[redwitch]

Actually, there are some warnings for sinkholes -- serious foundation and wall cracks give pretty good hints that you have foundation problems, which seem to equate to sinkholes in Florida.

Every area has problems of some sort. California has mudslides (usually only hint there is a lot of rain and living on a hillside with little old growth) and earthquakes (no warnings there whatsoever); the Midwest has tornadoes (warnings they're coming but no promise of the path they will take); Northeast gets severe snow storms and some hurricanes. You have to pick and choose what risks you can live with. To me, earthquakes, sinkholes, mudslides, fires are things to respect but not something to be overly concerned about. I refuse to live in snow and blizzards and I'm not thrilled that we've have tornadoes (really, really don't like those) and would never live on either coast of Florida (have a thing about living that close to hurricanes).

I don't know if sinkholes lower neighboring property values but I imagine it would drop them somewhat unless someone can show an engineering report that the ground is very stable for a particular house (which I'm not sure is feasible). Actually, I'd be willing to buy a home that had a sinkhole repaired if I could get reasonable insurance for it.

I'd say bigger risk here is lightning strikes, which have been known to burn down a few houses in TV. We're probably going to hear of more sinkholes this year because of the weather last year -- too much rain at the wrong time.