Natural disasters

Hurricane Michael is putting mortgage transactions with a combined value of over $400 million in jeopardy, according to ClosingCorp estimates.

Natural disasters are now the leading driver of lenders' foreclosure risk, with last year's hurricanes causing a rise in third-quarter filings in affected markets, according to Attom Data Solutions.

One in five new homes permitted in Houston in the year after Hurricane Harvey is in a flood plain — some on prairie developed for the first time after the storm — even as new rainfall data showed existing flood maps understate the risk posed by strengthening storms.

The mortgage delinquency rate fell to a 12-year low, with declines expected to continue as the unemployment rate stays down, according to CoreLogic.

Destruction from Michael's storm surge and flooding has potential to affect 57,000 homes, with a worst-case total of $13.4 billion in reconstruction cost value, according to CoreLogic's latest estimates.

Foreclosure starts increased 9% in August compared with July, slightly higher than the historic norm between the two months, according to Attom Data Solutions.

While the severity of Florence was reduced prior to Friday morning's landfall, mortgage servicers are taking proactive steps in addressing the emergency situation.

The serious mortgage delinquency rate sank to its lowest June reading in 11 years, though recent natural disasters pose risk to loan performance in affected areas, according to CoreLogic.

It would be impossible to pick out a single video or photograph that sums up Irma, which dropped from a hurricane to a tropical storm by the time it smacked Lake County, Fla., one year ago today.

The Federal Housing Administration is providing a new waiver that gives mortgage companies the ability to start inspecting properties affected by Kilauea Volcano lava flows in Hawaii.

The new policy, meant to assist borrowers in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, will let servicers evaluate borrowers using pre-disaster payment information.

Mortgage delinquency rates dropped on an annual basis, a sign of a strengthening economy, but could soon see a spike due to this year's wildfires, according to CoreLogic.

Since 2000, the southeastern Atlantic coast has seen a 160% increase in high tide flooding, the number of days when coastal water levels reach or exceed a half meter over the long-term average highest tides.

Hundreds of families displaced by Northern California's fires could face another challenge to rebuilding their homes — a persistent shortage of construction workers.

Lawmakers authorized a four-month extension less than a day before the program was set to expire.

CoreLogic has updated its Risk Quantification and Engineering tool amid California wildfires to include U.S. Wildfire and U.S. Severe Convective Storm models to support the mortgage and insurance industries in better assessing natural disaster risk.

With the program set to expire July 31, the House bill will have to be reconciled with Senate legislation that includes a longer extension.

Reps. Ed Royce, R-Calif., and Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., introduced a bipartisan package of legislation Tuesday to extend the National Flood Insurance Program through Nov. 30.

Hanging over the Sonoma County, Calif., housing market is the damage done by the most destructive wildfires in state history. The fires of October claimed 24 lives and burned nearly 5,300 homes in the county.

Once again, congressional inaction on reauthorizing the National Flood Insurance Program is prompting concerns about what a lapse in coverage could mean for loan closings.