Home Buyers Flock to Florida Cities Devastated by Hurricane Ian
‘It’s pretty much business as usual,’ one agent says; area damaged by storm had experienced sharp price run-up
3 min
Less than a month after Hurricane Ian caused widespread devastation to southwestern Florida, investors and other buyers are scouring for housing deals in a region where home prices have soared in recent years.
Demand remains strong from both locals and out-of-staters, according to residential real-estate agents in Naples, Fla., and other areas near the path of the Category 4 storm. They say they have received numerous inquiries from people still interested in relocating to the Sunshine State, or hoping to pick up distressed properties.
“It’s pretty much business as usual,” said Kelly Baldwin, an agent for Coldwell Banker in Longboat Key, Fla. “I haven’t had anyone reach out who wants to stop their home search.”
The costs associated with fortifying a home against wind and flooding, along with rising premiums for homeowner and flood insurance, are enough to cause some longtime Florida residents to leave.
But some investors with plenty of cash are expressing interest. Friley Saucier, a global real-estate adviser at Premier Sotheby’s International Realty in Naples, is working with a wealthy individual planning to spend as much as $50 million on distressed real estate in areas that suffered damage from Ian.
“He called me after the storm,” she said. “I’ve spent a week calling agents and others trying to find properties that are off-market because these homes are still being dried out and remediated, so they’re not yet listed.”
Rick Lema, whose primary residence is in Narragansett, R.I., owns a home in a mobile-home park in Englewood, Fla., about midway between Sarasota and Fort Myers, that was damaged by the storm. A cash buyer, he started driving around local neighbourhoods the day after the storm, before he repaired his own home, to look for distressed waterfront homes and commercial properties.
Mr. Lema had been looking for investments previously, but felt that “prices were through-the-roof ridiculous.” Now, he believes owners of damaged properties will jump at the opportunity to unload their holdings. “If they were asking $1 million before the storm, I’ll offer $750,000,” he said.
Certainly, some potential buyers are thinking twice after the damage caused by the storm, which is expected to be between $40 billion and $64 billion for flood and wind losses to Florida residential and commercial properties, according to an estimate by data firm CoreLogic. What is more, 62% of U.S. residents who plan to buy or sell a home in the next year are hesitant to move to an area with climate risk, according to a recent report by brokerage Redfin.
Some with plans to settle in the area are now reconsidering. Kurt Kuemmerle, 60 years old, a carpenter who lives in Marmora, N.J., owns a piece of land in Port Charlotte, about 30 miles northwest of Fort Myers. He said he always thought he would build a home there for retirement with his significant other, Robin Konschak. But now he plans to sell the land.
“We realised that southwest Florida is far too dangerous to live in permanently,” Ms. Konschak said.
Yet many others are undeterred. Connie Langenbahn, 62, a retired school-bus driver, and her husband, Gregg Langenbahn, 61, are leaving their home in Cincinnati in November to become permanent residents of southwest Florida. The couple said they would live with their daughter in Sarasota, Fla., while they shop for a home, a process they began two years ago.
“The hurricane scared my husband, but it’s been my dream my whole life to live in Florida, and I’m not giving up,” Mrs. Langenbahn said.
The two are hoping to spend no more than $450,000 for a three-bedroom, two-bath home. “I’m hoping that prices don’t go up higher now because people need homes,” she said.
Some housing analysts think they will, at least for the short term. “We most likely will see an increase in prices almost immediately, driven mostly by continued strong demand and a storm-induced inventory shortage,” said Ken H. Johnson, a housing economist at Florida Atlantic University’s College of Business.
“While pricing might be erratic for the first few months, the demand for living along a coastline with warm weather and a business-friendly economy seems to have led to quick economic recoveries after recent past hurricane strikes,” said Dr. Johnson.
Few areas in the U.S. have seen prices run up this much already. According to the Naples Area Board of Realtors, the median sales price for a single-family home increased by 24.9% between August 2021 and August 2022, the latest month for which statistics are available, to $725,000. Condominium prices increased by 34% during the same period.
A study released Oct. 11 by Dr. Johnson and Eli Beracha, Ph.D., of Florida International University, found that the Cape Coral-Fort Myers metropolitan area was the nation’s most overvalued housing market in August—before Hurricane Ian—with buyers paying an average of 70% over the area’s long-term pricing trend.
“Due to the devastation, there won’t be a lot of homes to sell for a while,” said Kristen Conti, broker-owner of Peacock Premier Properties in Englewood, Fla. Lack of supply, combined with the demand for homes by both end-users and investors, will cause home prices to increase for 12 to 18 months, she said.
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Consumers are going to gravitate toward applications powered by the buzzy new technology, analyst Michael Wolf predicts
Chris Dixon, a partner who led the charge, says he has a ‘very long-term horizon’
Nothing stays these brokers from the swift completion of their appointed showings
3 min
What is the worst weather you have ever had to contend with while showing a home?
Justin Fox, broker/owner, Re/Max Professionals, Cottage Grove, Minn.
In the summer of 2011, I was driving some buyers—a mother from out of town with her two young daughters, each under 6—to look at homes. The first two showings were uneventful, but as we headed to the third, we encountered a giant wall cloud on the road. I see wall clouds all the time, but for those not familiar with them, it’s a giant tower of clouds, and it’s very dark and ominous-looking, so it can be scary. My buyer, who claimed to have been some sort of weather watcher, started freaking out, saying things like, “That’s a wall cloud! It’s dangerous! We’re going to have a tornado!” That in turn caused the daughters to start screaming and crying hysterically. They were kicking so much in the back that they caused the threading of my leather seat to come loose. I did my best to calm them down, but then the torrential rain and thunder started, and that led to more screaming from the kids. Thank God we made it to the next house within 10 minutes. I pulled my car into the garage to avoid the hail, and we sheltered in the basement for 25 minutes until it lightened up outside. Then we went on with our showings like nothing ever happened.
Victoria Rong Kennedy, associate broker, the Corcoran Group, New York, N.Y.
I wouldn’t say this was the worst weather, but it was definitely the weirdest. On June 7, 2023, I had three private showings lined up at 2:30 p.m., 3 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. to show my listing on the Upper East Side, which was a duplex penthouse with three terraces listed for $3.3 million. That morning, Canadian wildfire smoke was blowing through the sky of Manhattan. They were telling everyone on TV and radio to stay home all day, and I kept watching my emails and texts, hoping that all three groups of buyers would cancel their showings, but no one did. By 1:30 p.m., the sky was really dark. There was almost no visibility, but, still, there were no cancellations. At 2 p.m., I searched for an old Covid mask, put it on and walked out like a hero to go on the combat field. I could barely see anything a half block away, but I walked 11 blocks and two avenues and managed to get to the building. Well, all three groups of buyers and their brokers showed up on time. We all chatted about how strange the weather was. We put our masks back on when we stood on the living room terrace, which overlooks Billionaires’ Row, but we had no visibility. The sky was red and black, and all we could see was a small circle of light in the sky. It looked like the moon behind heavy clouds. It was like a scene from a movie.
Jeffrey Decatur, broker associate, Re/Max Capital, Latham, N.Y.
Living in upstate New York, I have experienced all kinds of bad weather—snow so deep it was up to my thighs and rain so hard that I wished my shower had that much pressure. However, the worst took place in April 2017, when I was showing a home in Waterford, N.Y., a suburb of Albany. It was during a late-season blizzard that came on fast, and there had to be about 2 feet of snow. The home had a normal-size driveway, but it was a foreclosure and was not shoveled. So, my client and I trekked up the crunchy, snowy driveway and eventually got into the house. As we were walking around, complaining about the Arctic blast and blizzard, I heard the sound of babbling water. I thought it was a fountain, so my buyer and I continued to walk around the house. As we moved toward the garage and family room, the babbling got louder, and as we headed for the basement, we saw that the pipes had frozen. The basement ceiling had fallen, and water was pouring in from the ceiling and the walls. The floor had about 3 inches of water and ice. I called the listing agent and left a message, but I couldn’t just leave the water running, so I waded through the freezing cold water in the basement and turned the water off. I didn’t really think that through, because I was drenched and then had to make my way back through the house and out into the blizzard again. When I opened the front door, I nearly froze immediately, and by the time I got to the end of the porch, I was crunchy and icy. When I got to my car, parked at the end of the driveway, my hair was frozen to my face, and I could barely bend my legs or feel my hands. I was walking like the Tin Man. It took me several hours to thaw out.
——Edited from interviews
Consumers are going to gravitate toward applications powered by the buzzy new technology, analyst Michael Wolf predicts
Chris Dixon, a partner who led the charge, says he has a ‘very long-term horizon’
