Lobbying efforts by mortgage lenders to delay premium increases for homeowners who depend on the National Flood Insurance Program fell on deaf ears, but now Realtors in storm-prone areas who represent homes that don’t require flood insurance can at least use that as a marketing plug.

Real estate agents in a number of Florida counties are making sure that buyers are aware whenever a home does not require flood insurance, prominently advertising that fact in online listings, yard signs and magazine ads, the Tampa Bay Times reports.

“It’s a big, big selling point,” agent Nancy Driver tells the Times of the rider she’s hung on the “for sale” sign of a St. Petersburg listing she represents. “People driving the streets to pick the area they want will know it’s on there for a reason.”

The premium increases were mandated by the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012, which reauthorized the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) through 2017. The National Association of Realtors lobbied for the bill, saying private insurers were unprepared to cover 21,000 communities around the nation where flood insurance is required to obtain a federally related mortgage. Source: tampabay.com

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