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One of the things that jumps out at me is that living expenses are not covered. Your HO insurance covers this in the event of a covered loss, but flood is not a covered loss. These people will have to pay out of pocket to rent a place to live in addition to keeping up with their mortgage payments.
This is where FEMA comes in....and peoples' tax money. SO when people say the gov't should stop people from building on the shore, this is what they mean.
No one knows what the future holds but the next storm will be worse as far as damage and it won't take as big a storm to do the damage. The coastline has already been eroded bigtime. Look at the Outer Banks which was only brushed by this storm...they;ve taken such a beating over the years that it doesn't take much to do some serious damage there.
Looks like I am the most pessimistic in the bunch here
First of all, everyone is talking about $1M+ homes on the water like that is all that's affected and only the "rich" will be bothered and the rich can afford the insane insurance and can afford the risk, so no biggie.
Let's face it, there are PLENTY of homes in the flood zones, and even actually on the water, that are much more middle class than that.
As for the North Shore instead of the South Shore, from what I know, the North Shore was affected too, besides flooding in some communities, especially with long loss of electricity and wind damages.
As for the prediction that people will be RUSHING to buy up houses further inland on the Island that were not flooded, well, plenty of those places had long loss of electricity and wind damages.
What I see is even more of a migration off the Island this coming spring (provided 12/21/12 does not end the world). More than the usual migration of retirees, I see other people simply fed up with the conditions of living on Long Island and the joke that is our politicians, for whom the inconveniences of Sandy was the last straw.
I also see LI getting less of an interest from outsiders wanting to move in. Take this post for example:
I was considering moving back as well until Sandy. It isn't about the natural disaster, but the way it was handled. Your experiences recently reminded me of a few things
1)There are way too many damned people on LI
2)The infrastructure is old, outdated, and not sufficient for the population
3) The powers that be are both corrupt and incompetent, and really don't care about the people they "serve"
4) The price you pay for living there, despite these limitations above tells me LI is not a good value.
OP, I understand why your wife wants to be near family, but I'd strongly suggest you stay where you are. LI jumped the shark years ago and is in steady decline.
So I see a rush of a different kind. Fed up Long Islanders putting their houses up for sale en masse. Let's face it, we've already got a glut of homes on the market, many who receive little attention from buyers. You really think a natural disaster is going to perk that up? I don't. I see even more homes on the market and a lower number of buyers for them. And you all know what that means. In order to sell, somebody has to lower the price. Let's face it again, the prices have not gone down as much as they should have after the real estate bubble. How do we know? How about the record number of houses for sale for months, even years, yet when a home is even partially realistically priced, it gets snapped up? You think a hurricane is going to make prices go up?
Back in the real estate bubble, it was "monkey see, monkey do!" Buyers were RUSHING to buy before they got totally priced out!
Now many of those people are underwater, both literally and figuratively, thanks to Sandy.
Perhaps this coming spring there will be a different "panic" of "monkey see, monkey do." This one of sellers RUSHING to get off of Long Island.
In many other places in the country sellers routinely have to settle for the following schtick to get any interest in their homes languishing on the market:
-- offering to "hold the mortgage"
-- offering to pay closing costs
-- offering "rent to own" deals
On Long Island those things are a rarity, although lately pre-Sandy I had heard of sellers partially paying closing costs.
If there's a new glut of houses, on top of the ones already sitting on the market, could these things happen more routinely on Long Island (in addition to lower prices of course)?
Twingles: Yes, that is what they mean. You can't get private insurance on flood zone properties b/c private companies can not afford the risk of loss. They won't cut the policy. This is absolutely fair and reasonable. So, FEMA steps in and covers $250K of home value and $100K of personal belonging. The problem becomes when peole rebuild and get wiped out again and again. We the tax payers are paying for that multiple rebuild. I think FEMA should pay once, maybe twice per property address or once every 50 years or something like that. If someone wants to build on the shore, or on a barrier island, then that risk can be on them, as it should be. Of course, then only the wealthy could live on the water as only they would afford to rebuild with no insurance coverage. Is this fair? Yes. We can't keep subsidizing poor building practices. Or maybe beach front properties would be made of cheap builidng materials (like reused shipping cartons) that are made to be destroyed every 10 years. Well, that's one person's opinion!
Actually I_Love_LI brought up a good point that the North Shore also saw flooding and likely much worse tree/wind damage, and prolonged electric outages. So who knows how that will work out. Speaking of which, I hope Crooks is ok up in the motherland. Has anyone heard from him??
Quote:
Originally Posted by sean sean sean sean
Ahh could be... if it's not the same exact house, they're right next door to each other. Even though it's built up higher, I'm sure the first floor still got flooded. Probably not to the extent of some others in the neighborhood, though - even houses much further inland. I noticed the water line on some houses a good 1000' feet or so from the bay was at ~5'. This particular neighborhood in Seaford got hit really hard, the worst I've seen in SE Nassau. I'm pretty sure the land down here is all natural coastline (never landfilled) with canals cut deep into it, and it's essentially at sea level. Neighboring communities are maybe only a few more feet above, but that likely made a world of difference! I attached a few more pictures from down here at the bottom, some of the homes with boats on their front lawns are several blocks from the bay.
Agree bigtime on the bolded part. If any part of Long Island benefits (slightly) from shifting demand, it's the North Shore.
As far as the insurance aspect goes (and I'm blending in a few replies I saw mathjak107 make in either this or another thread), I might be a little naive here - but it seems totally bogus to me that irresponsible flood zone homeowners are causing premiums to rise for all of us, or everyone else with flood insurance. Is it not entirely separate from homeowners, and have the premiums not SKYROCKETED over the last decade even before this (as they will surely rise once again now, and dramatically)? I'm more inclined to say the insurance companies are definitely covering their nuts on these flood premiums alone (and then some) and could easily implement some sort of tiered rate structure for people who are possibly in flood zones, but considerably lower risk. Wasn't there also in the not-so-distant past some ridiculous scam going on where people as far as 5-6 miles inland were being pushed into mandatory flood insurance policies if they wanted to keep their homeowners?
Regardless of all of that, people whose homes were destroyed/damaged and got insurance money only got money for the structure on their property. The alternative here would be to have that property cleared and the state/county/town to buy it out from under them... which would cost an INSANE FORTUNE both upfront and in lost taxable property. Not very appealing...
Good pictures, thanks for sharing. There are some videos on youtube like http://youtu.be/_-4bv_cDXYo which show more damage to the houseboats in that vicinity.
That's a great point I think people are overlooking on the cost it would take to buy out these properties plus the tax revenue losses to municipalities. It would cost way more to do it that way.
As far as flood insurance premiums, there is a scale based on your level of risk with premiums ranging from as low as a few hundred bucks all the way to $7000+ a year! Floodsmart | Policy Rates | Flood Risk | Flood Insurance
Wasn't there also in the not-so-distant past some ridiculous scam going on where people as far as5-6 miles inland were being pushed into mandatory flood insurance policies if they wanted to keep their homeowners?
Valley Stream was one of the communities that fell into this mandatory flood zone (even though they were far from the water). IIRC, they actually had FEMA come in and remove the mandatory flood insurance requirement. I hope that didn't come back to bit them in the as# with Sandy.
If you check the elevation here> Google Maps Find Altitude , a lot of South Valley Stream is <10 ft above sea level even though they appear to be far enough inland not to flood. Below 10 ft is similar to much of the area south of Merrick Rd in the Riv. My guess is much of that area experienced at least some sort of flooding. Elevation is tricky and not only dependent on your distance to the bay.
So I see a rush of a different kind. Fed up Long Islanders putting their houses up for sale en masse. Let's face it, we've already got a glut of homes on the market, many who receive little attention from buyers. You really think a natural disaster is going to perk that up? I don't. I see even more homes on the market and a lower number of buyers for them. And you all know what that means. In order to sell, somebody has to lower the price. Let's face it again, the prices have not gone down as much as they should have after the real estate bubble. How do we know? How about the record number of houses for sale for months, even years, yet when a home is even partially realistically priced, it gets snapped up? You think a hurricane is going to make prices go up?
You are not the most pessimistic, I think it is obvious that our 8 year declining/stagnating Long Island real estate market is not going to turn around based on a hurricane. (!)
First of all, everyone is talking about $1M+ homes on the water like that is all that's affected and only the "rich" will be bothered and the rich can afford the insane insurance and can afford the risk, so no biggie.
Let's face it, there are PLENTY of homes in the flood zones, and even actually on the water, that are much more middle class than that.
Very true, this storm went well inland and impacted many middle class and lower income residents, many of them replaced their furnaces and other appliances and now they were hot even harder. I am sure there will be a certain degree of speculation for prime real estate but those people being hit th esecond time around that can ill afford it may be thinking twice. Additionally there are many landlords that bought rental property in these flood zones, do they really want to go through this a 3rd time, maybe they will if they have no choice.
The bay areas, homes near canals and other waterways on the south shore were hit extremely hard from the surge, record level flooding. Flood insurance will go up, taxes to repair schools, sewage treatment plants, roads will go up, not that they were not high enough already. There will be some speculators but Joe middle class may be looking elsewhere with the enourmous downside coming down the road. This storm alone will take years to recover, the next storm that hits whether it's 1 year or 5 years away will be one that changes everyones mind.
Many of you are giving yourself a good time here. As a Manhattanite who was ready to move out to Nassau North or South - - we have SERIOUS SERIOUS SERIOUS reservations now on doing this. We live in Midtown East and were not really affected. We had power back on in 1 day. Our friends and family who live in Nassau North (East Hills, Roslyn, Great Neck) as well as south shore (Long and Atlantic Beach) were in a LIVING HELL for two weeks.
From our perspective: LI was a disaster zone that seemed quaranteened off on a scale of Chernobyl...and still does. Now we read that millions and millions of gallons of toxic raw sewage is pouring into the bay between Lawrence and Atlantic Beach.....and going to take months if not years to remedy.
Sorry, but there is no safe haven for real estate on Long Island...... This is Long Island's 9/11
I can hear the RE Brokers in these areas in about a week: "Its a GREAT TIME to Buy"......jeez.......
9/11? Chernobyl? You sound a bit like a raving loon.
I'm curious to know the definition of "living hell" is for the residents of East Hills and Roslyn. Could they not get to Andel's or Kitchen Kaberet for a week?
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After Sandy
