About 2 weeks ago we made an offer on a house, less than the appraisal, and it was accepted. Last week the whole town the house was in flooded. This house is not on a flood plain, in Iowa everywhere got flooded, but ended up with about 4 feet of water in the half finished basement. The current owners are in the process of gutting the whole basement, ceiling included even though it wasn't touched by water. Replacing furnace and water heater as well. I've done research on clean up and we will be involved in supervising that so I'm not as concerned about that. I am concerned with property value however. We are having another appraisal done when the repairs are made, how big of a difference will we see?

If the house is not in a flood plain now (doubtful) it will be shortly and you will get a notice from your lender requiring you to get flood insurance. Been there. From what I have seen and what you wrote here that flood insurance policy will most likely be very expensive. Been there.

Obviously, their insurance company now knows about the flooding problem and this house will not be covered for future mold issues even if you change insurance companies. Insurance companies share problem info. Don't forget to get a certified mold test done.

There are so many reason not to buy a flooded house and if I were you I would use this time to look for a house with some elevation.

This is just sickening for everyone in that part of the country. If the current owners are doing the repairs, you will have time to consider Bigtoe's advice and make some important decisions. As he pointed out, so many factors are involved here. If your backup home choices also flooded, you do have a lot of decisions to make. To go from having your offer accepted on a home you love to actually supervising the cleanup after a flood--that's very stressful indeed, both for you and the seller. I hope you come out okay on this. Keep us posted.

To answer your question about the appraisal...it may be too soon to tell how the flooding will impact the home's value. If other homes have similar damage throughout the surrounding subdivisions...that may soften the blow a little only because there are not many other options for the buyer, but the appraiser will have to make that call as best he or she can based on whatever info is available. So I guess I would have to say that I am glad I am not an appraiser up there right now...their job is hard enough without a flood. When it comes to appraisals, I like to steal a line from Jerry Seinfeld...

"Have you seen the size of that document?"...

I would be interested in knowing how much of a hit (in percentage of value reduction) the home took due to the flooding, even after being repaired. Mother Nature sure has been kicking the US around the last few years. Sorry I had no good advice for you.

Darlene

One more thing. There will be a lot of homes for sale after this is done and in a market driven economy more supply with less demand results in lower prices. Expect the prices in the whole area to drop because of this. A lot of folks are not going to stay if they don't have to.

Glad I caught this before I turned in. I have been up all night trying to fix some computer problems.

On my favorite weather site, www.wunderground.com, Jeff Masters has an article about the last 25 years of weather disasters and how much they cost in damages...complete with graphs...it's up to date, so go look if you get a chance.

I wonder if anyone knows a place in the US that is safe from these disasters. I know how to get away from hurricanes, but I'll be moving into tornado or earthquake territory. Not a good trade. And the flooding...sometimes it seems like there is just no moving away from that.

We had a bad storm move thru Houston today and broke a lot of limbs...some with a diameter about the size of a saucer. After seeing the flooding on TV, I'm not saying a word about this little storm.

Good night.

To answer Darlene B's question - Idaho, we have no tornados, flooding or earthquakes (at least not any to talk about and I know an earthquake, been there done that!)

I actually realized this several years ago while watching the news report on disasters throughout the country and how few, if any we have here. We had a mild earthquake a couple of months ago, didn't feel it, I was driving and that was the first one in the 11 years I've lived here.

Idaho, Montana, Wyoming are probably all good low/no disaster states.