Home Insurance
Homeowners in the H-Town area certainly know about the rising cost of home insurance. Mine has gone up significantly over the past few years. Plus, when I finally had to file a claim when my carport in the featured photo was blown over by last summer’s hurricane, the deductible was way up there. The Chron has a story on area home insurance and here is how it starts:
A couple of years ago, when Sherry Thompson decided to shop around for home insurance after her annual policy with Geico was renewed at $15,000, the advice she got from insurance agents to lower her rate was blunt. “Get out of Seabrook,” she recalled them saying.
The question on her mind quickly became, who could afford to move in?
Higher home insurance premiums are threatening to destabilize the housing market, as buyers back away from increasingly uninsurable homes and homeowners struggle to keep up with payments in areas more prone to the impacts of climate change.
Real estate analysts and academics are concerned that insurance hikes will crater property values in some communities, sending a shock wave through the country’s economy that, as a U.S. Senate Budget Committee report concluded late last year, could “trigger a full-scale financial crisis similar to what occurred in 2008.”
“Insurance is the primary mechanism by which climate change is pricing its way into the real estate market,” said Jeremy Porter, the head of climate implications at First Street, a company that models climate risk.
In Texas, where home insurance has spiked only recently, there’s little data on how property values are being impacted.
But real estate agents and mortgage brokers on the coast say the early signs are there – and not just because of higher interest rates, which have slowed down the market nationally. Buyers are increasingly backing out of contracts because they can’t afford the cost of insurance. Homes are sitting on the market for longer, and sellers are dropping list prices.
Jamie Terry, a real estate agent in League City, said roughly 10% of the deals she represented last year fell apart because of the cost of insurance.
Here is the entire read: Climate change is driving insurance costs up — and home values down.
Ouch. In my case, I can absorb the cost.
Last week, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick released his top 25 legislative priorities which included the putting the Ten Commandments and prayer in our public schools. Nada on addressing the rising cost of home insurance. At some point, homeowners will have had enough.
_____
Yesterday they started removing the Minute Maid Park signage at The Yard. Here is from the Chron:
The venue originally was called The Ballpark at Union Station before a naming rights deal changed it to Enron Field in time for the official opening of the downtown stadium in 2000. After the Enron scandal of 2001, the ballpark briefly was known as Astros Field before a deal was struck with Minute Maid in 2002.
2025 will be the 26th season of baseball at Daikin Park. Of course, in 2020, the public was not allowed to attend games.
Opening Day is seven weeks from today.
