Cost of elevating/raising house in floodplain area (Houston: insurance, mortgage)

[Geeol]

Hi everyone,
We are considering buying a house in the Meyerland area. The house is in the floodplain. When we were shopping for flood insurance, we are told to get an elevation certificate. The survey showed that the house is about a foot below the base flood elevation (BFE), which resulted in a high annual flood insurance quote. The house did not seem to have flooded before (based on talking to the seller's agent and our inspection). I have a couple of questions:

1. Is the Meyerland area known to flood badly (the house is across from Kolter Elementary school)?

2. If we plan to have the house raised/elevated by 3 or 4 feet so it is above the base level, what might be the cost involved for doing this? The house has a slab foundation and the seller had the foundation repaired last year with several concrete piers and polyurethrane fill.

Thank you very much in advance for your help.

[txdemo]

If the house didn't flood during Allison then it's very unlikely that it will flood in the future. In addition the city has improved the drainage in that area considerably since then. Raising the house seems like a very, very expensive option. And the house will never be the same after that.

What is the difference in the insurance rate? Can't be so much that you'd rather spend upwards of $100k (I'm guessing) to raise the house.

[diggity101]

2. If we plan to have the house raised/elevated by 3 or 4 feet so it is above the base level, what might be the cost involved for doing this? The house has a slab foundation and the seller had the foundation repaired last year with several concrete piers and polyurethrane fill.

This would not be practical/feasible from a cost and engineering standpoint. You would be better off bulldozing.

[Just another person]

if you build a new home and you are in the flood plain the city of Houston will require you to build up on a crawl space to get out of the flood.

[Michelle Morris]

FEMA flood insurance can cost upwards of $5000 per year if you're in a flood plain, and can not be put on a payment plan of any kind.

[ToyYot]

Originally Posted by Just another person

if you build a new home and you are in the flood plain the city of Houston will require you to build up on a crawl space to get out of the flood.

And a word of warning, someone in our neighborhood recently gutted their house and had completed the renovation when the city(?) told them they had to raise the house up 9 inches to get occupancy. I don't know the details but I'm assuming they were in something more than just a 100yr or 500yr flood plain. Key word is "assuming".

They had to tear it down and start over - from new.

[Schumacher713]

There is no way to raise a house on a slab. Meyerland certainly can flood. Go find some old people that live in the area and knock on their door. Ask about the flooding in the area. Areas in the same neighborhoods can flood much more than others.

[testmo]

Meyerland does flood as does many parts of houston. How flood insurance is done is changing, but maybe not in so crazy a way as first proposed. This year rates arent changing for many while states and the feds sort stuff out. Did you get a quote on the house? You could look at another home or pay for the house outright. I live in a 60 yr old house thats never flooded. If they consider my house as big a risk as homes on the beach (ridiculous) im just going to pay off the mortgage and take the flooding risk on myself. Without knowing whats going to happen in the next few years unless you have the funds set aside to pay off id wait to purchase a home in a flood plain or any home that has a flood history

[imback]

I have to second one of the previous posters (txdemo). Flood-plain insurance is indeed ridiculously expensive, but you could buy decades of it with the sums required to elevate a house on a slab (which have to be several tens of thousands of dollars). Elevation as a "solution" just does not really make sense from a cost/benefit, risk-assessment viewpoint.

Also, don't forget that any plans to elevate will need the approval of the Meyerland HOA....

Also, txdemo's point about the house never being the same is well-taken. In this same vein: many if not most of the original Meyerland houses were not just built on slabs, but also had poured terrazzo floors on up to half or even more of the square footage.

(If the house you are interested in has the intact and still exposed poured terrazzo floors, be ecstatic because such floors are nowadays extravagantly expensive, ultra-luxurious features).

But terrazzo floors are intended to last for centuries and are extremely difficult to remove. So if the house has other floor coverings (especially in the public areas), it's quite possible that there still may be original terrazzo underneath the hardwoods, ceramic tile, travertine, carpet, or whatever such cheaper stuff may have been simply slapped on top of the terrazzo.

In that case, the engineering challenges consist of elevating a concrete slab, plus a complete or even worse, a partial poured terrazzo slab on top of it. I am not an engineer, but I think this could be problematic, not just for performing the job but for the long term structural stability of an elevated house.

[texas7]

Originally Posted by Michelle Morris

FEMA flood insurance can cost upwards of $5000 per year if you're in a flood plain, and can not be put on a payment plan of any kind.

I'm in a flood plain, never flooded and my flood insurance is like $400/yr.