Experts Debate Rebuilding New Orleans and Real Estate Opportunities

As many contemplate the rebuilding of New Orleans and its massive infrastructure that was devastated by hurricanes Katrina and Rita, many ponder at the enormous task ahead.

“Rebuilding here means so much more than walls and roofs and levees,” Colten said.

“We have mile after mile after mile of shotgun houses and Creole cottages that have over the decades withstood the storms,” said Patty Gay, executive director of the Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans. The PRC is a private nonprofit organization that has, over the past three decades, renovated more than 1,000 homes and sold them to homeowners and assisted others with buying and renovating.

Since then, some have proposed mass buyouts in the city’s worst-hit areas, to be replaced with wetlands or green spaces. Others suggest building up those areas so that new, manufactured homes could be built and displaced residents could return. Many are calling for stricter building codes and requirements, similar to those put in place in Florida and California after storms and earthquakes in those vulnerable places.

As an ABC poll stated a majority of Americans thought it was a high priority to rebuild New Orleans.

This could explain why the realty market in New Orleans is just chomping at the bit in the expectation of a rebirth of their city as they are predicting an “enormous housing boom” and a Rebirth of New Orleans. There is a huge expectation that the renewal efforts, combined with the largest rebuilding project ever attempted in the countries history, will create huge opportunities in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

Big money is headed this way as housing prices in the most devastated region of America soar. In New Orleans, where unofficial estimates say more than 100,000 homes could be demolished as a result of Hurricane Katrina, dwindling supply is fueling huge demand and housing price hikes of 10 percent to 40 percent, on average.

The hyperactive housing climate is marked by individuals and companies buying houses or groups of houses, sight unseen. Sterbcow said one company involved in rebuilding the city bought 150 homes without inspecting any of them.

The situation in New Orleans is very similar to the the other areas of the Gulf Coast region affected by the hurricanes this past month where Real Estate Speculation Moves in to the Gulf coast States following hurricane Katrina & Rita.