Real Estate Expert: Florida Neighborhood is a Sea of For Sale Signs

Fascinating walk-through of a St Petersburgh neighborhood where a large number of home owners are clearly distressed, and the narrator points out there have been a string of severe flood events making things progressively worse.
This New York Times story, that I missed, describes middle class homeowners whose standard of living is being degraded by relentless storms and ever higher costs. The crisis is here, now – even as the peak of hurricane season is still to come.
But you still can’t say Climate Change in Florida.

New York Times June 5, 2024:

Hurricane Idalia came ashore last August some 200 miles north of Jennifer Connell-Wandstrat’s neighborhood in St. Petersburg, Fla., but her ranch-style home flooded with nine inches of water that ruined her appliances, doors, dry wall, floors and furniture. She still sleeps on a mattress on the living room floor with her youngest daughter.

Such an ordeal might have once seemed unlikely to ever happen again, at least in a resident’s lifetime. But Ms. Connell-Wandstrat is under no such illusion.

She lives in Shore Acres, a low-lying enclave at the edge of Tampa Bay where streets are broad, homes are comfortable — and floodwater has become a constant threat.

“Now it’s a real fear,” said Ms. Connell-Wandstrat, whose home has flooded twice in three years. “When’s it going to happen next?”

The next hugely damaging storm surge is only a matter of time, she and her neighbors know, especially with forecasters expecting the hurricane season that began on Saturday to be extraordinarily busy. Experts predict there will be 17 to 25 named storms, including four to seven that become major hurricanes with winds of at least 111 miles per hour.

Hurricane Idalia, while not as bad as other recent storms, inundated many neighborhoods far from the strong winds at its center. As climate change leads to higher sea levels and more frequent and intense storms, many more neighborhoods in Florida are expected to become vulnerable to flood risk. In Shore Acres, at least 1,200 of the roughly 2,600 homes flooded with Idalia; many flooded again during a storm in December.

Coping with that reality is not easy, and people in Shore Acres often field questions from relatives and friends asking why they stay.

Some have chosen to leave; “for sale” signs dot almost every block. Others are elevating their homes or razing them and rebuilding higher; imposing three-story structures now stand next to the older, one-story houses.

But many residents, like Ms. Connell-Wandstrat, cannot afford to lift up their homes or retreat. Even with considerable equity in their homes — Ms. Connell-Wandstrat, a tutor whose husband died in 2018, has lived there for 22 years — they are unlikely to find another place they can afford in Shore Acres or a similar neighborhood, given how much property values and mortgage rates have increased.

“I’m here for the foreseeable future,” Ms. Connell-Wandstrat said.

The neighborhood is leafy and walkable, near good schools and close to downtown St. Petersburg and Tampa, which sits across the bay. A large recreation center hosts community activities. A local Facebook group is incredibly active; after Hurricane Idalia, neighbors offered to do each other’s laundry and recommended reliable contractors.

Ms. Connell-Wandstrat, 51, bought in Shore Acres because it struck her as a gem, populated by doctors and lawyers but also teachers and nurses. The less affluent, however, are more vulnerable: The neighborhood is shaped like a bowl, with the more modest homes lying low in the middle.

Back when some of those homes were built in the mid-20th century, the city could only recommend, not require, a certain elevation, said Claude Tankersley, St. Petersburg’s public works administrator. Today, with high-tide flooding rapidly increasing in the Gulf of Mexico, parts of Shore Acres take on water even on sunny days. On a recent afternoon, pools formed at both ends of Ms. Connell-Wandstrat’s block.

After Hurricane Idalia, residents pressed the city to do more. St. Petersburg has since started to install nearly $4 million worth of new equipment to prevent saltwater from pushing up into drainage pipes in the neighborhood, with more projects planned.

Still, Mr. Tankersley said that the projects underway were “a Band-Aid.” Everyone in Shore Acres knows that the best solution other than leaving is to build higher, which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has a program to assist, but applying is a lengthy process that requires going through the city and state.

Since 1996, St. Petersburg, a city of about 260,000, has helped raise 13 homes, Mr. Tankersley said, with another one currently being elevated and 14 more in the pipeline.

“To talk about such a drastic change as having to elevate your home and the cost involved, it’s a scary thing,” he said. “We recognize that that’s going to take a long time.”