Hurricane Harvey Ripple Effects: Assessing The Impact On Housing And GDP

Black Knight reports Hurricane Harvey could Lead to 300,000 new mortgage delinquencies. How does this compare to Katrina? And what about GDP?

Via Email from Black Knight

Hi Mish,

As we watch Hurricane Irma barreling through the Caribbean, on her way to Florida, Black Knight is releasing an updated and expanded analysis around the potential impact of Hurricane Harvey, which remains a very real and tragic situation.

FEMA-designated disaster areas related to Hurricane Harvey are home to 1.18 million mortgaged properties

Harvey-related disaster areas contain more than 2X as many mortgaged properties as those connected to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, carrying nearly 4X the unpaid principal balance

Post-Katrina mortgage delinquencies in Louisiana and Mississippi FEMA-designated disaster areas soared 25 percentage points, peaking at over 34%

A similar impact to Harvey-related disaster areas would see 300K borrowers missing at least one mortgage payment, and 160K becoming 90 or more days past due

Total unpaid mortgage balances in Hurricane Harvey-related FEMA disaster areas: $179 billion

Total unpaid mortgage balances in Hurricane Katrina-related FEMA disaster areas: $46 billion

This will be a long-term recovery. If the Harvey-related disaster areas follow the same trajectory as those hit by Katrina, within four months we could be looking at as many as 160,000 borrowers falling 90 or more days past due on their mortgages.”

Mitch Cohen
Sr. Vice President, Managing Director
MARTOPIA PUBLIC RELATIONS GROUP

Hurricane Harvey Ripple Effects

I did not see as many “broken window” fallacy arguments about a boost to GDP from Hurricane Harvey as I expected.

Instead, economists expect a hit to GDP and jobs in the third quarter. Then what?

Forecasting may not be easy. One has to differentiate between hurricane effects and a slowdown from natural causes.