Florida Still Leads the Country in Mortgage Fraud Risk

Mortgage fraud rose nationwide as Florida continued its reign as the state with the highest overall risk for unscrupulous activity, according to data released by CoreLogic.

Fraud rose year-over-year by 3.9% as of the end of the second quarter, according to the Irvine, Calif.-based company.

It estimated that 12,718, or 0.7%, of all mortgage applications contained indications of fraud.

"Mortgage application fraud risk will likely rise over the next few years if current trends of higher loan-to-value purchases and increased credit availability continue," said Bridget Berg, CoreLogic senior director of fraud solutions, in a news release Thursday.

"Because post-fund quality control findings are biased to specific types of fraud that are easy to detect shortly after closing, lenders should not rely only on those results to measure fraud risk."

Florida remained the state with the largest fraud risk. But it also posted the largest year-over-year decline in application fraud risk of any state with a 19% drop. The states with the highest growth in fraud risk from last year were Kansas, Maine, Wisconsin, Nebraska and Arkansas.

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