E&E News: "Will Hurricanes Produce More Wealthy landowners in Florida?"
A recent journal article coauthored by Yanjun (Penny) Liao about the effect of hurricanes on Florida housing markets is profiled in this story.
Housing markets hit by hurricanes tended to gentrify and attract wealthier buyers in the long term, according to a new study that analyzed trends in Florida over a 16-year period... With the cost of homeowners insurance skyrocketing in Florida and now nearly three times as high as the national average, the trend could only exacerbate, one of the study’s co-authors said.
“Wealthier households are in general just better at self-insuring,” said Yanjun (Penny) Liao, a fellow with Resources for the Future, a nonprofit research institution in Washington, D.C. “After a disaster, it’s not like their financial wealth is going to be wiped out if they have to pay to rebuild their home.”
