Lafayette Daily Advertiser:
Hurricane Katrina may have damaged or destroyed their homes, but some New Orleanians are wasting no time putting down roots.
In the two weeks following Katrina, 473 homes were placed under contract in Lafayette, Iberia, Acadia, Vermilion and St. Martin parishes, according to Bill Bacqué, CEO of Van Eaton & Romero real estate. The figures from the Lafayette Board of Realtors exclude home sales that did not involve a Realtor, so that number could be higher.
Lafayette Parish alone had 389 home sales pending as of Thursday, Bacqué said. By comparison, for the entire month of September 2004, Lafayette Parish recorded 190 pending house sales.
The desperate and immediate need here for housing among families who lost homes led to unusual measures.
"People have purchased houses by description over the phone," said Catherine Aertker with developer Robert Daigle, who built River Ranch. Some even paid cash to speed up the sale and guarantee the purchase, she said.
A few businesses displaced by the hurricane purchased blocks of houses for their employees relocating to the Lafayette area, Bacqué said.
River Ranch sold all of its available houses, and evacuees are buying houses that are still under construction and won't be finished for another month or two, Aertker said.
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