Santa Ana’s First American Financial Posts Worst First Quarter : Real estate: A 30% drop in revenue and a loss of $12.7 million gave the firm 106-year bad news.

Hurt by the climb in mortgage interest rates and California’s weak real estate market, First American Financial Corp. on Wednesday posted its worst first quarter in its 106-year history, recording a loss of $12.7 million on a 30% drop in revenue.

The nation’s second-largest title insurer, the Orange County firm had earned $9.4 million in last year’s first quarter in what marked the end of a long boom in mortgage refinancing. Since interest rates began rising 13 months ago, First American and the rest of the real estate industry have been struggling.

First American’s quarterly loss of $1.11 per share was expected, though it was a big fall from last year’s first-quarter profit of 82 cents. Quarterly revenue dropped to $261.2 million from a record $372.4 million.

“These declines were unprecedented in the history of the company,” Parker S. Kennedy, First American’s president, said at the company’s annual meeting Wednesday. However, Kennedy said in an interview later that he believes the worst is over. He noted that orders have been improving each month this year.

The company’s stock closed at $19.375, down 50 cents on the New York Stock Exchange.

Charles Gunther, an analyst with Van Kasper Research in San Francisco, said in a report earlier this month that he expected First American to be in the black this year, mainly because of cuts in personnel and operating expenses.

Since the first quarter of last year, First American has pared its employment by about 20%, to 9,000 currently.

Kennedy said the company is also continuing to increase its non-title operations, such as providing credit reporting, property information and other financial services.

First American’s latest results, which were exacerbated by the poor weather in California, mirrored the industrywide slowdown in the first quarter. Chicago Title & Trust, the nation’s largest title-insurance provider, lost $12 million in the first quarter, compared with a profit of $23.3 million a year earlier.

Fidelity National Financial Inc. of Irvine, another large issuer of title insurance policies, has yet to release its first-quarter results. But Carl Strunk, chief financial officer, said the results from competitors are not surprising.