Houston Flood Damaged Homes - What will happen to them?

[Account Closed]

Hi Everyone,

Due to the extent of the flooding disaster in Houston, there are going to be a lot of flooded homes. What is going to happen to them? There are going to be many distressed sellers. Many homeowners will want to just walk away from their properties. Will this be a good "subject to" market? 

Does anyone have any experience with flooded homes and communities? Is there a possibility to raise these homes 5-8 feet to reduce the future flood risk? 

Thanks,

Billy

[Angie Byrd]

I can give a little insight to the flooded house situation. I live in Denham Springs, Louisiana and we flooded last year in August. My house flooded just under 4 feet, had not flooded ever before since it was built in 1985. Since this was the only time it flooded I fixed it with the insurance money and am staying. My rent house flooded and I was about to sell it before the flood. Luckily I had insurance on it, was able to fix it and improve it and sold it for $25,000 more than I would have gotten before the flood. I then bought a flooded house before the flood ARV $230,000, paid $80,000, had to put $70,000 in it to fix it and am having my daughter live there, eventually she will get a mortgage on it and start out with lots of equity for her. I also bought another flooded/gutted house in May and am finishing it now to sell, will make about $35,000 on it. I make sure the houses I buy that flooded only flooded just that one time. In my area, fixed up flooded houses sold initially for 20k-$30k more than they did pre-flood because they were completely remodeled. Now the fixed flooded houses are not selling as high price because there are a lot more fixed houses on the market and lots more to choose from. Also, people waiting for FEMA to give them a large check to fix their house will wait a long time as our flood was over a year ago and many people who didn't have flood insurance and didn't have their own money to fix their house are still living in their gutted unfixed houses currently. FEMA hasn't helped much around here, may give $10K-$15K to a home owner but you can't fix a whole house for that. Any house that has flooded multiple times I don't touch, if it is in a flood zone it flood insurance will be too high to afford. And raising houses several feet in the air is extremely costly, I have only seen a few houses raised. Many many more houses were torn down rather than raised up. There are deals to be had on flooded/gutted houses but some homeowners want too much for theirs, some are still sitting today here, not worth buying for the prices they want for them. Sorry this is long. Just thought I would give a little insight. If anyone has any questions or comments I will respond based on my experience.