Need the age, purchase price, sqft and price/sqft rebuild cost in your area.  

They might think the land is valuable to a rebuild investor, or hope that transplants from California will justify the price tag/repair value because it's cheaper than what they're used to seeing. 

Jim from the minute i filed bankruptcy I have been rebuilding my credit or as you put it "getting my financial house in order" I started an L.L.C. as an alternative to my personal credit, and to also establish myself as an serious contender in the real estate market.

And also work on re-building my credit.Any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

In my experience, $30K in this area for a typical 3/2 split or ranch built in the past 30 years will typically get you a full cosmetic rehab (paint, flooring, cabinets, lighting fixtures, plumbing fixtures, appliances, doors, windows, etc).If you plan to do other major stuff -- structural, mold, replace the roof, move/replace walls, rough plumbing/electrical/HVAC, replace siding, etc -- it will be over and above the $30K.Tearing a 2000 sf house down to the studs, plus redoing the exterior (roof, siding, gutters, etc) will run about $60K in my experience in this area.Those are just very ballpark numbers...don't use them for estimates, but it should give you a general idea...Feel free to dig up my blog post (on my personal blog) from November 26, 2010 -- this is a breakdown of my costs to rebuild a flood house (mostly interior work).I do these detailed breakdowns on most of my recent houses...looking at these should give you an idea of the prices I pay for labor/materials around here...

I keep basic insurance and liability on my properties but I could completely rebuild one of my houses for $20,000 so the flood insurance proposition makes very little sense for me in this case.  

I need an electrician and a plumber who understand the idea of a small job and doesn't try to rebuild the house every time he is called on.  

I know you can't use it for a tear-down and rebuild though.

My options are to rebuild the stairs and replace them in the locations they currently are or build stairs to code and cut into the landings which would be considerably more work.Thank you

In an A community the land value is high enough that if the subject property were to burn down, it would make sense to rebuild a bigger and better property.In a B community the land value should be substantial enough to rebuild the same property, in square footage and included features.