Just Winging It posted:

Real question: how do these houses have any value at all? The huge risk for extensive damage, as reflected by the insurance premiums, ought to be reflected its value. 6 figure damage sounds like tear down and rebuild to me, so you're just paying for the land and it being residential zoned. Maybe it's me growing up in an area where we get a gnarly storm pretty much every year, but seeing these, sometimes multi-million, Florida houses built maybe 50 feet from the tide-line in a region that regularly experiences major hurricanes has me baffled. Or am I too woke/liberal/pinko commie/pejorative du jour to not understand what really seems like a half trillion game to see who can squeeze the most money out of the market until the jig is inevitably up?

Just Winging It posted:

Real question: how do these houses have any value at all? The huge risk for extensive damage, as reflected by the insurance premiums, ought to be reflected its value. 6 figure damage sounds like tear down and rebuild to me, so you're just paying for the land and it being residential zoned. Maybe it's me growing up in an area where we get a gnarly storm pretty much every year, but seeing these, sometimes multi-million, Florida houses built maybe 50 feet from the tide-line in a region that regularly experiences major hurricanes has me baffled. Or am I too woke/liberal/pinko commie/pejorative du jour to not understand what really seems like a half trillion game to see who can squeeze the most money out of the market until the jig is inevitably up?

Just Winging It posted:

Real question: how do these houses have any value at all? The huge risk for extensive damage, as reflected by the insurance premiums, ought to be reflected its value. 6 figure damage sounds like tear down and rebuild to me, so you're just paying for the land and it being residential zoned. Maybe it's me growing up in an area where we get a gnarly storm pretty much every year, but seeing these, sometimes multi-million, Florida houses built maybe 50 feet from the tide-line in a region that regularly experiences major hurricanes has me baffled. Or am I too woke/liberal/pinko commie/pejorative du jour to not understand what really seems like a half trillion game to see who can squeeze the most money out of the market until the jig is inevitably up?

Nenonen posted:

Fixed these for ya



hth

Uthor posted:

This is worse. Look at the wall!

Platystemon posted:

I’m shocked that it’s not more expensive.

The insurance companies must believe Tampa to be as hurricane‐proof as the residents do.

glynnenstein posted:

The real probability of extensive damage of any individual house inland is a lot lower than all the stuff that's along waterways or beach-front, but insurance is priced to include enough houses that statistical reality guarantees large losses. Also, there's just a ton of demand for housing in lots of places and people will discount longer term risk to accommodate the ability to own a home. Certainly some properties are at enough individual risk that they have downward pressure on pricing - there are probably some sweet beach properties that would already cost a lot more except that they've been destroyed once or twice already.

Darchangel posted:

We get those along the coast of Texas, too. Galveston, etc. Where they are literally built on sand bars that change shape every time a hurricane comes through...

Oh, I'm sure it works if you water enough, but then your using a ton of water in a drought.

Just Winging It posted:

Real question: how do these houses have any value at all?

TehRedWheelbarrow posted:

just lol if you think they have ever cracked open a bible

Uthor posted:

This is worse. Look at the wall!

poo poo Fuckasaurus posted:

I can also speak to insurance in Florida.

Computer viking posted:

Since we're speaking about water in Florida, what is happening here?


Just a lot of partially reclaimed swamp?

Uthor posted:

There's also the issue of costs for everything shooting up the last few years, so the money insurance companies took in over time isn't enough to cover what they have to pay out today.

TehRedWheelbarrow posted:

just lol if you think they have ever cracked open a bible

poo poo Fuckasaurus posted:

I can also speak to insurance in Florida.

So Insurance in Florida has gotten ludicrously expensive as of the last 5 or so years, it's true. The reasons are many and varied but actually have little to do with necessary risk and everything to do with money.

See, it's possible to build a nearly stormproof, and indeed, nearly submersible home within Florida code. A cinder block dwelling with modern, storm rated windows and doors, properly installed, can survive a flood with minimal if any water intrusion and damage. You see pics of houses like this online after every major hurricane, with water halfway up the French doors or sliders and the interior completely dry, and scores of people on Facebook or Imgur commending the workmanship.

In an ideal world, such truly storm-resilient homes would be the only homes allowed in Florida, but they're not. Instead we most commonly build stick-built homes like everywhere else. "Why that's a loving terrible idea!" I hear you cry. Haha, yeah. But it's also allowed by code because first off, we use pretty much the same codes as everywhere else, and second off, until the recent lumber crisis stick-built homes were cheaper not just in materials but also total cost to slap up than anything remotely solid, and in the 90s the state's housing board was fully and completely owned by developers who slapped up huge, huge developments of hundreds of houses as cheaply as possible. This is why people had to loving die in Hurricane Andrew before we mandate hurricane strapping for roofs. Shareholder value!

This causes a second fun problem. Those cheap, cheerful, quickly built houses from the 90s? They're aging out. They were never designed to last, and they're falling the gently caress down. Oh and loads don't have even basic hurricane preparation. Yes, the roof has to have been replaced by now, but what good is a new roof atop a poo poo house? Insurance knows this. They flag entire communities due to poo poo construction, in some cases whole cities, because they know that statistically, every house there is barely standing, and just waiting for a good day to collapse.

Oh also there's a fun but where we build on flood-prone near-swampland (or temporarily dewatered swampland which yearns to return to the domain of the gator) and the state has stripped out every regulation to stop that happening because money. These are the houses with the worst insurance rates.

So why the climb in the last 5 years? Actuary science! Haha actually it's hurricanes. In the last decade we have seen incomprehensible increases in hurricane activity. 2020 was the most active hurricane season of all time. Hurricane Michael in 2018 was a Cat 5 in October, which has never happened before, and hit the Panhandle, which was a first for a Cat 5. We have breached the gates of Hurricane Science and are not just treading, but sprinting into uncharted territory. God can't stop us and death is certain, and the insurance companies are scared as all hell.

The good news is that flood insurance is mostly the expensive part of insurance, because short of a flood houses mostly stay together, and you only need flood insurance if you have a mortgage. The bad news is, uh, you really need a mortgage due to the ongoing housing cost crisis here driving house prices up into the quarter-to-half million range as a floor.

And what's the plan for Citizen's (the insuruer of last resort) when The Big One comes? Best anyone tell, the state goes into default and bega for aid, yeah. It's a huge ol mess. Love living in the hellstate.

Oh, and don't believe the hype about Tampa being flood-proof, it's a cold clock lie. Tampa is highly, highly flood resistant due to hurricane geometry, but a theoretical perfect storm trajectory where the eye makes landfall north of Tampa could cause the bay to become a force multiplier for storm surge. This almost happened last year with Hurricane Idalia, a comparatively standard cat 4 hurricane that pushed 7 feet of storm surge into areas north of the Bay. This is a flat state, 7 feet is loving ruinous. Pushing that much water into the Bay and then back out would remake the coastline and turn most of Tampa Bay into Atlantis 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Sorry for the effortposts, Florida sucks you guys.

iwentdoodie posted:

Mostly old mines. There's a lot of phosphorus and other poo poo and that whole area is full of them. And a lot of the circular lakes are old mine pits also.

Florida definitely sucks and we are stuck here for awhile. Yay.

PurpleXVI posted:

Never live in a building designed by MC Escher.

Computer viking posted:

I honestly didn't expect that part of florida to have any mineral worth digging up, but I guess a bit of strip mining fits the general mood.

iwentdoodie posted:

It has shoes on the stoop, a peep hole and what looks like a doorbell.

Computer viking posted:

Since we're speaking about water in Florida, what is happening here?


Just a lot of partially reclaimed swamp?

poo poo Fuckasaurus posted:

and in the 90s the state's housing board was fully and completely owned by developers who slapped up huge, huge developments of hundreds of houses as cheaply as possible.

Oh also there's a fun but where we build on flood-prone near-swampland (or temporarily dewatered swampland which yearns to return to the domain of the gator) and the state has stripped out every regulation to stop that happening because money.

Bad Munki posted:

8one6 posted:

8one6 posted:

8one6 posted: