Buying a Home After a Hurricane in a State Like Florida

Have you considered purchasing a home in a state that has hurricanes, and you're wondering, well, what's going to happen if I purchase one or tend to purchase one and a hurricane comes hit somewhere in the state? Well, in this video, we're going to cover a lot of those scenarios, and give you the best information for you to move forward in making that decision and purchasing in Florida. So, stick around.

Alright. So, let's get into it. When we get into Florida, there is a potential for hurricanes. I know a lot of people have asked these questions over the years. But, it is home to one hurricane every three years or so. Lately, it's been mostly South Florida that has taken a brunt or the brunt of most of them. But, there are some things to know when it comes to hurricanes. 

1. BUILDING CODE

The Florida homes have a building code, right? And that building code ensures that the newer homes are structurally sound and can withstand severe weather, all right? Obviously, within reason. If a CAT-5 hurricane comes through and they're ripping the top of trees off, I mean, who knows if that's really going to hold on there. But within reason, they'll normally be able to withstand that, right? So, the newer ones have. Now, some of the older homes, they've been sitting around for a long time. And the hurricane still hadn't blown them down yet, right? So, even the older homes, some of them are still like cylinder block that we still have here in like the Destin Fort Walton Beach area. They're still sitting around from the 50s and they still are withstanding the time, test of time. So, that's actually pretty cool too. So, keep that in the back of your mind.

2. FLOOD INSURANCE

All home insurance has a hurricane deductible, they all have it. You have to have it when you're here in the state of Florida. So, as part of your homeowner's insurance, it's not something extra that you have to put on there. So, all the policies are going to have that. Is flood part of a hurricane? You would think it would be, right? But it's not, it's something separate. And not all places in Florida are in a flood zone. They're not all perpetually as flat as it is. They're not all in flood zones, right? What it is at least currently is to be within a flood zone, you had to be as nine feet or below median sea level, right? So, if you were in that, the depending upon that position will depend if you're in a certain type of flood zone like an AE, VE, you know, all those different acronyms that let you know which sort of flood zone that you're going to be in. Now, if you are in a flood zone and you have a home that you want to insure, right, or you're getting some sort of loan on that. They're going to require you that you get flood insurance if you're in one of those codes other than the no flood zone which we call zone X, okay?

3. EVACUATION PLANS

Another thing to know number three is that, there are evacuation plans if an area gets hit. Those are already in place. Your local government has put those into place, and you just have to look them up and it'll tell you exactly what hurricane route that you should go. A lot of us, we're prepared for those and as a Floridian. And, there's tons of information that come out every single year as hurricane season hits of hey, this is what you should have for, from the military, a bug out bag, right? What are the things you're going to take in a moment's time to get out of here if a hurricane hit? And if you're going to stick around, like, what are some things that you need to have for the house? Right? And, how will you prepare the house? All these things, it's already there when you do get here and you decide to get a home or a townhome or something. Most homes are going to have hurricane shutters or something to put over your windows, maybe plywood. I would go out and test those things first, so the first time that you're doing those isn't when a hurricane's coming. And, you got to get a little bit of time to get out there.

4. FEMA

Alright. Number four thing that you should know is if an area is hit really badly like it's rough, FEMA's comes and clears all that debris. They'll get the power back up and running. They'll get the cell phone towers back up and running before they let you back in. Because it's like a natural disaster area and they don't typically let people in, unless they're working, okay? But, that's only if the storm is bad enough. Right? And those are going to be storms that are probably CAT-4, CAT-5, right? And those rarely come around as well. I didn't really look at the statistics just based since I've been here, that I think we've seen one that has come through that was at that level. But, somebody wants to do the research, leave it in the comments below. I'd love to hear from you. Alright.

So, what does that mean for you buying a home in a state that has hurricanes. Right? So, couple things to note. If the storm causes damage to that home, the insurance will usually take time to fix it. Then you can proceed with that purchase. So, I purchase a home, named storm comes in, blows the roof off, maybe that completely off. But you know, messes it up, insurance will come out, they'll go ahead and replace that. And per our contract, you as a buyer could either decide to get out of the contract, or wait until the insurance fix it up, and then you'll be good to go to proceed with that purchase.

Know that if there is a named storm in the Gulf of Mexico, that they're not going to bind to any sort of insurance, during that time, right? They're going to wait for the storm to go through, and then they'll go ahead and do that. So, know that they typically just wait until that storm has cleared. Because we never know where it's going to go, all the spaghetti charts, right?

Know the insurance rates always seem to increase after hurricane hits in the state. It always does, right? Because they're trying to recoup their money, you know, the hype we'll say goes up. Insurance rates typically do go up a little bit more, so just anticipate that.

Surrounding property values tend to increase after a hurricane hits. That's an interesting statistic I didn't even know until I researched this. But yeah, surrounding property values tend to increase in value after hurricane hits. Mainly because, there's less housing, right? So, you're going to see those property values go up.

And, if you do buy from an area with a big storm, here's some things to keep in the back of your mind. So, say that we had Hurricane Michael that came through and hit Panama, Panama City, right? It's been a few years since then. Most of the homes are all good to go now, right? It's been four years since then. And, what you can do when you do that is to make sure to get a thorough inspection. You should have a real estate professional representing you, hopefully, and they're going to do this for you and make sure that you get a thorough inspection. The things that you want to check for if a storm has recently gone through, is check for water damage. You know, check for corrosion, that's something else, because this was sitting in water for a while. A big thing that we see is mold, right, for something that just sat in water for a long time, didn't dry out properly because it's hot and humid here. Especially in the summertime you think it would dry out pretty quickly, but sometimes it doesn't. It traps in that moisture and can cause mold, which can cause an array of health problems. So, make sure that you're checking for mold, all these different things inside the house to make sure that this is secure, which will be good for you and your family.

So, there are those things that you need to consider when purchasing in a hurricane area. Now, most of the time you're not going to run into these specific instances, it's kind of a one-off thing. It's kind of rare that we see big, big storms that come through. And a lot of the times, it's a Floridian, we'll see those storms; we'll mentally get prepared. Maybe we have a bag or something ready, and then it just seems to goes off to a different direction. But, if it ever did come here that we'd be ready, we always have some sort of hurricane prepared kit, and you can easily Google those like, hey, what do we need? What are the curtain things? What should we be listening to? All these different items to help you better prepare for that.

But that's all I do have for you for buying a home after hurricane in a state like Florida. If you have any other questions beyond what we spoke about here, please feel free to call/text us at 850.320.7757 or email us at Admin@WhittemoreGroupRE.com

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