ASHEVILLE, NC (June 1, 2012): The BuildFax Florida Roof Age Report, based on analysis of its historical residential building permit data, announces that two-thirds of Florida roofs are either new or have been updated since 2002.
Over the past decade, substantial legislative efforts – such as a new, stricter Florida Building Code (FBC) in 2002 and HB 7057 passed by FL Legislature in 2007 – have been focused on increasing home safety and also ensuring the state’s economic strength by lowering insurance costs, through more stringent roofing guidelines and mitigation incentives, such as discounts for newer and safer roofs.
BuildFax recently reviewed more than five million single family homes in Florida to take an in- depth look at the current state of Florida roofs. BuildFax found that two-thirds of the properties reviewed have either a new roof or have had a roof update since 2002.
“No other state has made such dramatic strides with regard to the roof in the last 10 years,” says Holly Tachovsky, President of BuildFax. “While the state would love to see 100% of the properties updated, two-thirds is really quite impressive. What a difference a decade makes.”
“The new roof code has led to millions of homeowners getting more weather-resistant roofs, but we won’t know the full benefit until they are battle-tested by future weather events,” says Joe Emison, VP of Research & Development at BuildFax.
TOP 10 COUNTIES WITHTHE HIGHEST PERCENTAGE OF POST-2002 ROOFS*
1 DUVAL
2 CHARLOTTE
3 HIGHLANDS
4 OSCEOLA
5 BAKER
6 BREVARD
7 OKEECHOBEE
8 MARION
9 MANATEE
10 PALM BEACH
*BuildFax calculated these rankings by running a list of over 5 million single family homes in Florida and matching it against the BuildFax’s proprietary Roof Age Database, identifying those counties which had the highest percentage of roofs that were permitted in 2002 or later.
About BuildFax®
BuildFax (http://www.buildfax.com) is the creator of the first and only national database of historical building permit data. Headquartered in Asheville, North Carolina, BuildFax has created a proprietary property intelligence engine that contains building and permitting information from 4,000+ cities and counties throughout the country. Local building departments in each of these towns across the country inspect construction to make sure it meets quality and safety standards; as such it is an absolutely critical part of the public safety infrastructure. BuildFax is then able to consolidate this information into the dataset, which is a tremendous asset to professionals in the insurance, financial services, inspection, and appraisal industries, as well as buyers and sellers of property. As the best and only source of a structure’s “life story,” the BuildFax database continues to grow, currently covering over 72 million residential and commercial properties in the United States, with over 6 billion data points.
For questions, or to receive the FL Roof Age Report electronically:
Courtney Crawford BuildFax Director of Communications ccrawford@buildfax.com (704) 625.9992 x 269