Always be carful when looking at sites that are, or were, gas stations, factories, laundry or dry cleaning facilities and other uses that could contaminate the soil.

So east Texas you can typically run 1 cow per acre if you feed a bit in the winter, dont have clay soil and have a creek on the property.

To buy and hold investors in natural disaster zones - such as hurricanes impacting Houston TX or panhandle of Florida (Pensacola was hit this year by Hurricane Sandy), how do you account for this risk in your investing?

So if it was me, I'd just tell everyone to go pound sand.

I am not necessarily interested in the composition of the soil but rather owning the land beneath someone.

I've dealt with building departments, surveyors, soil tests, excavators, all the trades, scheduling, ordering, and my favorite, design. 

Looking at the walls, they are arriving at very different conclusions of how much work needs to be done to ensure no further movement in the basement walls against the soil pressure.

Maybe because of the expansive soils we have.   

The range of potential fixes could be from epoxy injecting the cracks, which would cost roughly a few thousand dollars, to soil or foundation stabilization, which could cost a few tens of thousands of dollars. 

Worst case, you would want to slope the soil a few feet from the foundation and maybe add a french drain.