I had always wanted to do the Florida boating thing, so during the Financial Crisis in 2010 my wife and I purchased a canal home with a dock and good access in Cape Coral. We both really enjoyed our 7 years living part-time and boating out of Cape Coral. But I was (still am) working fulltime online and already splitting our time between Indianapolis and Lake Cumberland, so we found splitting our time between 3 homes in 3 different states a bit hectic. We were fortunate in that during the 7 years we owned the home in Cape Coral there was an El-Nino weather phenomena that apparently kept the hurricanes on the East coast at bay. And after 7 years we parted with the Florida home with the intention of hopefully purchasing something on our then newly-found favorite place in Florida, Anna Maria island, sometime in the future when I got closer to retirement age. That time is quickly approaching.

As everyone knows prices of Florida waterfront homes went through the roof during Covid -but after a rough patch of hurricanes the prices on those those homes are coming down - and fast. But is it too fast? Which brings me to the question:

I've recently watched some videos on the Post-hurricane market on these 1970's, 80s, and 90's ground-level homes in coastal Florida and they raise the prospect that many of these homes may not be viable at any price in the near future because of the exploding cost of insuring them, and quickly changing building codes. I'm seeing videos that talk about 350% increases on insuring already-high insurance policies on barrier-island homes, and that's if you can find any insurance company that is willing to even write a new policy at all - with many insurers totally giving up on the Florida market altogether.

And for the insurers that do stay, the carriers say they are going to have to further raise their prices substantially to account for the fact that the old hurricane tables that the policies were calculated on no longer seem to be viable. The once-every-100-year-flood has recently become the once every 15-or-20 year flood - and the catastrophic loss these companies are suffering means insanely high insurances prices coming down the pike, or no insurance at all if your home is at ground level in a flood plane.

So is all of this fear of an insurance-led collapse in FL coastal real estate real, or is it just a knee-jerk fear after a run of bad hurricane seasons? I'm inclined to wait and watch the dust settle rather than jumping in on a seeming bargain at this time.

What say you?

Buy a stilt house. My flood insurance is around $750 a year

We Americans are so soon to forget. The storms will be a thing of the past as long as we have a couple years of "non hits". So many people are constantly pouring into the state that any drop in R.E. values will be temporary as time has repeatedly shown us. Self insuring seems to make more sense to me if you are in an area where things are totally outrageous. The deductible cost will repair a ton of damage in most cases-you can get a liability and fire policy but not have wind.

Joe

Our last quote had an 88k deductible, F it, we haven’t had homeowners, wind, flood etc insurance in years and we’re a half mile up Hudson Bayou behind Shelby Gardens. After seeing what Manasota and Siesta keys got I wouldn’t live out there even if I could get insurance. They’re still mostly a washed out sandbar. Piles of what was home interiors lining the streets today.

Joes right though, they keep coming. Mostly cash and self insured.

Couple that with the crap water coming down the Caloosahatchee, I would not touch real estate in the CC/Ft Myers area. As boomers die, so will real estate values as new buyers will not put up, or be able, to put up with it.

I am thinking the gulf coast Barrier islands will be next to impossible to get insurance.

Better bet would be to buy on a canal off the main land, and if you can an elevated home. I am on the east coast and when we bought one of the things I did was look at elevation, I knew I could get it up to current wind codes but can not do a thing about flood.

Insurance is still high, we will see this August what the renewal goes to.

I work for a coastal Florida only carrier and we will write new policy and we are not raising rates. So don't believe all you read and see.


Also lived here my whole life on the coast and while there isnnow a lot for sale. The cost are still high and they are moving them so don't get too much hope just yet know cheap water front living.

Cape Coral has 9,880 house for sale. How big is Cape Coral?

around 200K population right now. will soon be 400K

Insurance will only go up......