NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – The New Orleans Metropolitan Association of Realtors (NOMAR) hosted its annual Forecast Symposium, where real estate professionals gathered to discuss key factors impacting the housing market.

A major theme this year was Louisiana’s ongoing insurance crisis, which is severely affecting home sales and affordability.

Craig Mirambell, president of NOMAR, says soaring insurance premiums have become a central issue.

“Insurance prices are really outrageous, interest rates being high, the economy is slow, elections are coming up. We got a lot of negatives, but the good thing is homeowners have kept the equity in their houses,” said Mirambell.

Mirambell says Louisiana’s insurance crisis has been pulling down the state’s housing industry for the last two years. He believes the most recent hurricanes along the Gulf Coast can only complicate matters.

“Even though we didn’t get a direct hit here in Louisiana, seeing these come to our Southern friends, is ultimately not going to help our insurance rates at all assumably. So that wasn’t needed, the costs that are coming with that are ultimately going to keep prices high,” said Mirambell.

Those prices have made it very tough for some realtors to sell homes. That means less money is coming in.

“To be honest, I used to do real estate full-time. I do not do it full-time anymore because it’s just too hard. I have a family as well. So, I can’t put everything on these deals happening, because I need them to happen. If they don’t happen, then my clients aren’t happy and then family isn’t happy,” said Misty Frye of Frye & Melancon Realty in New Orleans.

INSURANCE CRISIS

Misty Frye has been an agent for 17 years and says the cost associated with a buying home in Louisiana can often put potential buyers on an emotional roller coaster.

“People can be tearful, they’re upset. They think they’re getting to the finish line and then something comes up and it’s like, oh no, you can’t do it, the insurance blew it out of the water,” Frye said.

Dr. Jessica Lautz was a featured speaker at this year’s symposium. She is an economist for the National Association of Realtors. She brought a broader view to the forecasting conference and said Louisiana’s real estate industry is facing several headwinds, including declining population.

“In most areas of the Sun Belt, we see a mass migration into those areas, but unfortunately Louisiana is not seeing that. So, we don’t have that in the New Orleans area. Job growth has not rebounded since before the start of COVID and that could be restricting people from moving here. Though what I have to say affordability is definitely in a better in a better scenario than what we see in other areas of the country,” said Dr. Lautz.

Despite the multiple challenges the New Orleans real estate market has faced in recent years, NOMAR’s board president predicted an improving market in 2025.

“I’m always an optimistic kind of guy. I like to bring that to our boardroom, our clients and consumers. Ultimately, we are at a slower time in the market right now. The market has been slow. We had an uptick in COVID that was kind of wild and crazy. Surely, it had to go down from there. Once, the election is over and people settle down from that, we expect the market to pick up in 2025 regardless of insurance prices.” said Mirambell.

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BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — On the inside, the hum of an airplane. But on the outside, Hurricane Milton violently churns right outside our window as BRProud joined the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron in the skies.

We took off from Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi to observe Milton’s power.

Lt. Col. Brad Boudreaux, who piloted the flight, explains that “Some of the data that we’re collecting, you can only collect it inside of the storm.”

As we headed south, the blue skies over Biloxi, Mississippi were soon replaced by the dark outer bands of Hurricane Milton while the crew began its work.

Before we knew it, the navigator was setting us up for the first pass into Milton’s eyewall. Turbulence then increased dramatically as the aircraft dropped near 300 feet.

Why Hurricane Milton became so intense so fast — and why more storms may do the same

Even through the rough weather, the loadmaster continued with the mission as he deployed dropsondes. These fall to the water’s surface and act like a reverse weather balloon, collecting information on temperature, dewpoint, pressure and wind speeds.

This data is checked by the weather officer before being sent to the National Hurricane Center in real time. In that first eyewall pass, a dropsonde found winds of 165 miles per hour, confirming Milton’s status as a Category 5 storm.

Boudreaux recalls, “The first time we passed through [the eyewall] was pretty rough.”

After the eyewall, we arrived in the calm eye of the storm where there is a blue sky above and a blue ocean below. The crew collected data nonstop as we continued on our flight path, heading to the eyewall once again.

Hurricane Milton makes landfall in Florida as a Category 3 storm

With each pass, the navigator plotted a path through the eyewall for the pilots who have a front row seat to view the lightning that illuminates the dark. After five passes through the eye, the nine-hour flight comes to an end as we returned to base.

Boudreaux says he’s flown through many hurricanes and this one stands out. He recounts that “This is one of the stronger ones I’ve flown through. I wouldn’t say it’s the roughest. But definitely one of the strongest storms that I’ve flown through.”

The data from these flights are used to create better forecasts that are meant to help save lives by keeping you informed.

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to BRProud.com.

A personal attorney for Gov. Jeff Landry delivered sweeping criticism this week to the Louisiana Board of Ethics for what he called “abusive” investigations into elected officials’ conduct. 

“Currently, the board’s vast investigatory powers are dangerous, unwarranted and threaten well-established fundamental constitutional rights,” Stephen Gelé said at a six-hour legislative hearing Wednesday in Baton Rouge focused on the ethics board’s role in government.

“The board, especially in the past couple of years, has not hesitated to use this power to bully respondents through years of costly and burdensome investigations,” he said. 

Gelé joins a growing chorus of political professionals who have criticized the board’s approach and professionalism in recent months. They might feel emboldened to find fault with the board because Landry, who became governor in January, hasn’t been shy about his own frustrations with the board. 

Since becoming attorney general in 2016, Landry has been reprimanded a few times by the board for ethics violations that range from missing campaign finance reporting deadlines to misusing campaign funds to pay off his auto loan. 

At present, Gelé is representing Landry in the governor’s 14-month dispute with the board over Landry’s failure to disclose trips he took on a political donor’s private plane to and from Hawaii. The flights were taken in 2021, when Landry was attorney general. 

Yet Gelé’s remarks this week were not inspired just by Landry’s case, he said. The ethics board has treated many of his clients poorly.

“It’s related to multiple cases and my experience overall,” Gelé said in an interview after the meeting. “This is not a Jeff Landry problem. This is an endemic problem.”

The ethics board oversees elected officials, political candidates and public employees for potential violations of state ethics laws. People can confidentially report concerns about government officials to the board, which then decides whether the matter merits further investigation. 

Gelé asserts the ethics board has been vague about how it interprets laws, particularly when it comes to using campaign and political action committee (PAC) funds  for “personal use,” which is forbidden. The rules sometimes change about what the board will permit without explanation, he said. 

Gelé also characterized the board’s investigations as too aggressive, with unreasonable demands for documents and sworn statements that are not always needed. It also spends a large amount of resources for petty offenses. Clients end up running legal bills defending themselves against violations that sometimes involve no more than a few hundred dollars, Gelé said. 

Perhaps most importantly to Gelé, he believes the ethics board is placing restrictions on campaign and PAC spending that violate the First Amendment. His line of thinking is aligned with the controversial U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which upended federal laws restricting corporate and labor union spending in elections. 

“I believe the board needs a reevaluation of its mission so that it’s no longer conducting excessive, abusive investigations and costing people constitutional dollars,” Gelé said during Wednesday’s legislative.

“This all drains First Amendment dollars, which should not be drained,” he said.

Gelé said he has had both Democratic and Republican clients, though he is publicly aligned with conservative causes. He is also board chairman for the Pelican Institute for Public Policy, a conservative think tank that works closely with the Landry administration. 

In his remarks at the hearing this week, Gelé suggested the ethics board could be targeting Republicans for investigations, a notion that the ethics board’s administrator rebutted.

“It certainly has not been kind to Republicans,” Gelé said of the board.

Kathleen Allen, the top staff member for the ethics board, pushed back on the assertion that her organization was motivated by politics. She said her agency doesn’t track whether the people it investigates are Republicans, Democrats or independents, and party affiliation doesn’t influence their views. 

“You would be surprised to find out how some of our board members vote sometimes,” Allen told lawmakers at the hearing.

The current board is made up of 11 members, seven of whom former Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, selected from a list of nominees the leaders of Louisiana’s private colleges submitted. As Landry is governor longer, he will be able to replace Edwards’ appointees.

Ethics board members also face additional restrictions meant to insulate them from political influence. For example, unlike almost all other state boards, they are not allowed to be political campaign donors.

Nevertheless, one of Landry’s first acts in office was to approve a new law that gives the governor more control over the board’s makeup.

Starting in January, the board will expand from 11 to 15 seats, and neither Landry nor the Legislature, which selects four members, will have to pick from candidate lists private university presidents provide. 

Lawmakers indicated Wednesday they will be looking to make more changes to ethics laws next year as well.

Rep. Beau Beaullieu, R-New Iberia, is chairman of the Louisiana House and Governmental Affairs Committee that oversees the ethics agency. He expressed concern that elected officials and public officials being investigated don’t have enough tools to push back against an investigation into their affairs before it starts. He also said he thinks the board’s rulings on political action committee activity have been too restrictive.

“Y’all are the watchdog for ethics in Louisiana, but I guess, to his point, who watches over you all?” Beaulieu asked at the hearing.

Rep. Dixon McMakin, R-Baton Rouge, said the board needed to be more transparent about its procedures and the board’s meetings should be streamed online.

He also questioned the confidentiality that surrounds the complaints made to the board that result in investigations. McMakin suggested the person making a complaint shouldn’t be able to remain anonymous.

The board’s investigations are confidential, in part, to protect whistleblowers who might want to come forward about violations despite professional and personal risk. But McMakin suggested the privacy provisions are too broad in scope. 

The current conduct of the board is also annoying, McMakin said. Just last week, its members had to cancel a meeting because not enough were able to attend in person, which the lawmaker found inexcusable.

McMakin said he was also offended when a board member, former Louisiana House Clerk Alfred “Butch” Speer, made a sarcastic comment about one of Landry’s large political donors paying for upgrades to the ethics board’s meeting room .

“Do you think they wouldn’t be sarcastic if people were watching them?” on a live stream of the ethics board meeting, McMakin said.