Natural disasters often good for housing sales, experts say

[gatorcane]

Natural disasters often good for housing sales, experts say:

For the first quarter of the year, sales of single-family homes in the greater New Orleans area zoomed to $826 million, a jump of 60 percent over the first quarter of 2005, when sales totaled $517 million, according to New Orleans Metropolitan Association of Realtors; 3,829 residential units were sold, 960 more than in the same period in 2005

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/re ... -headlines

[CajunMama]

I don't think it's greedy investors. You have people whose homes were damaged and they don't want to live there anymore so they opted to sell. It was the homeowners decision to sell. It's either sell or lose your home to the mortgage company and if many people lost their homes that would hurt the banking industry.

[gatorcane]

maybe I was a bit harsh I changed the title...

[sunny]

It's also a supply and demand issue.

[MGC]

I was just visiting a real estate friend of mine in Diamondhead Friday. She told me that home sales are booming in Diamondhead and she hinted that I should list my old house. I agree with Sunny, it is supply and demand. Lots of people here on the MGC are relocating futher north away from the water. I think the charm of living near the water has worn off a bit here.......MGC

[corpusbreeze]

I was just visiting a real estate friend of mine in Diamondhead Friday. She told me that home sales are booming in Diamondhead and she hinted that I should list my old house. I agree with Sunny, it is supply and demand. Lots of people here on the MGC are relocating futher north away from the water. I think the charm of living near the water has worn off a bit here.......MGC

Not here in Corpus. Padre Island is booming with new development. We here in Corpus have dodged the bullet for a long time. I guess we are blessed. But i know that luck will run out some day. But in the mean time ... let the good times roll.

[Dionne]

After repairs (Katrina damage) were completed on our home in Hattiesburg.....we had an appraisal done. We have owned the home for 4 years. It's walking distance to the USM campus. The value of the property almost doubled. It is my understanding this was caused by the influx of people from the coast moving inland. While we were down there doing the work......there wasn't a single day that someone didn't come around looking to buy or rent the home.

[stormie_skies]

Thats kind of a given when you have so many people driven out of their homes, isn't it? People sell what they have and move on, or they look to buy a home that is in better shape than the one they lost .... and eventually investors and developers will take whatever was destroyed and rebuild it, or demo it and start again. And people will come back (unless another storm hits in the near future). You can't help but expect a lot of activity in the market when so many people are exiled from their homes for such a long period of time.

I know the market has been unexpectedly strong in Texas cities that were popular with evacuees (Houston, DFW, San Antonio). I'll bet other cities near affected areas are experiencing the same thing.

Its the real estate "circle of life", I guess ....LOL

[TSmith274]

Yeah this is just people who want or have to leave selling their homes. At the same time, you have tens of thousands of people still displaced who want to get home. A lot of people leaving, and a lot of people moving back... all with very little supply. This should eventually level off.