The Third Rule of Thumb and the Flood Zone!

When you are investigating a property to see if you can change the zoning or get a variance for the property to use it as a self-storage facility, one of the things that you need to check is whether or not the property is in a flood zone. You don’t want to close on a property only to discover that you cannot build on the land or make the changes to the property that you wanted because it is in a flood zone.

If a property is located in a flood zone, then you need to find out if the property can still be used. If it can, then what are the requirements. Usually, you must be at least one foot above the 100 year flood plain in order to build. If you are below that, can you bring in enough dirt to make them happy? That is a lot of dirt and a lot of additional expense, is it worth it?

Your insurance company may also have a problem with you being in a flood zone. It is very important to be able to get insurance on your self-storage facility. You don’t want to invest hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars and then have that be at risk. Lenders require insurance.

Find out if there are work arounds that allow you to build and get insurance. If there are then you can move forward with your project. If there is no way to build or make the conversion that you want, you should probably move on to the next project. Don’t get so emotionally involved in a property that you make the mistake of buying something that can’t be used. As always, happy investing.