Wonder if any houses in San Bruno had FHA loans?

[Mr Rex]

CA, were there houses within 47.5 feet of the line?

 

[Captain Common Sense]

The difference is that for FHA assignments this is a reporting requirement spelled out in black and white.

I totally get that. I didn't realize that was a requirement before though and I don't think that most of us do. Power lines were brought up in the other thread but nobody sited it a an FHA requirement for high pressure gas and oil lines.

If I had to bet on it I would say that very few if any of the homes that were FHA had anything about pipeline location on the reports or that very few loans were rejected due to this being reported.

 

[CANative]

CA, were there houses within 47.5 feet of the line?

I think the easements meandered through the neighborhood.

 

[Lewiston]

The San Bruno tragedy was personal to me and I reacted strongly, more than I ever have before reading normal banter on sites such as these. Something about those laughing cartoon characters against the backdrop of my knowlege of the pain of people involved evoked deep emotion. The comment to me to develop a thick skin and good luck was not nice, and it didn't feel like a joke. Not a big deal as far as things go.

The pipeline situation has tremendous future implications to San Bruno and other similar market areas. I have not done an FHA transaction in this neighborhood, but I do not believe information regarding proximity to the pipeline is made available to appraisers or homeowners as PGE did not publish maps in the past. Some mention of it may show up on a natural hazards report but doubt exact proximity. Maybe that will change.

There is one pending sale in the neighborhood that took a $100,000 hit within the listing period (after the explosion), and a number of active sales. It will be interesting to see the ultimate impact.

 

[Diane Lagrou]

I'll have to check back in the FHA regs, I thought it was storage tanks that were the concern.
Nevermind....I see where it talks about the lines also.

But heck, almost all homes here have gas lines that run from the street to the house. Now, sure, this is common and typically not an issue, until some ding dong with a back hoe decides to dig into the ground without calling PUCO first. Then there are the independent salvage reclaimers that are blowing up homes while pulling out the piping....of course in the middle of the night while the home is vacant and owned by the lender.


BTW, Lewiston, sorry for your loss and the hard feelings by the comments posted. Off the cuff comments can be taken very personnel by some when it hits so close to the heart and I am sure the poster never intended to hurt you.

 

[Diane Lagrou]

Nevermind, posted what was already noted in post #1.....it's late.....​

 

[Metamorphic]

I'll have to check back in the FHA regs, I thought it was storage tanks that were the concern. Gas lines, heck, almost all homes here have gas lines that run from the street to the house.

That's what I was trying to point out. Gas lines are all over. The factors that might make one line an undue risk that would be of concern to FHA, and would make another very similar line not an undue hazard and so not of concern to FHA are far beyond the experience, risk analysis skills, and knowledge of even an extremely well trained and resourced appraiser. Bottom line the utilities don't want to tell you which are the "dangerous" gas lines. Its bad for publicity, gives the NIMBYS and environmentalists additional ammo, and increases their risk of terrorist attack on the feature.

Also, one other thing to consider. That home, and every other in the bay area, is in much great risk of destruction (with corresponding loss of life) due to earthquakes, landslides, and liquefaction. The current thinking on earth quakes is that you can expect a "big one" something like every 100 years plus or minus 50. So on time frame as short (in the geological sense) as a human life, you'll see far more destruction from quakes and their after affects, than you will from all of the highly localized disasters around utilities. While we're discussing bay area risk...lets not forget about the Oakland Hills Fire.

For an appraiser to "ding" a home because of some arbitrary proximity to a gas line while ignoring the seismic hazard is kind of like the guy on death row complaining about the skin cancer risk from his south facing cell window. You could say the same thing about tornado alley.

 

[Captain Common Sense]

They aren't talking about the typical 1" line that comes of the main to your house. Those are smaller and lower in pressure.
High pressure gas lines (like the one in San Bruno) and oil lines are regulated by the DOT and have a whole different set of rules. These lines feed factories, CoGen's, Mines towns etc.
It's kind of like with the power lines. They aren't talking about a wooden utility pole feeding houses they are talking about the large towers that are feeding towns.
These are man made hazzards and in a different category than a natural disaster (although I do see your point).

 

[CANative]

What Mike said.

The FHA issue (for appraisers) is not whether or not someone says or thinks high pressure gas lines are dangerous, the issue is that they have to be reported.

From what I understand people living in this neighborhood knew (or should have known) that there was a high pressure gas line running through the neighborhood. An appraiser working this neighborhood should know what the neighborhood knows.

I'm not trying to be judgmental. Just discussing an interesting side-note to this tragedy. I was using the example to illustrate the difference in FHA appraisals and how MPRs work. We don't have to think too hard and make difficult decisions because it's spelled out for us in the HUD publications.