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Hurricane Ian’s devastating impact on Florida housing: The Real Word

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Byron Lazine and Nicole White are two agents in Connecticut who give us their thoughts on the week’s news every Friday in “The Real Word,” a weekly video column on Inman.

In this week’s episode of The Real Word, hosts Lazine and White sit down to discuss the aftermath of Hurricane Ian on Florida housing, property description mistakes you might be making, and this week’s Left, Middle, Right.

Racket no. 1: Hurricane Ian devastates Florida housing

Recovery from Hurricane Ian will be complicated by the fact that many residents in the Gulf Coast were already struggling financially. In counties that were evacuated, fewer than 20 percent had flood insurance.

In addition, there was already a huge inventory shortage in southwest Florida. This will make that shortage, and the accompanying rent increases, even worse.

If you would like to donate to Florida Realtors Disaster Relief Fund, you’ll find information here.

Racket no. 2: 7 listing description mistakes you’re probably making

Many agents are making mistakes in their property descriptions, according to an Inman article by Christy Murdock. These range from not writing a description at all to including too many details in a property description or failing to proofread.

Lazine and White suggest providing a form to the seller so that you can capture bullet points of some of the updates and upgrades that they want included in the description, then having it put together in great marketing copy for the property description.

Left, middle, right:

Dow rallies more than 1,500 points in two days as fear begins to fade

The Fed has specifically said that it’s coming after housing, according to Lazine, and there’s no question that this winter is going to be “historically bad in real estate,” so don’t let a couple of good days in the stock market ease your mind. There’s a lot more pain coming.