Realtors: Quincy's flood map hurts working class, first-time buyers

QUINCY – Though it hasn’t cooled the city’s overall housing market, local real estate agents say Quincy’s new flood map is making parts of the city less attractive for working-class families and first-time homebuyers. “First-time homebuyers are running scared,” Roseann Flavin of Flavin & Flavin Realty of Quincy said. Flavin and three other agents met with city councilors Wednesday night to discuss the impacts of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s new flood map for Quincy, which took effect June 9. The map added about 1,400 Quincy properties to the flood plain and raised risk rates for about 2,700 properties already in the plain. Mortgage holders in the plain are required to buy flood insurance. The new map has forced some homeowners to pay hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars more in premiums despite their properties never flooding. “There’s a ripple effect on the real estate market,” Jim Stamos of Stamos & Stamos Realtors in Squantum said. “Homeowners who are unable to sell because of high flood insurance rates are also unable to buy.” But the negative impacts are being felt by families with tight budgets and not on Quincy’s housing market as a whole, real estate agents said. Helen Shiner, sales manager for Jack Conway Real Estate, said that between 97 and 98 percent of her listings in Quincy sell for at least the asking price. Zillow.com, an online real estate database, reports that the median home value in Quincy is $351,700, up about 6 percent from last year. It’s a different story in the flood zones, however. Stamos said he’s seen a drop of about 12 percent from the asking price to the actual sale price for Squantum homes in the flood plain. In Germantown, Sam Rounseville of Red Door Real Estate said he’s seen dips of more than 20 percent because of the map. Shiner said some prospective homebuyers are afraid of the unknown, wary that FEMA could implement more rate hikes in the future. The federal agency is set to redraw its maps in 2017. Mayor Thomas Koch has requested a map revision that could bring relief to thousands of property owners. But it could take FEMA up to a year to review the challenge. The city has also offered to pay for homeowners’ elevation certificates, which can be used in homeowners’ individual appeals to FEMA. Koch chose not to file a citywide appeal of FEMA’s new map by June 2013, which was the appeal deadline for Norfolk County communities. Marshfield, Duxbury and Scituate successfully delayed the implementation of Plymouth County’s maps by filing appeals by their deadline last October. In August, Boston filed an appeal before the Suffolk County deadline expired. Patrick Ronan may be reached at pronan@ledger.com or follow him on Twitter @PRonan_Ledger.

http://www.patriotledger.com/article/20140918/NEWS/140916237