Honestly, Nancy, I just don't understand it. 25 years ago you could buy a cottage here for $30,000. As time went on the young, upwardly mobile discovered Long Beach and it became both the "Hamptons West" and the bedroom community of choice for commuters from New York City. Beach front condos with an ocean view were going for just under $1 million. It is a city of great contrasts, however. There are plenty of poor people here, too. The city tore down the adult homes for the mentally ill and build pricey high rises, but there are still public housing projects and lots of little rickety homes that illegally rent out rooms. Working for the census in 2010 was quite an eye opener for me.
Our hope is to rebuild a very nice modern home -- sell it -- and move south to a place with no snakes, no alligators and no ocean! But that is still just a hope with a lot of prayers behind it. And yes, we have to raise the house to about 8 feet above the land. FEMA's ICC program gives you up to $30,000 to do that, but in our county $30,000 doesn't go too far at all.