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While New Orleans has had a horrible year, if you are a real estate agent the market has been churning since the waters receded after Hurricane Katrina. Homes are being sold at a faster rate than the year before and what is surprising people the most, at a higher price than before  the storm.

The higher prices are largely due to an increase in value in suburban areas, many of which were not heavily flooded, or in dry areas of New Orleans. But flooded houses in the city are being bought as well, often at deep discounts of as much as $50 a square foot less than they would have sold for before the hurricane.
“We have a stronger housing market than before,” said Wade R. Ragas, professor emeritus of finance at the University of New Orleans and the president of a local consulting firm, Real Property Associates. “The strongest buying activity is, in general, closest to where it did not flood or where there was under 2 feet of water.”
Across the nine-parish region that includes New Orleans, 7,506 single-family homes were sold between January and the end of June, compared with 6,449 in the same period last year, according to statistics from real-estate groups. The average price so far this year is $221,244, compared with $193,097 in the same period last year.
The renewed interest in buying and selling and renovating has confounded some people who thought the housing market would be crippled for years. But it is just one of many counterintuitive contrasts that are defining the area and making easy predictions unreliable. via The Seattle Times:

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