Natural disasters

Treating COVID-19 forbearances as a natural disaster will likely mean the MIs will not need to hold as much capital.

Despite the increased frequency and intensity of natural disasters caused by climate change, just 33% of consumers said it's a major factor in determining when or where to buy or sell a home, according to Redfin.

After the 2017 October fires in Sonoma County, Calif., prices inflated in 2018 as the destruction strongly stoked demand for homes. Last year, the housing market cooled and balanced itself.

The number of large-scale natural disasters continued to proliferate in 2019, creating new situations where local mortgage delinquency rates could stay inflated for the following 12 months, according to CoreLogic.

The largest bank in Puerto Rico said hundreds of millions of dollars of its mortgages and consumer loans are tied to the parts of the island hit by the recent quake or still recovering from two hurricanes.

A recent earthquake is adding to servicing challenges in Puerto Rico caused by multiple natural disasters, power outages and some companies' insufficient use of technology, according to one vendor.

Scores of homes destroyed or badly damaged by Memorial Day tornadoes still sit vacant and abandoned, creating new blight and safety concerns in neighborhoods.

Overall home-loan delinquencies remain near 20-year lows, but in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Rhode Island and Wisconsin, they are inching up in moves that may be tied to local economic concerns.

A group of 64 House lawmakers is pushing congressional leadership to incorporate premium caps and address a new methodology for assessing risk in flood insurance reform legislation.

California's devastating wildfires have given way to a real estate opportunity: the burn-out lot.

A fast-moving brush fire has forced evacuation of some of the ritziest neighborhoods in the Los Angeles area and shut a major thoroughfare as high winds wreak havoc in California.

Florida courts have held that a home seller must disclose anything about the property that could have a "substantial impact" on its value, but it's unclear if that ruling could apply or has ever been applied to flood hazards.

BSI Financial's chief executive weighs in on changes in the interest rate environment, the evolution of digital mortgage servicing and natural disasters.

As global warming contributes to the spread of wildfires, those fires lead to the destruction of homes, mortgage delinquencies and defects. From Texas to California, these are the 15 housing markets with the highest wildfire reconstruction costs, according to CoreLogic.

As the climate crisis worsens, more Americans will be forced from their homes. Many won't be able to afford it, and the U.S. isn't prepared for a massive, government-subsidized migration away from flood-prone areas.

The switch to a buyer's home purchase market, as well as fewer natural disasters helped drive the five-month-long decline in mortgage application fraud risk, First American said.

It didn't take long. Shortly after Hurricane Dorian damaged countless homes and businesses in the northern Bahamas, real estate investors started calling local agents in search of bargains.

Late last year, Santa Rosa residents Julian and Lisa Corwin wrote down on a whiteboard the money they had available to rebuild their home on Vintage Circle destroyed in the October 2017 Tubbs fire.

Lori Rittel is stuck in her Florida Keys home, living in the wreckage left by Hurricane Irma two years ago, unable to rebuild or repair. Now her best hope for escape is to sell the little white bungalow to the government to knock down.

The residential construction market is giving off conflicting signals about whether the nation is heading toward a downturn, according to BuildFax.