California

As ominous as the dark smoke that choked the Bay Area while California's most destructive wildfire raged 200 miles north, a second tragedy now is looming over the state — the loss of thousands of homes in an already housing-starved region.

The San Diego region has no shortage of homes next to fire-prone hillsides covered in highly flammable chaparral and grasslands. The undulating, arid topography has carried flames at mind-boggling speeds in some of the state's most destructive blazes.

There was an 8% year-over-year increase in mortgage loan application defect risk in California during October and that should rise further because of the wildfires that devastated the state, First American said.

Bay Area home sales ground down in October, with seasonal slowing and further indications that buyers are taking a wait-and-see approach before plunging into a record-setting market.

The Woolsey Fire in Southern California destroyed or damaged as much as $6 billion in real estate, a new estimate shows.

That old fixer-upper house down the block may have seen better days, but in an environment where new-home prices are on the rise, older homes remain in demand in many markets.

San Diego had the most reductions — 20.5% — of the 100 biggest metro areas in the United States so far this year, according to Trulia.

The 48,390 homes dubbed at extreme or high risk from the California wildfires burning through the state could cost $18 billion in reconstruction, according to a CoreLogic analysis.

The scheme's perpetrators were based in Irvine, Calif., the FTC said in a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland.

Three people who fraudulently obtained $9.3 million in mortgage loans involving homes in Modesto, Patterson and Lathrop, Calif., have received multiyear federal prison sentences.