Flood insurance $7000, on a $70,000 house?? Need advice please

[Brian H.]

All,

I have owned a single-family home in West Virginia for 11 years, and have operated it as a rental for most of that time. I decided to get rid of it year and finally got it locked up under contract with a closing scheduled for November 12, last week. The day before closing the buyer's bank told me that the buyer had received a flood insurance quote of $7000 for the year. He had to back out of the deal and I'm stuck with the house again. Only now I have this outrageous flood insurance thing to deal with. All the time I've owned it, the flood premiums have been somewhere in the $700-900 range. This $7000 quote that he got from FEMA is absolutely outrageous and I have no idea who to turn to. I can't envision ever selling the house with this hanging over it and don't see a whole lot of point in continuing to operate it as a rental since it's never been particularly profitable and I'm just straight-up tired of trying to manage it from a distance.

I owe $53000 on the mortgage and have considered trying to sell it for cash to an investor, but again with this kind of liability it's hard to imagine I'll have any success.

Any and all suggestions are welcome.