Are Hurricane Prone Areas Losing Population Due To Fear Of Storms Or Housing Slowdown?

Owning real estate in hurricane prone regions of the country has always had it’s risks. So after a particularly bad stretch of storms over the past few years one would expect the population to decline.

And it has, by about 1 percent since 2000.

Of course, according to the study by USA Today, the regions hardest hit by Katrina are the ones which have lost the greatest population. That is obvious as they are still rebuilding nearly 3 years later.

What is interesting is how the housing slowdown has played into this. For  Has the housing slowdown affected those trying to move to Florida from the north? I think so.

First selling a home in the upper Midwest and northeast has been tough. Add to that the falling housing prices in Florida. This combination has not rushed potential buyers to make that buying decision.

So will this trend continue? I doubt it.

The lure of coastal living is too strong to the human spirit. Once housing prices stabilize and the market regains it’s equilibrium, I think the trend of buyers to the coast will continue as strongly as it has before the series of storms and the housing slowdown. Hurricanes be damned.

The number of people who live in coastal areas that are most vulnerable to wind and water has fallen slightly since 2000, reversing a boom that brought tens of thousands of homes and high-rises to low-lying regions from Texas to Georgia, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

About 2.1 million people live full-time in those areas, down less than 1% over the past eight years.

That doesn’t mean Americans are thinking twice about living in vulnerable spots, says Robert Hartwig, president of the Insurance Information Institute. Instead, he says, the slowdown is more likely a result of a housing market crunch that’s left some homes vacant — and others half-built — in once fast-growing parts of the South. USATODAY.com