The business of buying and selling homes has been buffeted by the storms of the past six weeks, but not every change has been for the worse.
By JUDY STARK
Published October 2, 2004
Buyers who cruise the streets of Venetian Bay, a residential development on the south side of Gandy Boulevard in St. Petersburg, have been remarking about the metal storm shutters on every new home.
"Even before the hurricanes, people thought it was a good idea to have the shutters," Roger Mourant, a sales agent for Beazer Homes, said. But in recent weeks, as Tampa Bay has done the Hurricane Hustle, potential buyers "drive through and see the shutters in place on the homes. They ask, "Are they included?' and in general they're really relieved to hear that they are."
The state's building codes require that builders provide shutters for new homes in certain high-wind zones or engineer the homes to resist internal wind pressure.
On the north side of Gandy, at the Grande Verandahs on the Bay, a luxury condo with expansive views of Tampa Bay, the windows and sliding-glass doors are extra-heavy laminated glass that withstand winds up to 135 miles per hour, marketing director Annie Fleeting said.
"The buyers want to know how the windows are rated," she said. "They want to know what kind of wind they'll sustain. They're thrilled when they come here and see we haven't sustained any damage whatsoever." It's the buyers, she said, who are initiating conversations about the hurricane-worthiness of the property.
Buyer interest in shutters and impact-resistant glass is one example of how the real estate business has changed in the past six weeks. There are more:
* Agents have started promoting the hurricane-worthiness of homes for sale in their ads and online listings: "One of the highest points of Pinellas County - no need to evacuate here!" one says. "High-impact glass windows and doors throughout," says another.
* House-hunting trips, open houses, walk-throughs and closings have been delayed because out-of-state buyers couldn't get here, power was out or buyers couldn't obtain homeowners insurance at the last minute. Listings and sales dropped as both buyers and sellers backed off and waited out the storms.
* Agents have rushed before the storms to take down their "For Sale" signs so they didn't become airborne missiles, then hurried back after the storms passed to replace them.
"Our industry literally came to a standstill for 30 days," said Scott H. Allen of Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate in St. Petersburg. Now, he and others say, the market is coming back as people are saying, "Let's move on."
"Hurricane marketing'
"During Charley, Frances and Ivan, everything came to a screeching halt," said Rob Elkins of Florida Lifestyles Realty in St. Petersburg. "But there's been a whole flood of activity, four or five contracts since Ivan," which hit the Panhandle and Alabama on Sept. 15. "It was sort of scary for a few weeks, then boom." Agents who showed property a week ago - the day before Hurricane Jeanne hit Tampa Bay - have been getting calls saying offers are in the works, he said.
This week, he said, lenders are sending out disaster relief inspectors to make sure that homes that are about to close haven't been damaged. He was trying to contact the tenants of a duplex to arrange an inspection before a scheduled closing Friday. Allen, the Coldwell Banker agent, said the "remarks" section on the local Multiple Listing Service has started to include "in big capital letters: NOT A FLOOD ZONE. BRAND NEW HURRICANE SHUTTERS. NOT AN EVACUATION ZONE. Those are the homes people are going to look for at this time. If your home has hurricane shutters or it's on high ground, people are keying into it."
Not everyone agrees with that strategy. "I don't believe any hurricane marketing" - emphasizing that a home has storm shutters or that it's outside an evacuation zone - "is going to help people buy or sell a house," said Jeff Beggins of Century 21 Beggins Enterprises, with offices in Madeira Beach and Indian Rocks Beach. "Some people may try to play off the immediate fear factor, but ultimately it's the same market after just a couple of storms."
His office has been told to expect delays of two to three weeks in having power turned on in older vacant homes for lender-required inspections of plumbing, electrical, heating and air-conditioning while utility crews focus their attention on restoring power to storm-damaged areas.
Some sellers have asked that potential buyers postpone their visits until the sellers can clear yard debris created by Jeanne, said Susanna Madden of Re/Max ACR Elite Group in Tampa. (She's got her own problems: water intrusion in her master bedroom turned her carpet and drywall into a "sloppy, smelly mess," and her power was out for several days.)
She's never had buyers inquire about whether properties were in evacuation zones, "but we may get more well-versed about evacuation zones after the year we've had," she said.
The major delays in recent weeks, she said, have occurred when buyers waited until the last minute to find homeowners insurance. The industry won't write policies if a property falls within a 500-square-mile area surrounding a hurricane. Sometimes that causes a disastrous domino effect of multiple delayed closings. "It can be a mess," Madden said, that requires agents to "use your creative juices to figure out everyone's problems."
She may borrow an idea from real estate agents in West Palm Beach: writing a clause into the contract that requires buyers to show proof of homeowners insurance within five days. That puts them on notice to attend to insurance right away, avoiding delays if a hurricane looms near the closing date.
Increased buyer awareness
September is traditionally a slow month in the real estate business in the Tampa Bay area, but that factor, "compounded by four storms within a six-week period, can be a little disheartening," said Mark Castagna, broker-owner at Doiron & Associates in Madeira Beach.
Some home builders have closed their model home sales centers on days hurricanes drew too close for comfort. "It has been a little bit slower as everybody tries to get ready, but nothing detrimental to business yet," said Kristina Lloyd, marketing manager at Morrison Homes.
"I think people are a little distracted. The serious buyers, the ones who are really ready to commit, we're still seeing them come back," she said. It's the tire-kickers, people who just like to go look at model homes on the weekend, who have stayed away the last few weekends. They've been busy at home, stocking up on supplies, putting up plywood and staying glued to the Weather Channel.
Four years ago, Mark Maconi Homes was one of three Pinellas County contractors that built fortified demonstration homes with a package of hurricane-worthy features. Among them was a safe room, a windowless interior room with reinforced walls, ceiling and door. "That became pretty popular and we sold four a year," president Peter Krauser said. Two years later, sales had dropped to one or two a year. "Now we've got tremendous interest again," he said. A safe room costs about $8,500, "relatively inexpensive option" considering the price of Maconi homes, which range from about $700,000 to $1-million.
Four back-to-back hurricanes have raised buyer awareness, Krauser said. "With a hurricane bearing down on them, if buyers could have written a check for $20,000 for impact glass, they would have done that. The awareness is there now."
Allen theorized that ultimately the hurricanes' ill winds will blow some good for the local real estate industry. Tourists and visitors will bypass the storm-ravaged Panhandle, East Coast and Charlotte County areas this winter, and seasonal rentals in Tampa Bay might benefit. Buyers seeking second homes or retirement homes "won't be looking in those areas now," he said, but the Tampa Bay area, which escaped the severe damage the hurricanes inflicted on other parts of the state, may be their new location of choice.
