The City of Pompano Beach reports that over 32% of its buildings sit in a FEMA Special Flood Hazard Area. Everything east of A1A is a designated coastal zone. New tidal flood maps took effect on July 31, 2024, and a 2017 study put 73,000 residents in the FEMA coastal floodplain. If you own a house in Garden Isles, Cypress Harbor, Hillsboro Shores or Pompano Isles, the flood zone is part of the sale whether you raise it or not. This post explains what the map change did, how zones affect buyers, the disclosure form Florida now requires, and how the city’s storm history shapes what buyers ask.
What changed on July 31, 2024
The 2024 maps are tidal flood maps. They redraw which parcels sit in the Special Flood Hazard Area, the part of the map FEMA considers high risk. The city participates in the NFIP Community Rating System, a program that scores a community’s flood management and feeds into flood insurance pricing for residents. A sample of 203 Pompano Beach listing addresses pulled in October 2026 found 46% in A-series zones and none in V zones. Every sampled address in Pompano Isles and in Leisureville 2nd Section was in an A zone. The city’s own flood mailer acknowledges sea-level rise and more frequent flooding, without putting figures on either. The practical effect for a seller is that a buyer, a lender and an insurer will each look up the zone letter for your address, and the answer may differ from what you were told when you bought.
A zones versus X zones
An A zone is inside the Special Flood Hazard Area. An X zone is outside it. The difference drives two things. First, a lender making a federally backed mortgage requires flood insurance on a house in an A zone, and that policy is separate from the homeowners policy. In an X zone it is optional. Second, buyers read the zone as a signal about future costs even when they pay cash. Flood premium figures for Pompano Beach are not published here, so none are given. What is published is the wind side. Citizens Property Insurance, the state-backed insurer of last resort, still held 32,687 multi-peril and 9,797 wind-only personal residential policies in Broward on August 31, 2026, about 42,500 in total. The OIR-approved 2026 Citizens Broward average premium is $2,916, down 8.2% from $3,178, effective July 1, 2026. That is the homeowners premium, not flood. Roof age sits on top: under Fla. Stat. 627.7011 an insurer may require an inspection on a roof 15 years or older, and in a city where the median house dates from 1974, many roofs are past that line.
The flood disclosure form required since October 2024
Florida sellers have long had a duty to disclose known facts that materially affect value and are not readily observable, under the 1985 Johnson v. Davis decision. Since October 1, 2024, Fla. Stat. 689.302 adds a specific flood disclosure form, delivered at or before the contract. It asks three things: whether the seller has filed prior flood insurance claims, whether the seller has received federal flood assistance for the property, and whether the seller currently carries flood insurance. The form is required in every residential sale, including a cash sale with no inspection. Answer it from records, not memory. A paid flood claim on a Lake Santa Barbara house in 2017 is the kind of fact the form exists to surface.
Wilma 2005 and Irma 2017: the history buyers remember
Two storms set the local frame. Hurricane Wilma, in October 2005, severely damaged roofs across Pompano Beach and triggered boil-water notices. Hurricane Irma, in September 2017, did its worst Broward damage in Deerfield Beach and Pompano Beach, and almost 800,000 county residents lost power. Buyers who lived through either remember them. Buyers from out of state have read about them. A roof replaced after Wilma is now about 20 years old, which lands it in the 15-year inspection band above. Neither storm appears on the flood disclosure form unless it produced a flood claim or federal assistance, but both shape the questions below.
What buyers ask about
- The zone letter for the address on the 2024 map, and whether it changed.
- Flood claims and assistance, exactly as the 689.302 form asks.
- Whether water has entered the house, from the street, the Intracoastal or a canal, in any storm.
- The roof: its age, and whether it has been inspected since Irma.
- The cost to insure, both wind and flood, which they will price with their own agent.
Selling in an A zone
A flood zone does not stop a Pompano Beach sale. It changes who the likely buyer is and what they need to see. A listing in an A zone competes in a Broward market with about seven months of supply and marketing times of roughly two to three months, and financed buyers add a flood policy and a roof inspection to their contingencies. Pompano Beach Cash Buyers buys houses in A zones and X zones alike, as-is, without a financing contingency. We still ask for the completed 689.302 form, because the law requires it and because it tells us what the house has been through. We give a written offer within 24 hours of the visit, pay the customary closing costs, and can close in about a week once title is clear. The seller’s net is the price minus the mortgage payoff minus any liens. For an owner east of the Intracoastal with an older roof and a zone letter that moved in 2024, that is a path with no insurer in the middle of it.