Teams of real estate agents and volunteers from across the country are putting on their work boots and heading to the hurricane-devastated Gulf Coast to help construct new Habitat for Humanity homes for families displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.  Since the damage from the hurricanes have caused so much damage to the surrounding cities, many people are overseeing the land for sale, and trying to get the values back up.

The volunteer groups are part of the Realtor-Habitat Partnership for Gulf Coast Recovery program, in which the National Association of Realtors and state and local real estate associations have committed to generate more than $4 million to build as many as 54 houses along the Gulf Coast. It is hoped that this will help promote the number of properties for sale.  In addition to raising $75,000 per home for the cost of land for sale and building materials, Real estate agents are also volunteering their time and skills through disaster relief trips to the Gulf Coast to help build additional Habitat homes in some of the hardest hit areas. By doing this, the vacant land for sale will become work sites fot the construction of homes to help the families that lost their real estate properties.  Construction is currently underway on 24 of the homes on this vacant land for sale, as well as other real estate properties.

Real estate volunteers are going to build communities, helping families find their dream homes every day.  They are hoping to put families in true real estate properties instead of temporary housing.  More than 18 months after the storms hit, thousands of homes in the affected areas remain untouched because many of their owners cannot afford to rebuild them. The real estate volunteers are committed to helping those families find a new place to call home.

For days on end, teams of up to 20 Real estate volunteers will work side-by- side with the future homeowners and local Habitat crews to frame exterior and interior house walls, install windows and doors, hang drywall, and paint, and get these properties as close to their originals as possible.

As many as 30 teams are expected to travel to the Gulf Coast to volunteer in the builds. Real estate volunteers from Texas recently sent small teams of volunteers to Beaumont, Texas, to work in three-day shifts from February to March. Members of the Connecticut Association of Realtors spent a week building a home in Slidell, La., earlier this year, and a team of 19 volunteers from the North Carolina Association of Realtors, led by the real estate association's executive vice president, Tim Kent, went to Slidell to participate in another weeklong Habitat build in open land that has been devastated by hurricanes.

The home building trips will occur throughout 2007. Two of the 24 homes currently under construction will be ready for deserving Gulf Coast families by the end of March, and the remainder will be completed by August 2007. The real estate volunteers are hoping to get 54 homes built on the hurricane hit properties by the end of the year. 

Real estate agents' support for rebuilding the Gulf Coast began immediately in the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. Realtors and Real estate organizations across the country contributed supplies, volunteer labor and more than $4.6 million to directly help victims of the hurricanes.

In November 2006, the National Association of Realtors and nearly 25,000 Real estate members and guests gathered in New Orleans for an annual meeting. During the conference, as many as 2,800 Real estate representatives and guests provided hands-on assistance to the recovery and rebuilding efforts in New Orleans in an endeavor to help bring the city back to its former glory with the valuable real estate properties that it once had. Participants volunteered more than 10,000 hours to various community projects, from building and rehabbing homes to sorting food and restocking bookshelves at a public library.