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Saturday, September 24, 2005 11:43:02 PM
Hurricanes put pressure on real estate market
Hurricanes put pressure on real estate market
Saturday, September 24, 2005 - by Dan Fiorucci
Anchorage, Alaska - Four weeks ago, Hurricane Katrina destroyed an estimated 275,000 homes in the Gulf Coast area, putting upward pressure on real estate prices all over the country, including Alaska. So will Hurricane Rita add further to Anchorage's skyrocketing home prices?
A roof shingle costs about a dollar, but it can take 10,000 of them to shingle the roof of a newly built home. So guess what happens to the price of them when millions of homes have shingles blown off in two consecutive hurricanes? The price of that shingle, and the price of the home it gets attached to, goes up, just as you might expect.
In the Anchorage market, where the price of homes has risen by an average of 15 percent during each of the last two years, saying prices will go up even further isn't exactly welcome news.
Prospective home buyers have certainly noticed the skyrocketing price of real estate, but realtors say they seem to keep coming out to look and to buy anyway.
“At this point, we're getting very little resistance because we have a lot of our population that is aging and they're buying up,” said Vicki Portwood with the Anchorage Home Builders Association.
Many of the home buyers Channel 2 talked to on Saturday agreed that though the price of the new homes they’re looking at have increased, the value of the home they live in has gone up too.
“Right now we're just improving our house so that we have a sellable house when the time comes when we're ready to go,” said Lollie Malone, a prospective home buyer.
Realtors say that seems to be the prevailing attitude. They say people are thinking “let me buy while I can still afford it because tomorrow who knows if I'll be able to.”
“We do have a limited amount of land and that is going to, by definition, just keep prices, at least, moving steadily upward,” said Prudential realtor Robert Delucia.
All the dizzying prices and the limited land in Anchorage have people saying hello to real estate before price increases force them to say good-bye.
The Alaska Association of Homebuilders says that, given the limits on land in the Anchorage bowl, there's only five to seven years of new construction possible on homes here. That's a curse and a blessing, they say, because if you do buy and the real estate bubble bursts elsewhere it's not likely to burst here because it’s impossible to overbuild Anchorage. Whatever the case, people are buying. There’s a little bit of ying and yang in the Anchorage housing market. Prices are going up, but there is optimism among realtors that at least the bubble won't burst here.
With Hurricane Katrina destroying 275,000 homes on the Gulf Coast, roofing tile has gone up, so has the cost of lumber. The port of New Orleans was the importation point for 15 percent of America's cement imports. So there could be a shortage of housing materials and that means increasing prices.
LINK: http://www.ktuu.com/cms/templates/master.asp?articleid=57&zoneid=1
Hurricanes put pressure on real estate market
Saturday, September 24, 2005 - by Dan Fiorucci
Anchorage, Alaska - Four weeks ago, Hurricane Katrina destroyed an estimated 275,000 homes in the Gulf Coast area, putting upward pressure on real estate prices all over the country, including Alaska. So will Hurricane Rita add further to Anchorage's skyrocketing home prices?
A roof shingle costs about a dollar, but it can take 10,000 of them to shingle the roof of a newly built home. So guess what happens to the price of them when millions of homes have shingles blown off in two consecutive hurricanes? The price of that shingle, and the price of the home it gets attached to, goes up, just as you might expect.
In the Anchorage market, where the price of homes has risen by an average of 15 percent during each of the last two years, saying prices will go up even further isn't exactly welcome news.
Prospective home buyers have certainly noticed the skyrocketing price of real estate, but realtors say they seem to keep coming out to look and to buy anyway.
“At this point, we're getting very little resistance because we have a lot of our population that is aging and they're buying up,” said Vicki Portwood with the Anchorage Home Builders Association.
Many of the home buyers Channel 2 talked to on Saturday agreed that though the price of the new homes they’re looking at have increased, the value of the home they live in has gone up too.
“Right now we're just improving our house so that we have a sellable house when the time comes when we're ready to go,” said Lollie Malone, a prospective home buyer.
Realtors say that seems to be the prevailing attitude. They say people are thinking “let me buy while I can still afford it because tomorrow who knows if I'll be able to.”
“We do have a limited amount of land and that is going to, by definition, just keep prices, at least, moving steadily upward,” said Prudential realtor Robert Delucia.
All the dizzying prices and the limited land in Anchorage have people saying hello to real estate before price increases force them to say good-bye.
The Alaska Association of Homebuilders says that, given the limits on land in the Anchorage bowl, there's only five to seven years of new construction possible on homes here. That's a curse and a blessing, they say, because if you do buy and the real estate bubble bursts elsewhere it's not likely to burst here because it’s impossible to overbuild Anchorage. Whatever the case, people are buying. There’s a little bit of ying and yang in the Anchorage housing market. Prices are going up, but there is optimism among realtors that at least the bubble won't burst here.
With Hurricane Katrina destroying 275,000 homes on the Gulf Coast, roofing tile has gone up, so has the cost of lumber. The port of New Orleans was the importation point for 15 percent of America's cement imports. So there could be a shortage of housing materials and that means increasing prices.
LINK: http://www.ktuu.com/cms/templates/master.asp?articleid=57&zoneid=1
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