Posted on August - 06 - 2010
California, Florida Account for Two-Fifths of Suspected Mortgage Fraud
California and Florida led the nation in incidents of suspected mortgage fraud last year, with Los Angeles and Miami heading the list of metropolitan areas with the most reported incidents.
The two states accounted for 42 percent of all subjects identified in mortgage fraud suspicious activity reports in 2009, according to new figures released this week, with roughly half of each state’s total coming from the two cities. Overall, reports of possible mortgage fraud were up 4 percent in 2009, according to the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Reporting Network, which released its 2009 Mortgage Loan Fraud Study on Friday. Reported cases of “mortgage fraud suspicious activities,” as the report describe them, have risen sharply in recent years. From 26,000 reported cases in 2005, the number more than doubled to 65,000 cases in 2008. The 4 percent increase in 2009 marks a slackening of that rise, to 67,500 cases, although the report notes the pace began quickening in the last quarter of the year. Californi Full Post…