Stucco houses in Houston

[Tushar P.]

I wonder what the feeling is among investors about buying a sfh rental with stucco siding. I keep hearing stucco should be avoided in Houston but then I also hear that it is ok *IF* the material and installation is good.

Or simply have a bigger capex/maintenance reserve to account for rainy and humid Houston?

[Kevin Bazazzadeh]

Hi @Tushar P.

I have been there, done that, and wrote a blog on my personal experience.

https://www.brilliantdayhomes.com/blog/houston-house-problems-stucco-damage/

@Kevin Wood is spot on.

If appropriate drainage was built in, and joints are properly sealed, you are probably OK. The problem is, if you have joints that aren’t adequately sealed, or areas that don’t have the correct flashing, you can get a substantial amount of water behind the material. Then, the only way it is going to dry is by water vapor moving through the pores of the stucco - and that is slow. This leads to the wood sheathing rotting behind the stucco.

Unfortunately, there were a lot of builders in Houston doing stucco in the 2000’s and just didn’t understand it. To @Ryan Johnson 's point, there are good houses out there. If you want to buy, I highly recommend getting a stucco inspection done; it isn’t cheap (our 3-story town house was about $1,000), but it is considerably cheaper than what you could be facing. Our repairs alone were over $20K.

Also get insurance that explicitly states that it is covered.