Opposed to a rebuild where something has to be be torn down for something else to be built where the appreciation is higher. 

The current home is a disaster, highest and best use would be to tear down an rebuild. 

In such cases it makes more sense to rebuild than to restore.

I'm proud to lead some conversations that can potentially change lives as the people in this region rebuild lives. 

I'm not sure what the impacts are for rent control, if you can use the retrofit as a "substantial improvement" and increase rents.. but that could play in to the calculation.I work in bank regulation, and when I asked what will happen if 20%-50%+ of bay area buildings become uninhabitable due to damage - along with the ramifications for loan payments, housing supply, and money to rebuild, the consensus answer seems to be the same: FEMA will jump in and pay for everything, so why waste your money in the meantime?

After some screaming and swearing, and him telling me I had to excavate the exterior and had to rebuild the foundation, I still had to pay this knob $450 for the write up and then part ways.  

Of course, I am calculating the time/rent that will be lost while I rebuild the numbers.  

I would potentially try to get as much as I could from the 203k loan and rebuild as I house hack myself.

@Bruce Woodruff - In the last five years, in Kansas City, MO, I have renovated 170 houses, mostly full rebuilds from the foundation.

You may have trouble depending on where your property is in Topsail, however, since everything is about to fall into the ocean and you can't rebuild in certain areas.