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Coast Homes Are Becoming Safer And A Better Investment
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0 Comments ::  :: Gulf Coast, Real Estate, Second Homes |
Hurricanes are a terrifying and often devastating act of nature. Nevertheless, hurricane zones such as the Texas Coast, West Palm Beach, Key West, and the North Carolina coastline remain some of the most desirable real estate in the country while other storm-prone areas, including southwest and central Florida, are now glutted with more affordable homes because of falling real estate prices there.
But potential homebuyers, though lured by the beauty and warm weather of these coastal areas, may still wonder: Is it really safe to live here? Moreover, is it safe to own property? In August, 2005, Hurricane Katrina did little to assuage these fears as it tore through New Orleans and much of the Central Gulf Coast, killing more than 1,800 people and causing more than $81.2 billion in damage. But surprisingly, home prices in the area bounced back quickly as developers took advantage of the federal and state aid that became available for reconstruction.
Coastal Property has an Enduring Appeal
 Despite the scary statistics, the likeliness of a hurricane hitting will not deter future buyers, says Research expert Bert Sperling. "Regarding natural disasters like hurricanes, people have a short memory," he says. "Oceanfront property will always be very desirable and it continues to sell at a premium. It will take a steady battering by hurricanes for two or three years before homeowners decide that the odds and consequences of a direct hit by a major storm are too great."
And for people with strong roots in the regions, leaving is often not an option. Miriam Wismar, a 56-year-old teacher and New Orleans native, says she has dealt with hurricanes all of her life, but could not live anywhere else. "We would never leave New Orleans," she says. We've been here forever and we're very steeped in the culture. We really have the water in our veins."
Wismar's home is on high ground in the Gentilly section of the city, so the damage to it from Katrina was limited. In fact, the money she received from "The Road Home", a federal government-sponsored program that offers homeowners grants for uninsured hurricane damage, allowed her to add value to her home. Other homes that were damaged only slightly could be potential fixer-uppers, she predicts, especially now that prices have taken a dip in the area. "I think you can get good bargains here now," says Wismar. "As the city comes back, the real estate is going to go up."
Insurance Hits Harder
While hurricanes themselves don't seem to keep buyers out of certain regions, higher insurance payments sure can. "Anecdotally speaking, our realtors say that when buyers are considering a home, hurricanes are not really a fear but the insurance is," says NAR senior economist Lawrence Yun. Insurance companies in Florida raised their premiums dramatically after the Atlantic hurricane seasons in 2004 and 2005 were worse than average and included such Category 4 and 5 monster storms as Wilma, Charley, Frances, Ivan, Rita, and Katrina. Yun estimates that higher insurance prices drove home prices in Florida down by an average of $20,000 since 2005.
High insurance premiums coupled with steep home prices during Florida's housing boom have prompted some retirees to migrate northward to such places as the Carolinas. Now, home price appreciation is slowing in the southeastern Florida, and home prices are falling on the West and Central Atlantic coasts. "More than hurricanes, the storm known as the housing bubble is having a much bigger impact on the Florida's housing prices," says Sperling.
Homebuyers could start to look for bargains in the Sunshine State soon. "Insurance costs may trend down somewhat, and if that's the case, then there will be no further depression on home prices," says Yun. "If [costs] were to decline, buyers would be in an advantageous position."
Homeowners in new developments on the Texas Coast have much less to worry about
State Officials and Developers on the Texas Coast have answers to reduce losses with newer homes.
Several Texas Coastal areas now require that living spaces be 17ft above sea level and that any structures below that height are made with break-away walls, which allows the most damaging effect of rushing water to simply flow under the new home.
Also the newer structures are built to much higher standards that can withstand hurricane force winds with only minor damage to the structure. Crown Team of Bolivar Texas has come up with an innovative way to build such fortified homes faster and make the homes stronger. Since the homes are built in sections off-site, it makes the creation of new developments easier on the initial homeowners. The new neighborhoods are developed in a way that makes them less like a construction zone as new homes are delivered to the site in sections.
Read the article on new fortified homes to find out more.
Obviously, if you do decide to move to a hurricane hot spot, it's important to make sure you're prepared. Scientists at the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center are predicting an 85% chance of an above-normal 2007 Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June through November and peaks from August to October.
Here are a few hurricane preparedness tips from Sperling's BestPlaces:
- Contact your insurance agent to determine the kind of insurance you can get and what it costs.
- Check flood hazard maps to see if the area is in danger of flooding. You can view these online at fema.com. Click here for tips to avoid flood damage.
- Make sure the house has been built to newer, more stringent building codes such as those in Miami-Dade County and South Florida. These new standards, which are designed to withstand 145 mph winds, were implemented in 1994 and continue to be refined. Click here to learn about securing your existing home against a hurricane.
- Learn the recommended evacuation routes.
More reasons to consider newer hurricane resistant homes if you are a new buyer on the Texas Coast
From a scientific standpoint, we can't say for sure that Texas is due for a surge in hurricane activity. Mother Nature, after all, doesn't always obey mathematical probabilities.
Since 1851, more than five dozen hurricanes have made landfall on the Texas coast. But in the 1990s and 2000s — a time when the Atlantic basin has seen, perhaps, the most intense tropical activity of any recorded era — just two hurricanes have made a direct hit on the state.
That's about one-fourth the number history suggests Texas should see.
The current decade also has been relatively quiet for hurricanes along the Texas coast, even if Category 5 storms have seemed as common as thunderstorms.
Until Hurricane Rita barreled through the Gulf toward Houston in 2005, the state had enjoyed nearly a two-decade-long period of feeling almost no effects from hurricanes. Technically, Rita didn't even count as a Texas hurricane, because its point of landfall came just east of the state's border with Louisiana.
A major hurricane hasn't crossed into Harris County with Category 3 winds of at least 111 mph since 1941, when a storm dubbed Hurricane Two made landfall, said Eric Blake, a National Hurricane Center specialist.
What about Alicia and Carla? Both caused extensive damage in the area. But Alicia, a Category 3 hurricane at landfall in 1983, weakened before reaching Harris County, and the center of Carla, which struck as a Category 4, bypassed Houston in 1961.
According to Blake, Harris County's expected return period for a major hurricane — the average amount of time between such strikes is just 21 years.
"I'm sure it's not random," he said of the recent slowdown in hurricane activity along the Texas coast. "But we don't understand hurricanes well enough to predict these kinds of trends."
Chris Hebert, a tropics specialist with the Houston-based private forecasting service ImpactWeather, believes there may be a pattern in the data — one that's not favorable for Texas.
Scientists believe ocean temperatures in the Atlantic, where warm water is critical to the development of hurricanes, cyclically rise and fall over decades.
The most recent warm phase of this Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation began in 1995, when Atlantic hurricane activity started to surge. The previous warm phase ran from 1926 to 1969.
Hebert said hurricanes hit Texas frequently from 1940 through the end of the warm phase in 1969. The Greater Houston area was a prime target during the period, with seven hurricanes making landfall between Freeport and High Island. "The pattern that we have developing across the Atlantic Basin and the east Pacific is very similar to what was observed from 1940 through the 1960s," Hebert said.
"The 1940 season was 15 years into the previous warm phase," he said, "about where we are now in the current warm phase. So if the pattern we're seeing now is similar to the pattern observed in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, then we might expect more hurricanes to impact Texas over the next few decades."
Another local forecaster, Jill Hasling at the nonprofit Weather Research Center, said Texas may have been spared a large number of hurricanes in recent years, but that doesn't mean the state has seen a lull in overall tropical activity.
The number of tropical storms affecting Texas has remained steady in recent years. Tropical Storm Allison, which stalled over Houston in 2001, caused $5 billion in flood damage and ranks as the 10th costliest U.S. system and the only tropical storm in the top 25.
"Felix just showed us how fast a storm can intensify, so just imagine if that happens right off the Texas coast in the Gulf," Hasling said. "We've been lucky that hasn't happened, but with hurricanes, you never know."
Information from Eric Berger
Houston Chronicle
Texas Officials Don't Regret Cost of Hurricane Preparations
State Hurricane Dean Preparations - National Guard and rescue teams were mobilized
- 60,000 to 80,000 barrels of gasoline were shipped
- A pre-emptive federal disaster was declared by President Bush
- 6 C-130 aircraft were sent to Cameron County
- More than 700 buses were on standby for possible evacuations
Click here to watch a video regarding The State of Texas preparations.
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With the threat of hurricane Dean, it was the first chance to prepare for a hurricane since the ill-planned and deadly aftermaths of Katrina and Rita in 2005. About 130 people died during the chaos of the Rita evacuation, and thousands more were stranded in traffic as cars ran out of fuel, gas pumps went dry, and hotels filled.
Not wanting to repeat the same mistakes, the state spent about half of its disaster money responding to hurricane Dean which missed Texas, but officials said Friday they didn't regret what they're calling the largest storm preparedness effort in U.S. history.
The cost of preparing for the possibility of Hurricane Dean swamping South Texas will be in the "tens of millions," with the state responsible for $3 million to $5 million and the federal government handling the rest, said Katherine Cesinger, a spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry.
"The governor would rather be safe than sorry," she said. "There's a window within which you can act. ... If you talk to any of the folks in the (Rio Grande) Valley, they would agree 100 percent."
Hidalgo County Judge J.D. Salinas, who traveled to an emergency planning task force debriefing to praise state operations, said the preparations were "well worth it."
"You cannot get half a million people out of the Valley within 24 hours," he said.
Though Dean ultimately stayed far south of the Texas border, the threat of a storm surge engulfing Brownsville easily merited what turned out to be a multimillion-dollar exercise, said Bob McKee, director of Texas Task Force 1, a group of emergency personnel from fire departments and other agencies across the state.
"Really, up until a few days ago when the storm turned to the west, the picture that was being painted was very grim to the coast of Texas," McKee said.
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