Tampa Bay Times: “How Will Hurricane Helene Reshape Tampa Bay’s Housing Market?”
Research and insight by RFF Fellow Penny (Yanjun) Liao about post-hurricane housing markets in Florida is contextualized in this article about storm recovery in Tampa Bay.
The frenzy of rebuilding after disasters can prompt transformative community change — including shifts to home values, rent prices and resident population.
In a study published last year in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, researchers analyzed 16 years of property data across various Florida markets. They found that after a hurricane hits, home prices temporarily rise and wealthier buyers move in.
“Basically, the hurricane destroys part of the housing stock,” said Yanjun Liao, an economist at Resources for the Future, a nonprofit research institute in Washington, DC “And so there is less housing supply on the market, which has upped the price.”
The population turnover typical after storms can cause a “gentrifying effect” Liao said. In the long run, rebuilding efforts could boost both home values and rent costs, which can prompt “changes in sort of the social fabric of the community.”
