Good news everybody (in Florida). Your house just dropped in value 20%

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Photo above - this is what happened the LAST time Florida property values dropped 20%, during the 2008 housing crisis.

Good news everybody (in Florida). Your house just dropped in value 20%. Texas too.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. People fleeing California for Texas, and New Jersey for Florida, are supposed to make homes MORE expensive. And for a while, this is how it worked. Until it didn’t any more. See link at bottom.

First a caveat – these are Zillow (a corporation) estimates. Zillow is the company that nearly went bankrupt trying to buy homes and flip them for a quick buck. So their reputation is tainted and comes with an asterisk. In fact, the Zillow estimate of your home's value is nothing more than promotional scheme on their part to get clicks generate ad revenue. When Zillow actually tried to enact a business strategy based on the home values it concocted, things quickly went south.

The problem is land. It’s difficult to price real estate to the moon if there’s a lot of vacant land available. And not too many zoning restrictions to stop developers from building. That would be Texas and Florida. The opposite of California, where most urban land is already occupied, or on an earthquake fault line, or some cliff about to tumble into the sea. Anyway, most people would rather live in Bel Aire than Austin, as long as they have a wall and a gate to keep out the campers.

So why are property values in Florida and Texas (maybe) falling? In Florida, it’s hurricanes. In Texas too, along with an unstable electrical grid. If you could work from home, maybe those wouldn’t be your first choice, thinking of your family’s comfort and safety. And home owners insurance is skyrocketing. When state insurance commissioners attempt to cap insurance premiums insurers simply wave goodbye and head for the exits. In some places half the property insurers have fled.

So, if you’re from New Jersey, New York, or anywhere in New England, and you want to escape high taxes and high house prices, where do you go, if not Florida? Well, West Virginia has started getting a lot of mentions on the internet. Stop laughing. This is 100% true. No hurricanes. Decent cellular and internet coverage. Ultra-low real estate prices. Average schools. Abundant coal, if that’s the type of furnace in the basement of your fixer upper.

I have yet to see property values dropping 20% near me (the greater Tampa area). Of course, we’re not the bull's eye for hurricanes, and we are adjacent to Disney World, Sea World, and even “Reptile World” if you don’t mind driving a little further east. Of course, there’s no need to drive all that. If you take a walk in any swamp, you can see all the alligators, rattlesnakes, and even invasive Burmese pythons you can shake a stick at. And invasive Iguanas. And poisonous coral snakes. Well, you get the idea. But none of these will affect your home value.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

~Zillow Estimates Plummet 21% in Texas and Florida: Housing Markets in Freefall (msn.com)~