jp1
1-3-23, 11:03pm
A friend of ours recently sold a small condo he owned in Sausalito, a couple miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge. He'd owned it for 20ish years but hadn't lived there in over a decade. He made the decision to sell because of two reasons. His long term tenant was moving out, and the HOA could no longer find property insurance due to perceived fire risk.
Fire risk is a big deal in Marin County. We have other friends who pay upwards of $5,000/year for their homeowners' policies on single family homes because of this and every year it's tougher for them to find insurance companies that will offer terms at all. Unlike our single family home friends who totally live surrounded by lots of wilderness and have a huge fire risk, our friend's condo isn't in what would seem to be a high risk zone. It's on the urban (at least as urban as the county gets) east side of an 8 lane highway and downhill from the large wilderness area on the west side of the highway. But apparently insurance carriers are worried that we'll have a freak event where the wind will be strong enough to push a fire down the hill and across the highway. And in the opposite direction of winds during typical hot weather here.
Our friend is lucky to have sold his place for a price he was happy with. I assume it was a cash buyer since no bank would loan money for property that isn't insurable. The rest of the unit owners in the development must be freaking out because their mortgages all undoubtedly require that the HOA purchase property insurance to cover the buildings. This is the first I've heard of a situation like this. If it spreads to more of the developments near large wilderness areas it will quickly become a major financial crisis for much of the western half of the country as property values plummet due to uninsurability.
Fire risk is a big deal in Marin County. We have other friends who pay upwards of $5,000/year for their homeowners' policies on single family homes because of this and every year it's tougher for them to find insurance companies that will offer terms at all. Unlike our single family home friends who totally live surrounded by lots of wilderness and have a huge fire risk, our friend's condo isn't in what would seem to be a high risk zone. It's on the urban (at least as urban as the county gets) east side of an 8 lane highway and downhill from the large wilderness area on the west side of the highway. But apparently insurance carriers are worried that we'll have a freak event where the wind will be strong enough to push a fire down the hill and across the highway. And in the opposite direction of winds during typical hot weather here.
Our friend is lucky to have sold his place for a price he was happy with. I assume it was a cash buyer since no bank would loan money for property that isn't insurable. The rest of the unit owners in the development must be freaking out because their mortgages all undoubtedly require that the HOA purchase property insurance to cover the buildings. This is the first I've heard of a situation like this. If it spreads to more of the developments near large wilderness areas it will quickly become a major financial crisis for much of the western half of the country as property values plummet due to uninsurability.