I had to literally tear down the gazebo and rebuild it.  

I know of a group that were going to be purchasing homes in Ortley Beach and areas hit hard by the storm - knowing that the generation that now owned the homes would not be able to rebuild due to the cost, clean up and regulations now in place.

You lost me Cheryl (not hard to do) ;-)Will you ultimately place new debt on the tear down and rebuild project or will you keep the cash you would extract in the project and not procure debt?

It was a 2 bedroom property and we could have added a 3rd bedroom, increasing both the STR and yearly-leased rental rates enough to make it worth it, adding to our ROI.Long-term, I wanted to hold it to re-build someday.

If not, what would it cost to demolish and rebuild?

Secondary reasons may have to do with rebuilding the community, creating a downtown, providing low income housing, etc.

I started doing this after rebuilding subfloors in a lot of my flips for the same reason.

In the case of adjoining lots, it would be a teardown and rebuild SFH on multiple lots.

One can always rebuild.

What happens if one property burns to the ground and you decide not rebuild?