BMBV, i think those who are tired of the subject are those with the potential to lose the most, the property owners. those who will not tire are those who think the wrong is greater than dollar amounts. a painful reality for some.
Perhaps.
I guess I should have been referring only to myself instead of "most everyone" concerning burnout. My bad. But it was just a deduction based on the myriad of posts and associated responses on the myriad of threads regarding retaining walls, seawalls, geotubes, dark sand, etc. After a while, it got old and it got repetitive. If you haven't noticed, many of these once very active threads are pretty much dead.
I am NOT discounting the subject's importance nor am I attaching "dollar amounts" as a qualifier.
your following statement:
Yet when I bought in a few years ago, I was totally unaware of the erosion issue that we would face today as a result of such a relatively small hurricane called Dennis. Nobody "disclosed these truths" to me.
i find this hard to swallow.
John, here's what I did know at the time I bought our property. There are hurricanes. There was OPAL. There was ANDREW. I knew there was a distinct possibility of being blown down due to a hurricane. I paid for insurance to cover that risk. I allocated funds for the deductible. The wind risk was therefore addressed.
The other well known risk is flood. Since our property is over 26 feet in elevation, I felt that we were fairly well protected from storm surge. I did some homework on storm surge elevations and additional wave heights. After we bought, I even considered dropping flood coverage because of the elevation. It was only after I was told that if our property was undermined, that only flood insurance would cover that. Of course, I elected to maintain flood coverage. I figured it would take at least 3 Ivans to truly threaten us from an erosion point (Ivan only eroded 1 to 2 feet past Opal). Dennis took out another 20 to 25 feet past that!
Back in 2002, I wasn't even aware that a retaining wall was a legal possibility (assumed we would just build back at some point in time). In 2004/2005, after Ivan, we were told we would qualify to protect our structure via retaining wall and retained an engineer to design one. I admit I had my ecological and aesthetic hesitations. Everyone else was for it. But I voted for it in the end. It was going to be installed at the end of 2005. The design and application was already turned in to DEP. Again all this was BEFORE Dennis hit.
Hurricane Dennis (summer of 2005) obviously resulted in not just us needing a wall, but many properties up and down the beach including our immediate neighbors as well.
MY POINT: No, I personally was not fully aware of what was in store. But didn't I say that already? Again, nobody was. If all of us gulf front owners were aware, as you imply, you would have seen a lot more for sale signs after Hurrincane Ivan hit us but before Hurricane Dennis had a chance to wreak havoc on our beach. We all saw what Ivan did so we "thought" we had some idea of the situation. Remember, just about anything would have sold at top price before Dennis, pure and simple.
Everything is crystal clear when you have hindsight (regarding the erosion). I truly thought it
first would be some monster hurricane wind or some huge wave that would destroy us and force us to rebuild because we were close to the water... but certainly not erosion.
Remember, Bobby J started the thread with a reference to a retaining wall article. Then I gave my "burned out" response since I felt retaining walls were discussed every which way but loose. That's when I decided to ask him the real estate "ethics" question. He responds back he would consider a gulf front sale with a retaining wall (more or less) assuming "The buyer would have to know what they were getting into." Then I said (more or less) that I wasn't afforded that opportunity. Then you (more or less) insinuate that I'm not being straight and that I should have known.
you are too smart to not have researched everything and anything about your property.
You're giving me way too much credit.;-) I just hope you're not punishing me for it.
also, as i have stated before, anyone who buys on the beach cannot be ignorant enough to not realize they are building on a moving medium, and indeed are taking a gamble. the 'nobody told me' argument literally doesn't hold water.
jr
You're right (in hindsight and with the knowledge at hand). JR, as much as it pains me to say this, there are many people a lot more intelligent than me;-) . They also own gulf front. They didn't sell when they could have received top dollar for their property in 2005. Also, like me, they bought in to begin with, not fully expecting today's events.
If we all knew everything, disclosures would not be needed. That was my point with my response to Bobby J since he sells real estate.
He was the one bringing up the idea of the importance of "disclosure" to a perspective buyer. I was simply building on that idea. Many times disclosures reveal things that are obvious with a simple inspection. Sometimes they reveal things not so obvious such as easement litigation. Sometimes they don't reveal things that maybe they should. Radon gas and mold are 2 prime examples of "disclosure evolution" that were not really considered years back. By the way, I won't be suing the previous owner and real estate agent / broker for non-disclosure because it was my fault for being "ignorant enough"! ;-) . Enough about disclosure.
If I had sold back in 2005 after Ivan, then you would be having this dialogue with the new owner instead of me. If I never bought to begin with, you would be having this dialogue with the previous owner.....
Which brings me to this question: You never really addressed the heart of my previous post...that is do you feel that the county, state and feds should bare any of the responsibility for allowing these structures to have been built so close in the first place and benefitting from the tax base?
