Author Topic: Rental home flooded by Harvey  (Read 1459 times)

pl28

  • 5 O'Clock Shadow
  • *
  • Posts: 32
  • Location: Richardson (Dallas), Texas
Rental home flooded by Harvey
« on: August 28, 2017, 11:31:14 AM »
Hi all, my sister's rental home was flooded by Tropical Storm/Hurricane Harvey this past weekend. We've been helping her tenant find a shelter and start looking for renter assistance for him and his family for more longer term housing. However, I do not see any assistance for my sister as a landlord, anyone have any past experience or advice? She does not have flood insurance since the house was located in low risk area and when she (my sister) was living there she never had any flooding issue or even close to any potential issues. This storm was by far the worst she had ever seen... so I'm sure a lot of people are affected by it. Hopefully the rain will lighten up and Houston can get some relief.

Also if you have any advice on getting the house back into livable shape, please do share. I did some research and mold is probably the biggest issue. I plan helping her rip out the drywall and clean out any wet debris and dry it as much as possible.

Thanks in advance

waltworks

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 5652
Re: Rental home flooded by Harvey
« Reply #1 on: August 28, 2017, 01:58:21 PM »
I had a rental property flood (not in a flood zone, no flood insurance) several years ago. What happens will depend to some extent on what FEMA decides to do. In some cases they will basically bail everyone out and cut checks for repairs - but that *tends* to only be for owner occupied residences. They will offer very low interest loans through the SBA if your sister can't afford repair costs up front.

In our case since we didn't live in the property, we were offered some loans (which we declined to do) and ended up spending about $10k on new drywall, drying the studs very thoroughly, applying some sort of anti-mold spray, reinsulating, and re-drywalling/painting. Luckily it was only the lower level of a small condo so total costs were about $10k. Not too terrible.

There may be state/city/county funds that become available going forward as well, but *most likely* she is on the hook for repairs. This is why professional RE investors have a lot of "shit happens" leeway built into their 50% rule/1% rule sort of numbers when they evaluate a property.

-W

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!