While that is probably true, it would also wash out the grocery store where his food comes from and the neighborhood would look like  I have been in many quakes including the big one the Loma Preita one  what killed people was the freeway double decker collapsing on the bottom deck and one guy fell through the Bay Bridge when part of that deck came lose .

My vote is to repair, repair, repair.Water damage can lead to significant problems, from blistering / peeling paint to ceilings collapsing and electrical shorts.

If the deal collapses and I would lose everything, I'm out.

No, it's not some doomsday eminent collapse thing, were not talking 20, 30, 70% stuff ok, but still double IS significant. 

If the deal collapses and I would lose everything, I'm out.

People in 2009 thought the world was collapsing.

Here's an example on these forums from four years ago: https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/888/topics/829466-housi...I still stick with what I said in mid 2022: Given that lending standards were much, much stronger than in 2008 and that most homeowners have long term fixed rates instead of Teasers, the real estate market won't collapse even if demand is down because supply is down (less inventory because people don't want to sell off properties with those great loans).

Steal Industry, auto manufacturing, the facilitating things to these like coal mining, the decapitation of these industries in the US has left a trail of devastated towns and collapsed markets who have NOT come back and have no prospects of ever coming back to there former glory as the "thing" that put them there, is gone. 

I also listen to broadcasts and I am really impressed by Brian Burke and Andrew Cushmen that stop buying in the last three years and sell most of the property to realize gain before collapse.

There will be stagflation MSA's, there will be appreciating MSA's, some declining MSA's and some MSA's that will look a lot like iterations of a crash or collapse.