Natural disasters

Depository mortgage lenders are optimistic the final version of a regulation designed to open up the flood insurance market will make it easier for them to comply with a rule requiring them to accept private carrier policies.

Mortgage application defect risk was at its highest level in four years because of higher interest rates as well as natural disasters during the latter part of 2018, according to First American.

The distressed real estate market has bounced back from the housing bubble as most foreclosures are due to natural disasters, according to Attom Data Solutions.

The strong economic headwinds from last fall facilitated a declining loan delinquency rate across the country, though areas hit by natural disasters had increased defaults, according to CoreLogic.

Mortgage application fraud risk continued growing for the fifth consecutive month, and the recent California wildfires are partly to blame, according to First American Financial Corp.

The Property Assessed Clean Energy sector is getting a boost from the expansion of improvements eligible to be financed via tax assessments, including fire resiliency and total building renovations, according to DBRS.

The current deputy secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Pam Patenaude, will step down in January.

Housing could be in for a slowdown as three indicators of new- and existing-home construction activity fell year-over-year for the first time since 2011, according to BuildFax.

The slowdown in the Sonoma County, Calif., residential real estate market sharpened in November, when sales and prices declined while the number of homes available for buyers jumped significantly.

Other than in areas hit by natural disasters, delinquency rates are falling with help from a healthier labor market, but a rise in riskier lending habits could signal trouble for borrowers should housing conditions change, according to CoreLogic.

The Sacramento home sales market is going into winter hibernation, new data suggest, amid uncertainty over whether that market will reawaken with vigor in spring, or continue the doldrums of recent months.

The government-sponsored enterprises are suspending eviction lockouts for the holiday season.

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.

Lawmakers have had to extend the program eight times since October 2017, as Congress has been unable to pass broader reforms.

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

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 mortgage delinquency rate dipped to a 12-year low, but overvalued housing markets and eventual reversal in the unemployment rate present risk for future delinquencies, according to CoreLogic.

Mortgage delinquencies inched up, in part from natural disasters hindering homeowner performance, but a stronger economy is still keeping defaults low, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.