What to Do if a Real Estate Listing is in a High-Risk Flood Zone?

Today, we're going to discuss what you can do if the house you're selling is in a high-risk flood zone and generally avoid all the headaches of scaring off your potential buyers. If you're the buyer and are faced with this situation, you can definitely get some pointers to make an informed decision before you buy a house. Let's dive into it.

Buying and selling a property can be very meticulous since you really have to consider the property and what's offered to you is basically what you're going to get. From mortgage and insurance to risks and overall safety, it's almost always included in the package. So what do you need to look at when you want to make sure that your home gets sold?

For one, it's most likely that you already have a flood insurance policy existing with your property. It's important to remember that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) will require you to have one since the current flood map shows that you're in an area with a risk of flooding once a year or maybe even a special flood hazard area.

Now, some of the real estate agents may forget how impactful this can be for selling the building, but you can have the policy be passed onto the buyer. This part is very easy since all you need to do is get a piece of paper signed by the buyer to pass the policy to them, have it submitted to your flood insurance company, and they'll do the rest for you.

Another thing requires that you have established communication with your realtor or real estate agent to make sure that you get the right buyer. Before this can be very difficult for properties in high-risk areas since they're going to want to make sure that the buyer has the appropriate loan.

The good thing about the changes to flood insurance is that historically if you're doing a government-backed loan like an FHA Loan, you're stuck with the federal flood insurance program for your policy needs. However, this was updated to make sure that regardless of your loan type, you can choose to get a flood policy with private insurance companies.

You can also get an elevation certificate if you don't already have one. Now, this can cost you a good amount of dollar bills in your wallet, but it would really help your property to be sold. The numbers in an elevation certificate can be used to remove the property from whatever flood zone designation it's in where the flood risks are high.

This can also encourage the buyer since they can expect a much lower average cost of flood insurance premium or flood insurance rates despite being in a higher-risk flood zone. Additionally, having your property be removed from such extreme risk levels will give them a sense of security since they'd also have lower exposure to flooding.

If you want to know more about flood insurance for real estate, we have a dedicated eBook that you can download for free as your guide in navigating and simplifying flood insurance. Click below to get your FREE copy today.

Selling a house that the flood maps aren't really favoring can really be a tricky continuous process, but making sure that your building structure has a lower level of risk can also be the biggest asset of your property overall. In a time where the cost of insurance even in low-risk areas can be a pain, so if you have any questions on how flooding can affect your property value, flood insurance claims, flood designation impacts, or anything at all about flood, be sure to reach out to us by clicking the links below.