Foundation Underpinning in Houston - Need higher ceilings

[Landon Gossett]

Howdy, I have a 2500 sqft two-story house near the East River development in Houston that we're looking to rehab. The main issue is that the ceilings in the house are too low at 7ft, and there is not any room to raise them under the second floor. The property is all around new construction, so the ceiling height is something that will need to be remedied in order to sell at that price point. Our plan had been to remove the ceiling in order to fix that problem, but we would lose around 900 sqft when we do that.

My question is, would it be possible to underpin the foundation in order to gain the height we are looking for and keep the square footage? The house is mostly raised on a pier and beam structure, so there is height to play with before we're at ground level. I am not sure if this type of work is something that is possible, or is done around Houston where foundations are typically raised rather than lowered.

Any help with this idea, or any other potential fixes, would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!