New York tops nation in mortgage fraud

New York has earned the dubious honor of being the nation's leader in mortgage fraud last year, according to a report from the LexisNexis Mortgage Asset Research Institute. MARI's 12th Periodic Mortgage Fraud Case Report shows that of the 67,190 suspicious-activity reports filed with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network last year, 12% came from the New York metro area. “The data suggests that in 2009, there was a 7% increase in the number of incidents of fraud reported on top of the 26% increase reported in 2008,” said Jennifer Butts, the institute's manager of data processing, and the report's co-author. “While this is a noticeable increase, we believe that mortgage fraud is significantly understated.” The report, which also ranks the top 10 states in terms of reported mortgage fraud, ranked New York second last year, up from third in 2008. Application misrepresentation — which was 59% of all reported fraud types — topped the list for the sixth year in a row as the most common type of fraud last year. Appraisal and valuation misrepresentation came in second place, increasing to 33% in 2009 from 22% in 2008. MARI didn't have the figures broken down for New York City or state. James Comtois is a reporter at sister publication Crain's New York Business.