> Bull pucky. It's dangerous to buy a home without thinking about what might
> happen to it first.

Exactly.

> You can buy a house in Minnesota, out in the woods, with a poor quality
> heater and freeze to death during a blizzard: "I guess that's the price
> people are willing to pay to live near Lake Woebegone."

But the house will still be there!  Actually, I feel VERY safe living in
Minnesota because there are very few options for home-destroying natural
disasters here.

Go down the list- what natural disasters can wreck a home?  Flood,
fire (forest or brush- leave normal home fires out), tornado, hurricane,
earthquake.  Include tsunami under flood.

Flood, brush and forest fires can be mitigated by risk assessment before
the home is purchased.  Living less than a quarter mile from downtown
Minneapolis on top of Lowry Hill, I'm not too likely to see any of them;
however, every year, the spring thaw floods dozens or hundreds of homes
in Minnesota, and occasionally entire towns are wiped out by brush or
forest fires in outlying parts of the state.

Tornadoes can hit anywhere, but here they're less common than in, say,
Oklahoma.  I feel fairly safe that earthquakes (and definitely tsunami)
are out of the question, and hurricanes as well.  All in all, my little
apartment is quite unlikely to suffer from any natural disaster, as will
be the house I ultimately buy in the same neighborhood.

Of course, there are those who consider winter in Minnesota to be a
natural disaster unto itself.

Mike H.
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