According to experts from the Baton Rouge housing market, the sector is expected to reach ‘crazy’ levels of demands, population shifts, and higher prices as the flooding affected over 110,000 family homes.
The recent Louisiana flooding disaster is being considered by the Red Cross as the worst natural disaster after Hurricane Sandy happened four years ago. Families and residents have lost all of their belongings, including their homes. The housing market in the state’s capital already had a small inventory before the flooding, and now real estate workers are expecting crazy levels of demand and populations shifts.
Now, with thousands of people losing their houses due to the floodings, the search for a new home is the primary goal. According to the president of the Greater Baron Rouge Association of Realtors’ Multiple Listing Service, Giner Maulden, the inventory might lower because of clients allowing displaced families live in the houses they expected to sell.
Before the flooding, home sellers were receiving a high amount of offers for their homes because of the limited options. Now, people selling houses in non-flood zones will receive thousands of offers.
Dramatic demand
Although the request was already high before the disaster, a new kind of interest in the market has emerged. House-seekers affected by the flooding are now looking for places to rent instead of buy.
According to Rick Haase, the president of a real estate company in charge of a housing market website, the numbers of people seeking for renting opportunities has increased dramatically. In a usual scenario, around 3 to 5 percent of the people searched for renting opportunities in the website. But after the natural disaster, the page’s focus on renting increased to 84 percent.
Real estate experts also predict populations shifts since the vast majority of people will seek for houses outside flooding zones and the demand for houses within flooding-risk zones will decrease dramatically.
“We’re still in very early stages, but there will definitely be a population shift people will move out of the areas flooded,” said Haase.
Many Lousiana citizens have already purchased new houses after being affected by the flooding, a real estate seller named Kyle Petersen has sold two homes in just 24 hours which is a very strange number in this time of the year.
“The run on housing has begun,” said Petersen to The Advocate.
The natural disaster has affected thousands of business, homes, and families such as car dealerships that have lost inventory because of the heavy rains and floodings. According to a dealership owner in Louisiana, at least 26 of his 126 employees have lost vehicles or homes due to the disaster and most of the dealerships are closed due to losses.
Source: The Advocate