history, that is the route we would probably pick.”

First Future is following a similar path. “Once rates get to a certain point, say 6 percent on 15- and 30-year fixed loans, we have to sell them. We’re trying to avoid too much concentration in low-rate, fixed-rate loans,” Shepard says.

Despite historically low rates, local loan mavens agree that real estate loans remain profitable to make for several reasons. Besides countering the inevitable cross-selling that occurs whenever a customer is referred elsewhere, mortgages are long-term, stable assets that require little more than routine servicing.

Plus they are just about delinquency-free. Pressler, for example, says that in his 37 years at Paradise Valley, there have been no losses from real estate loans. “Not one,” he says. And at mid-February, he said, no loan is more than 30 days late.