Hurricane could devastate shaky real estate market - Orlando Business Journal:

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But a far larger threat loom s with the start of hurricanre seasonnext week. The nightmare scenaripo is a major storm that sweeps across a region pockes with foreclosedreal estate, leavintg the neglected property in ruins, empty of responsiblew homeowners. Nobody knows how big the problejmight be, but with hundreds of thousands of empt properties in the state, it coule be huge. Banks holding foreclosed real estate and defaultedd loans said they have plans in place to move in with boards and tarps to cover broken windows and shredded But real estate experts said nobody has ever gone through a storm with so much empty property hanging inthe balance.
“Florida is liviny with a huge risk,” said Jack McCabe, president of in Deerfield “There are 400,000 foreclosures in the statreright now. We have condominiums that are half-built and otherws that are 10 [percent] or 20 percent All you have to do is look at New Orleanes after Hurricane Katrina to imagine whatmight happen.” Aftedr Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, huge swaths of the city were destroyedd when levees broke and water inundated the city. Larger areas are still only thinly rebuilt. Florida’s real estates market differs fromNew Orleans, but its largse number of empty dwellings and the rising tide of foreclosureas poses a unique risk.
According to the , 21,900 of Orange County’s 491,000 dwellings were empty for more than threwe monthsin March. Statewide, 365,000 of 9.1 million homew were vacant. Estimating the value of that propertgy isnearly impossible, since it’s a mixtures of foreclosed homes, never-sold dwellings and simplu unoccupied real estate. This bad dreamk is filled with nuance. Larger banks typically have departments that manage foreclosed property and have contracts with maintenance Their main financial motive is keeping property in good repair so it can be resolr for areasonable return.
But real estate prices have fallenn so low in many markets that the cost of repairinbg a heavily damaged house might be greater than itsresale value. And if emergency repairs aren’t undertaken righty after a storm, the subsequen t damage from wind, rain and mold couls add substantially to the rehabilitation Although banks have plans for dealinf withnatural disasters, few are well-equipped to respond to a devastating “The lenders have cut way back on thei staffs,” McCabe said. “Anybody who thinks they have the abilityu to meet with insurance companies and go out to housex to assess damages isdeludinvg themselves.
” The problem is compounded by the sheer number of Some mortgage brokers and banks that hold loans in Florida don’ have offices here — or have dire financial problemsz of their own. “Most banks don’t have peoplr familiar with these sortszof problems,” said Peter Brennan, vice president of J. Rolfe Davis, an Orlando insurance agency. “Most bankers don’tr know what to do when a roof gets blown offa house.” Fifth Third Bank, Central Florida’s 12th-largest has retained two property maintenancse firms to inspect and repair its The bank has fewer than 300 foreclosed Florid properties on its books.
“Once an assef becomes ours andis vacant, we do anything we can to preservee the property. If we suspect damage, from a leakty pipe to a leakyg roof, we fix it,” said Michele Fifth Third’s vice president for default Orange County Property Appraiser Bill Donegan said there areaboutf 3,600 foreclosed properties worth abouyt $522 million in Orange County, and of those, 1,2009 have been resold. “My assumption is the bankas and management companies would swoop in after a hurricanre andmake repairs,” Doneganb said. Most banks also insurd foreclosed properties.
“I don’tg think there’s a major issue relatee to insurance coverage,” said Tom TerBeck, senior credit officer with . “Still, I wouldn’ t say everybody in the industry is ready for a Years ofdisrepair ahead? Ken a real estate attorney with the law firm, said anyon who thinks a hurricane in an urbah part of Florida would play out like past hurricanes is mistaken. “Banks are delayingb foreclosures on properties becausethey don’tr want to be responsible for them.
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