Just wondering if any one has had a property that floods. It is very hard to find acreages and I am looking at one in a 100 year flood plane. I only have one horse but could be tricky finding a place to live while Yiu are dealing with a flooding property and the aftermath. The property must have flooded in 08 when we had a major flood because everything in the house is new.
Anyone deal with this? And how bad was it?
A good chunk of our pastures (and therefore the property) is in a 100 year flood plain so we have a small building envelope which is above the flood plain line. I am a little confused though - how did the previous owner get permission to build a house that is actually on the flood plain? The farmhouse, indoor and all the barns are above our flood plain line.
The property has flooded many times (Hurricane Sandy being the worst) but has never flooded above the flood plain line. We tend to lose fence line in a bad flood but when the water recedes we just go out and put the fence back up (put fence poles back in the holes and pound them in with the bucket of the tractor and untangle coated high tensile). Clean up is a pain not the end of th world.
It’s got to really depend on local conditions, I’m guessing. I grew up on a farmette in CT that’s in the flood plain for a river and in the past 50 years the water line in the back pasture has never varied, even for the big hurricanes. But, 5 miles away a small stream began overflowing in the 80’s and continues to expand & wreck homes. Where I am in coastal MA has many small streams, beaver ponds, vernal pools and marshy, tidal streams, and the water is, in general, getting higher everywhere in my 'hood. I was very careful buying property around here because of this. I’d try to take the Google Earth view of flooding, and get some professional advice about it before committing. Good luck.
OP, IMO, the big deal is not the flooding. Rather, it is the cost and requirement (by a lender) of flood insurance.
The problem is that the industry lost its shirt on Katrina and Sandy. That money has got to be put back, and they don’t want to lose like that again. A lender, for obvious reasons, wants to insure his collateral, so anyone borrowing against the property must insure it.
And so! You have the ingredients for a property that comes with it an unknown obligation for flood insurance. If premiums rise by too much, that makes the mortage (plus required insurance) on the place too high for a buyer to pay you what you’d like for your property. This might happen to you as a buyer now. But the big deal-- and the thing that stopped me on a property purchase-- was the way the this whole thing would limit my pool of future buyers.
Of course anyone paying cash is not obligated to buy flood insurance. That can be you, or that can be your future buyer. But that pool of buyers can be small.
It is not clear to me whether one must insure all structures on a piece of property that has some bit in the flood zone or not. It makes no sense to me that you’d have to insure, say, a barn and a house that are out of the flood zone… but insure all of those because you had some fencing and a run-in shed IN the flood zone. But talking to property owners with this kind of set up, it seems to me that policies (or their understanding) varies.
In speaking to county- and city planners who understand all this, they’ll tell you that, by and large, flood zones are shrinking in size as more drainage/flood management projects are being completed. This might not apply to a rural property. Also, flood planes are re-mapped from time to time, not via actual surveying but by plugging in new computer models that calculate water levels at various places.
All-in-all, I think buying in a flood plane requires some real thought about the problem of re-selling and an extra layer of due diligence. Your best bet is to speak to an insurance agent who sells flood insurance yourself about insuring your particular property/structures on it. And ask about their view of the industry. You’ll get a pretty good clue from that.
[QUOTE=China Doll;9016310]
Just wondering if any one has had a property that floods. It is very hard to find acreages and I am looking at one in a 100 year flood plane.[/QUOTE]
Very first thing is to verify that the area is covered under the National Flood Insurance Program. The community had to agree to certain principles to even participate in the NFIP. Not all have.
As an employee of the sewer company that also handles flood and drainage operations, I would suggest strongly you contact which ever agency handles flood and drainage and ask them. They can tell you how much of your property is in the flood plain and give you a floodplain determination. They should also be able to advise you of local ordinances that would effect the flood plain. Here you have to have a permit to repair— and there are restrictions imposed on the issuance of a permit. My agency is working with FEMA to obtain grants to buy out homes in the floodplain so the land can be turned to greenspace because the goal is to NOT have people living in the floodplain…
We looked at one property that had a gorgeous house and barn but part of the pasture was in a 100 year flood plain (Zone A or B, I can’t recall). Two things were deal breakers: 1. They can rezone flood plains at any time so there was always a chance that the rest of the property could get rezoned in and become uninsurable 2. It was supposedly a 100 year plain but the pasture was dead in that region and photos on the PVA showed standing water in the area, so we were pretty sure it collected water fairly often.
As someone who recently went through a massive flood and lost 99% of everything owned (90% of the houses flooded in the city that I live), I would be very apprehensive about it. Ex-DH and I had flood insurance. Nearly 50% of the monthly mortgage payment was for flood insurance. Now the flood that happen in August was a 1,000 year flood and I would not hesitate to purchase a house that flooded but not in a flood zone because sometimes stuff happens, but I would think long and hard before purchasing a house in a flood zone again.
Flood insurance is not cheap. The road to recovery is long and painful if you do have a flood. It has been 5 months 1 week since the flood and ex DH still hasn’t gotten the big insurance check. Yes, we got a smaller check to start, but it doesn’t go that far. He has only been about to do minor things - the contractor hasn’t even been able to start rebuilding the house yet. If you do flood, you will also have to deal with city (not sure about rural though) about possibly having to elevate your home. It took 4 months or so just to get a permit.
[QUOTE=skyy;9016337]
A good chunk of our pastures (and therefore the property) is in a 100 year flood plain so we have a small building envelope which is above the flood plain line. I am a little confused though - how did the previous owner get permission to build a house that is actually on the flood plain? The farmhouse, indoor and all the barns are above our flood plain line.
The property has flooded many times (Hurricane Sandy being the worst) but has never flooded above the flood plain line. We tend to lose fence line in a bad flood but when the water recedes we just go out and put the fence back up (put fence poles back in the holes and pound them in with the bucket of the tractor and untangle coated high tensile). Clean up is a pain not the end of th world.[/QUOTE] it is not a new house just newly remodeled.
[QUOTE=skyy;9016337]
A good chunk of our pastures (and therefore the property) is in a 100 year flood plain so we have a small building envelope which is above the flood plain line. I am a little confused though - how did the previous owner get permission to build a house that is actually on the flood plain? The farmhouse, indoor and all the barns are above our flood plain line.
The property has flooded many times (Hurricane Sandy being the worst) but has never flooded above the flood plain line. We tend to lose fence line in a bad flood but when the water recedes we just go out and put the fence back up (put fence poles back in the holes and pound them in with the bucket of the tractor and untangle coated high tensile). Clean up is a pain not the end of th world.[/QUOTE] it is not a new house just newly remodeled. which though makes me wonder if I could even get a permit to build an outbuilding.
surprisingly the extra flood insurance is only 500.00 per year.
Remember, also that a 100-year flood does not necessarily mean it will only flood every 100 years. It may only flood once every century, but it could also mean it floods 2 or 3 (or more) years in a row, and then not for 200 (or 300, 400, etc) years.
What happens if you get your flood insurance and then you get flooded? Most likely your insurer will drop your coverage, and then what happens if you get that 2nd flood the next year?
I once looked at a property where the fields were in 100y flood plain. Didn’t end up buying it and I’m glad I didn’t.
If the buildings or driveway are in the flood plain I would pass. I’m not a fan of seeing people lose their life’s assets because they had a choice to stay dry but they didn’t.
Look into the soil maps. Flood plain soil is usually not rugged stuff and many soil types are not suitable for building.
If the fields are in the flood plain you may have major issues using it. The property I was interested in required that fencing could not block up flood waters - which, it turns out means you can’t make an enclosure with it.
$.02
Floodway, floodplain. Different terms that mean different things. I wouldn’t buy it unless you knew a whole lot more about the area and whether you were dealing with standing water or the potential for current and whether the house had ever been inundated before.
I would be wary.
But Houston had three major storms hit in a two-year period, and IIRC one was a 500 year flood and at least one of the others was a 100 year flood.
They don’t always space themselves out, so don’t let the fact that the property flooded in 2008 lull you into a sense of security that you will be “safe” for a while.
Weather patterns change and development changes drainage and how/where things flood.
It’s not a decision to make lightly. If you do go for it, have a rock solid plan for evacuating horses to someplace that will be able to take them for weeks (or months).
If you think the house has flooded that recently AND it was not raised up, I wouldn’t touch it.
The property itself being in a flood plain may be manageable, BUT, you will get some headaches if the flood maps show any part of your property touching the 100 year flood plain. I have a creek running through mine, so naturally some of mine is. It’s manageable but I did have to get an engineer to survey my house AND survey the hydrology of the area to prove my house wasn’t affected to save myself ~$3k a year in flood insurance when the mortgage companies suddenly reassessed their portfolios after Sandy. Note this was a surprise event that happened a couple of years after I got a building permit for adding on to the original house where the flood documents also had to be reviewed.
You will not be able to build any structure requiring a permit in the flood plain area. By this I mean any, even a barn or shed. You of course can locate portables not requiring a permit in those areas. That you don’t mind if it floods once in a while is not sufficient.
So, that’s the regulatory issue, which is a PITA but not necessarily a dealbreaker. The next question is, why does this property flood? Immense rainfall? Hurricanes? A nearby river that overflows? Flash floods via creeks?
Get a map of the area and understand your watershed. I am at the top of a major river system, but there are only about ten square miles of watershed above me. There is a lot of slope, too. This means that creeks will rise high and fairly quickly in a big big rain - but also that when it stops raining, the water will dissipate. The secondary danger to me would be if there was a major mudslide downstream blocking the river leaving my area. And, it’s mean of me, :-), but I observe that there are many houses that would flood before mine will, that I believe have not flooded ever (bearing in mind the relatively short historical record of California housing).
By contrast, 80 miles downstream of me is a town that regularly floods from this same river system. They are totally at the mercy not just of local rains, but of thousands of square miles of watershed upstream, and they are at a place where the riverbed narrows and has no place to go but downtown. If it rains hard anywhere in that area, they have the potential for flooding, and the flood can last a long time. This is a piddly little California river system, not like the massive Mississippi or other big river systems east of the Rockies.
Also be wary of things upstream of you like dams.
So, all that, now evaluate what the likelihood of flooding is from a future event, how large an area it would stymie, how deep it would get on your property, etc. Evacuating one horse in a situation where you have lots of warning is not so hard; sheltering in place for flooding of a few inches is not too bad; evacuating four horses, a couple dozen chickens, and couple of semiferal cats for something large like a hurricane starts to be a bit more of a Thing. (Because one horse may be what you have now, but maybe not in 5 years.)
If the land is low lying in general, it may just accumulate water on its own from rain. In this case, it may be swampy and muddy even without flooding, and be unpleasant or unusable part of every year. If the ground is too wet, it won’t sustain pasture, just mud. Pay close attention to what is growing on the land now. That will tell you a lot about the water situation.
If you do buy it, do yourself the favor of building your shed/barn with the highest graded pad you can manage - at least a foot above the surroundings - to ensure dry feet and give you more options in moderate flood days.
I have pretty much decided against it as it is all flat and I need a shop so I doubt if I could even get a permit to build it but wanted to post the link just so you could see how close the river is but it is very pretty. http://www.remax.com/realestatehomesforsale/500-bradley-lane-palo-ia-52324-gid700022429562.html
I have pretty much decided against it as it is all flat and I need a shop so I doubt if I could even get a permit to build it but wanted to post the link just so you could see how close the river is but it is very pretty. here is a link that does not have pop ups.
http://cdr.mlsmatrix.com/Matrix/Public/Portal.aspx?k=128423X7R35&p=DE-494159-145#1
Holy hell that’s ON the river. I would definitely pass. But you’re right, it IS pretty. Too bad too. And good price (not sure the market there, it would be ~$150k-$250k more here).
Google earth view is very informative!
It looks like this property is bounded on one side by the actual river, and on the other by a creek. I see a lot of brush around the creek, suggesting it is an off-limits flood zone. And then above that I see a park that is actually called “Palo Marsh County Park.” Across the river from the farm is another park area called “Chain of Links Wildlife Management Area.” And there are numerous marsh parks up and down the river. My guess, knowing how civic governments operate these days, is that everything that floods regularly is made into greenspace and wildfowl habitat. If you zoom out you see that almost all the river on this stretch is bordered by a stretch of trees which in this context means almost no one is farming up to the edge of the river.
It’s true that modern drainage methods and ways of controlling rivers have lessened floods in many places. But then balance this against ongoing climate change, which is increasing water levels worldwide and also appears to be creating more surprise monster storms, with unpredictable rain levels.
I’ve seen a few relatively modest river floods IRL, though never been personally affected by them, and they are unstoppable. Like the old blues song says, the river she keep on rising. It just seeps up and up and up, and sandbagging really doesn’t help much. Wikipedia says the Cedar River has flooded three times in the last 25 years: 1993, 2008, 2013, though of course it doesn’t mention this property in particular.
I live in a wet climate, and when I toy with the idea of having acreage, water level and flooding is the first thing I think about.
Even if the property doesn’t actually flood (the river doesn’t flow through the pasture), the ground is probably going to be saturated, and not great for feet.
