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This house hunt is brutal, and I feel like I keep finding homes that are close, but with a major hangup....
Yesterday we looked at a home, while on the small side, we really liked. Good location, great yard. Amazing school zone. The kind of thing we would want to start with. Problem is it is listed as zone AE(9)...
Reading this board, I see 6-7 year old posts about his insurance will eat you alive, but I really want to know the reality of that. The owner says they are only paying 1200, yet I see people talking about 5k+ quotes, and a 25% yearly hike..
We are trying to get the elevation certificate, as I need that for a quote, but have been told we can't get it unless the offer is accepted.
I am not rich, and this house is higher on the budget. We already made an offer (10k over), but I know we can retract it. I am just si conflicted. Is insurance going to crush us?
I know you canceled the offer, I want to give you some more to think about.
A few weeks ago I was watching a program called SINKHOLES: SWALLOWED ALIVE. They were all over the world showing how homes are sinking due to old abandoned mines and other reasons such as building houses where homes should never be built. On another show, engineering disasters, one of the major cities in Texas was featured, may have been Dallas. They had built on what was supposed to be a water holding area. When a storm hit, there was nowhere for the water to go, so homes were buried in water.
I was surprised to see that Florida is considered ground zero for sinkholes. It is prone to sinkholes because of its geology: underground limestone caverns full of voids that can collapse due to fluctuating water levels. It's especially bad in St Pete in the Crescent Lake area north of downtown. The article below says there is a database created in 2005 on the premise that detailed claims information would help show the true extent of the state's sinkhole problem. The article doesn't say how to find the database. The article said some people got paid by insurance but didn't fix the issues.
Tell your GF that maybe you dodged a big bullet. I surely would be looking into it both sinkholes and if there are any water holding areas that have been built on like Texas. I suggest you watch a few episodes so you can see how to spot potential sinkhole homes. There are realtors in Florida selling homes that have been repaired and put on metal piers so they don't sink.
Sinkhole Ground Zero - Geologist Matthew Kirby, investigates the alarming number of sinkholes in central Florida.
Everyone knows there are sinkholes in Hernando County, where nearly a third of homeowners in one subdivision have reported sinkhole damage.
And everyone past a certain age remembers the Great Winter Park Sinkhole, which in 1981 swallowed a house, five Porsches and half of an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
But sinkholes in the city of St. Petersburg? Within a few miles of tony Beach Drive restaurants and shops?
Yes, more than a dozen St. Petersburg homeowners have filed insurance claims for sinkhole damage since 2007, according to a short-lived state database.
As the Tampa Bay Times recently reported, the number of sinkhole claims in Florida has surged in the past five years with many homeowners getting big payouts that are causing mounting losses for insurance companies. State-run Citizens Property Insurance Corp., which has more Florida policyholders than any other company, says it collected $37 million in sinkhole premiums in the first nine months of 2011 but paid out almost $314 million.
Like the rest of Pinellas County, St. Petersburg lies in a "sinkhole alley'' that includes Pasco, Hillsborough and especially Hernando, which leads the state in sinkhole claims.
I know you canceled the offer, I want to give you some more to think about.
A few weeks ago I was watching a program called SINKHOLES: SWALLOWED ALIVE. They were all over the world showing how homes are sinking due to old abandoned mines and other reasons such as building houses where homes should never be built. On another show, engineering disasters, one of the major cities in Texas was featured, may have been Dallas. They had built on what was supposed to be a water holding area. When a storm hit, there was nowhere for the water to go, so homes were buried in water.
I was surprised to see that Florida is considered ground zero for sinkholes. It is prone to sinkholes because of its geology: underground limestone caverns full of voids that can collapse due to fluctuating water levels. It's especially bad in St Pete in the Crescent Lake area north of downtown. The article below says there is a database created in 2005 on the premise that detailed claims information would help show the true extent of the state's sinkhole problem. The article doesn't say how to find the database. The article said some people got paid by insurance but didn't fix the issues.
Tell your GF that maybe you dodged a big bullet. I surely would be looking into it both sinkholes and if there are any water holding areas that have been built on like Texas. I suggest you watch a few episodes so you can see how to spot potential sinkhole homes. There are realtors in Florida selling homes that have been repaired and put on metal piers so they don't sink.
Sinkhole Ground Zero - Geologist Matthew Kirby, investigates the alarming number of sinkholes in central Florida.
Yes, there are sinkholes in Pinellas County. However, go to the north to Pasco County and the number of sinkholes increase exponentially. The percentage of sinkholes per county are pretty tiny in Pinellas compared to Pasco and other counties.
Hard to take serious a website that gets basic grammar on street names wrong, and has homes slammed right next to each other in a development rated as having different risks.
Could you be more specific and post a link? I attended schools and a university in Virginia that are a lot better than the ones in Florida. I didn't notice any grammar errors on the site or irregularities in its maps. Although, verifying it is a "1" is my main objective, when using the site.
Could you be more specific and post a link? I attended schools and a university in Virginia that are a lot better than the ones in Florida. I didn't notice any grammar errors on the site or irregularities in its maps. Although, verifying it is a "1" is my main objective, when using the site.
Not sure what your university comment means, did you mean to respond to someone else?
Location: Sarasota/ Bradenton - University Pkwy area
4,615 posts, read 7,535,442 times
Reputation: 6036
Flood Insurance is one of those topics that people don't like to talk about, but with Florida leading the other states with almost 1.8 million flood insurance policies, residents need to be aware that everyone agrees the current national flood insurance program is broken, but nobody in Congress wants to attempt a major overhaul of the current system because they understand the flood insurance rates would have to increase substantially in cost.
Congress keep kicking the flood insurance can down the road with minor patches vs major fixes. When the National Flood Insurance Program expired in 2012, Congress made multiple short term extensions and actually let the program lapse 4 times before they finally got their act together and passed the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act. That legislation raised policy premiums in coastal areas so high that it was amended by Congress 2 years later. The flood insurance program has expired 16 times since then, while Congress fights over what to do to "fix" it.
The next expiration date is September 2021. Yes, right in the middle of hurricane season.
Eventually something will have to be done to overhaul the current flood insurance program as it is currently $20 BILLION in debt. Premiums obviously are not covering the costs.
How many are aware that FEMA made an announcement on April 8, 2021, of a new approach to its flood risk pricing methodology, named Risk Rating 2.0? The main goal of Risk Rating 2.0 is to tailor FEMA’s Risk MAP process and in particular to assess individual homes on the basis of individual risk, replacing the current system of basing rates on the elevation of all homes within a certain flood zone. The new system is supposed to be implemented Oct 1st of 2021 for new policies and April 1st of 2022 for current policy holders.
Anyone looking to purchase a home located within a designated flood zone should pay careful attention to what is being discussed regarding the FUTURE of the flood insurance program, not just checking into current rates.
Anyone looking to purchase a home located within a designated flood zone should pay careful attention to what is being discussed regarding the FUTURE of the flood insurance program, not just checking into current rates.
^^^^^
This!
Flood insurance policies are still relatively inexpensive, however, once you're committed, you're stuck. While the prevailing attitudes seem to keep pushing the Federal flood insurance situation back, it's only a matter of time before there is a reckoning and premiums finally begin to reflect the actual costs of the program. When this occurs you're stuck, and extracting yourself from the situation will become even more difficult.
Man.. I don't get how people manage this home buying stress. This market is soul crushing.
Hearing everyone flat out say no just yet again, takes the wind out of my sails. I really do wo Der how so many homes here work if flood insurance is this big a problem though... half the county is listed as AE...
I already can't best every single offer being in cash as it is... I just want to give up
Yep, it is worse in parts of Florida than many other parts of the country. We are the third most populous state in the nation with tons of people moving in. Complete sellers market here. Our home that we paid $240,000 for less than 5 years ago is now estimated to be work $345,000 and maybe more.
I am somewhat familiar with the area you are looking. The danger there to me (although I am not an expert) is the threat of Tampa Bay flooding in the event of a hurricane. The land is very flat and not much above sea level there, so it may not take more than a 10-15’ surge to flood that area. That being said, that area has never flooded before, so.... it all comes down to how risk adverse you are verses your willingness to live farther a way from work and other amenities you want. You could find a place in western hillsborough county that would be safer from floods, but that puts you in a very different living environment than st Pete.
For me personally, I still am not used to having the threat of hurricanes for 6 months of the year. I hope to move at some point, but I would miss the nice winters, the water and beaches. Not sure for me those things are worth it. I could still vacation in Florida without all the risk.
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