2015 U.S. Natural Disaster Housing Risk Report                       
A recent RealtyTrac report has Florida listed as the state with the most counties at Very High Risk for hurricanes. This is not new news. But what might surprise you is that Florida is 3rd on the list for risk of wild fires.
For the report, RealtyTrac assigned a natural disaster risk score to 2,318 counties nationwide with sufficient home value data available. Based on its score, each county was assigned to one of five risk categories for overall risk of natural disaster: very high, high, moderate, low and very low.
43 percent ,35.8 million, U.S. single family homes and condos are in counties with high or very high natural hazard risk.
The states with the most homes in high or very high risk-counties, according to the latest RealtyTrac report, include California (8.4 million homes at high risk), Florida (6.7 million), New York (2.4 million), New Jersey (2.3 million) and North Carolina (2.3 million).
The cities with the most homes in high risk counties are not surprisingly (due to their large number of homes): New York (3.5 million homes at high risk), Los Angeles (2.5 million), Mia

mi (1.9 million), Houston (1.2 million), and Riverside-San Bernardino in Southern California (1.1 million).
The report found that 24.5 million single family homes and condos (29 percent of the 83.4 million total) are in counties with a High risk or Very High risk for hurricanes.
States with the most homes in High risk or Very High risk counties for hurricanes are Florida (6.7 million), North Carolina (2.4 million), Virginia (2.0 million), New York (1.9 million) and New Jersey (1.8 million).
Metro areas with the most homes in High risk or Very high risk counties for hurricanes are New York (3.0 million), Miami (1.9 million), Washington, D.C. (1.8 million), Boston (1.1 million) and Tampa (953,000).
States with the most homes in High risk or Very High risk counties for wildfires are California (1.9 million), New York (1.6 million), Florida (1.6 million), North Carolina (1.1 million), and New Jersey (1.1 million).
Although average home values were higher in higher-risk counties, home price appreciation over the past 10 years was stronger in lower-risk counties.
Home price appreciation over the past three years has been stronger in higher risk counties for natural disaster. In counties with a High risk for overall natural disaster, home prices increased 16.6 percent between 2012 and 2015 on average, while home prices in counties with a Very High risk for natural disasters increased 20.4 percent during the same time period.

Sarasota, Florida is such an exceptional place to live, these listed risks don’t seem to affect the market. We haven’t seen more than a tropical storm in a decades. I think we are protected as did John Ringling. He chose Sarasota to winter his circus because his sources told him due to the configuration of the coastline here, Sarasota, Florida is likely to dodge the bullet.
For more information about Sarasota and the real estate market give Susan Phelps, Berkshire Hathaway a call today at 941-726-2227.