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A real estate trend has developers looking to Alabama’s lakes instead of its coastline.
The immediate damage was plainly visible with hundreds of thousands of homes destroyed, and people displaced, but now some property analysts the population shift could be more permanent than they thought.
The Gulf Coast's shaky coastal real estate market comes at a time when roughly 79 million baby boomers are preparing for retirement.
"There's a lot of speculators, a lot of folks who were doing it for investment purposes. The baby boomers and the retiree group were buying it for second homes. And a lot of those are coming from there because of the cost of insurance and now they're looking now at the lake properties. That's another thing that will hurt the coast," said Orange Beach Realtor Hugh Hedrick.
Bryan Pearl of Condos and Resort Marketing says investors and buyers are moving inland. Development has expanded on Alabama's lakes in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina with wary homebuyers looking for more predictable climes.
“If insurance stays high you will find less of the smaller investors," said Perl.
Lay Lake, Smith Lake, and Lake Martin have all seen increased interest. Hedrick is confident people will come back to settle in orange beach.
"After Katrina we saw a huge drop in the demand down here basically because the people felt we had been devastated during the storm and we had not on this end of Alabama we had very little effect from Hurricane Katrina. We're ready, we're back," said Hedrick.
Pearl believes tourist driven development will return to the Gulf Coast. But he says millions of potential homeowners may not.
"The people who live here and work here know what to do; they're ready. When the storm comes, they do the appropriate things. When they come back they take it on their own to rebuild what they have to rebuild," said Hedrick.
Last month, Governor Riley met with state officials to discuss hurricane season preparations. They looked at proposals to make room for pets as well as evacuees at some shelters, and to use school bus routes to rescue stranded victims.
Still feeling the effects
Hurricane season is right around the corner. As June 1st approaches, many areas of the Gulf Coast are still feeling the effects from Hurricane Katrina.
For its sugar white beaches and peaceful surroundings, the Gulf Coast of Alabama has long attracted tourists and people looking for the perfect spot to retire. Even after numerous tropical storms, second home buyers and condominium developers never lost interest in the Gulf Coast.
In fact, the devastation wrought by Hurricane Ivan in 2004 actually sparked a surge of construction. Orange Beach realtor Hugh Hedrick says from retail to residential, the market was strong but it was not ready for what came next.
"Between Ivan and Katrina we had a huge amount of growth and everything you see…was all done and planned before Katrina hit," said Hedrick.
The same storm that devastated coastal property in Louisiana and Mississippi blasted parts of Alabama.
Mary Stroud of Bayou La Batre said, "We're still gradually rebuilding they're not all back together yet they still got hotels that are still all half sided restaurants that are completely gone."
Damaged homes are not uncommon in Bayou La Batre. Two years after Katrina devastated this coastal fishing town, much of the area remains damaged.
"There was I think 17,000 building permits for condos granted between Ivan and Katrina and the majority of those are either dead or on hold because the buying public was chased away," said Hedrick.
Hedrick says even though property east of Mobile Bay was not really damaged by the storm, Katrina brought the market to its knees. Insurance for coastal property owners has since sky rocketed.
To put the exodus into perspective, consider this. In neighboring Florida, moving company United Van Lines reportedly spent more time moving families out of The Sunshine State than into it, for the first time since the 1960's.
