Disaster Recovery Investing

[Mack McPhatter]

I have been contracting with a company for about a year that specializes in disaster recovery with federal money through FEMA. They chase disasters and open up offices across the country where there is federal money available.

Now to my point about investing.  Most of the money goes to rebuilding or remodeling homes owned by individuals.  These houses are free with the only stipulation that they can't sell or structurally modify the property for 3 years. There is a small percentage of the money that goes to rehabbing Section 8 apartments and building new Section 8 homes for rent.  I'm currently building 5 houses for an investor that owns 42 rental properties.  He picked his worst 5 properties that were very dilapidated and only renting for $300-$400 a month.  I'm tearing down these dumps and building him brand new houses on slabs in 30-40 days.  He had to pay $30k per property and agree to rent the houses through Section 8 for 10 years.  The current rent for these homes is $1100 a month!

I was pretty pissed when I first found out that the government is using my tax dollars to make other investors rich(which I still don't agree with.)  But then I figured if the govt is going to blow money, I might as well take some of it.  I applied too late as the program I'm working on is almost over, but there is money all across the country waiting to be had.  It's not a quick process and as always it's a pain dealing with the government, but it is really worth the trouble if you have older, run down rentals in one of the targeted area.  It would definitely be worth looking into if you've had a natural disaster in your area the last few years.