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Sarasota Herald Tribune by Rich
Shopes
09/26/2004
Location, location ... safety
It's not happening yet, but builders and real estate professionals
expect sales of new homes to spike after Charlotte County
sufficiently digs out from Hurricane Charley.
Already, storm-wary home buyers are peppering Realtors and other
salespeople with questions about hurricane-protection features, from
safe rooms to storm shutters.
In some cases, builders are considering using pro-safety sales
pitches to win over jittery buyers.
"They are definitely more curious about safety," says Steve Ferracci,
vice president of First American Homes in North Port.
As a result, builders and brokers are talking more than usual about
wind ratings, double-insulated glass and changes in the building
code two years ago that beefed up hurricane safety standards.
Make no mistake, builders will have a tough sell in coming months.
Traffic at model homes has dwindled more than usual for August and
September, already the year's weakest months for sales, and with TV
broadcasts trumpeting hurricanes Charley, Frances and Ivan, builders
are worrying that sales might not strengthen until early next year.
Compounding matters, this year's presidential election could prompt
out-of-state buyers to wait until December before they even venture
into Florida.
At some point, though, builders expect a reprieve, and when that
happens, the spotlight will shift to hurricane safety. How long it
will stay there is a subject of debate.
"It's a little soon for buyers to be pouring in saying 'I want a new
home with all the new codes,' but I know we have some buyers up here
that were very, very happy that they got the double-pane, insulated
glass," said Judy Preston of Oldsmar-based Nohl Crest Homes.
Also gaining attention are "safe rooms." A rarity on Florida's west
coast, the rooms are an increasingly hot topic for builders, says
Preston, the company's marketing director.
She says Nohl Crest has been considering ways to introduce the rooms
as practical features ever since Charley and Frances swept across
the region.
The trick, she said, isn't to scare off customers, driving them to
rethink their retirement plans, but to market the rooms as essential
elements with dual purposes, "a kind of a flex space situation, an
exercise room or office or study space so it could have multiple
uses," said Preston.
Manatee County's Efficient Wall Systems of Florida is taking the
safe-room concept further.
In the past few weeks the company has introduced a line of
bunker-like 9-by-12-foot "safe houses" that can be incorporated into
homes or stand alone, and sell for $9,000 to $12,000.
The company already makes poured concrete walls. When touring
hurricane-ravaged Charlotte, executives noticed that the homes built
with its construction methods survived Charley. So it wasn't a
stretch to apply the building concept to safe houses.
The rush to market safety isn't necessarily being driven by
builders, though.
Tim Bekkering, sales director at Venice's Fidelity Homes, said that
plenty of buyers, aware of the punishment Charley inflicted on older
homes, are routinely asking about impact-resistant glass, storm
shutters and roof-wind loads.
Most are resigned to the possibility that a hurricane will strike
eventually, and are open to asking about safety.
"In the last few homes we've sold, we've had half of the people ask
us to provide hookups for generators," said Bekkering. "They want to
have that done ahead of time so they can just plug it in when they
lose power."
Barbara Saputo, a Coldwell Banker sales associate in North Port,
agrees that safety is a hot topic. But although she's fielding more
questions about safety, she doubts the issue will stay front and
center for very long.
"People are more aware of that 2002 date when the new hurricane
codes went into effect," she said. "They're asking what constitutes
a safe home, what are the building requirements?"
But in the long run, and knowing the nature of home buyers, Saputo
said she expects bread-and-butter issues of cost, aesthetics and
location to drive sales more than anything else.
Hurricanes can quickly fade from memory, especially for out-of-state
buyers who haven't lived through a hit or near miss. That also holds
for waterfront buyers. They know the storm-related risks but decide
to live there anyway, she said.
"The true waterfront buyers know they want to be on the Gulf, or on
the bay, and they know they will be greatly impacted, but they are
resolved to that."
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