Minnesota Emerges as Mortgage Fraud Hot Spot

The Second-Quarter 2011 Mortgage Fraud Index from MortgageDaily.com came in at 1261, an increase of 27 percent from the first quarter.

The index is based on criminal and civil cases where defendants are accused of trying to deceive real estate lenders into making credit decisions using fraudulent documentation or property appraisals with false values. Case tracking is maintained by the mortgage fraud blog FraudBlogger.com.

Index by Quarter

Oregon, Utah, Iowa and Colorado saw the biggest quarter-over-quarter increases in their indices.

The U.S. index fell more than a quarter from a year earlier. Oregon had a 78 percent decline, the most significant, while Utah had the biggest jump from a year earlier.

The Minnesota Mortgage Fraud Index, which rose 15 percent from the same period last year, was at its highest level during any quarter based on more than five years of data.

Top States by Index

The dollar volume of U.S. cases tracked worked out to $340 million more than what was tracked the first-three months of 2011. A big chunk of this growth came from Minnesota, which saw about $161 million more in cases.

Compared to the second quarter of last year, dollar volume was nationally down around $661 million. California saw a $300 million year-over-year improvement, while Michigan was down $218 and Pennsylvania fell $198 million.

The annual improvement might have been better had it not been for states like North Carolina, where volume rose by $67 million, and New York, which had around $72 million more in cases.

Top States by Total Amount