Build not your house on sand.

[Vern Humphrey]

Just my personal opinion mind you, but in my experience a good percentage of those people who build in unsafe areas are called "developers". Why do they keep doing it? Simple ... money! ... lots of it!!! What troubles me is the apparent (lack of) intelligence of the average home buyer. Some good advice we got when we moved to Anchorage, AK was, "when shopping for a home don't listen to the real estate agent, go talk to an insurance agent".

Developers do build in places where they shouldn't -- but let's face it, New Orleans, San Francisco and quite a few other places were built long before there was such a thing as a "developer."

[Sunray]

"...they build in flood plains..." Hasn't been legal up here since Hurricane Hazel blew through in 1954.
"...intelligence of the average home buyer..." More about the excitement of buying a house. Kind of like your first car. And all of California is an unstable cliff. snicker.

[dave]

people build below sea level in nw orleans, they build on the side of unstable cliffs in california. they build in flood plains all over the country. they build on the sides of volcanoes in hawaii, it all eventually ends in disaster, yet they keep doing it. what does this tell you about the average person?

It tells me they either build without insurance or have big bucks to pay for it. In some cases the Feds. will insure for cheap!