Fraud Friday — Northern California Wildfires a Predictor of Future Fraudulent Loan Activity

September 25, 2015

By Bob Coleman
Editor, Fraud Friday

Fraud Friday — Northern California Wildfires a Predictor of Future Fraudulent Loan Activity

Says the First American Loan Application Defect Index.

Now, the study tracks residential mortgage application fraud “defects” on a nationwide, individual market basis.

But comparing the stats for predicting fraud in commercial real estate and small business loans seems reasonable.

“Because the opportunity for collateral-based fraud schemes increases after a natural disaster, we are turning our attention to wildfire impacted areas in the west, and California in particular. We’ve learned from natural disasters, such as Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, that the incentive and opportunity to conduct mortgage fraud increases when property is damaged and destroyed,” says Mark Fleming, Chief Economist. “Given the large number of homes impacted by wildfires this year, we will monitor this particularly costly form of mortgage defect closely in the next few months.”

Check out your market here.