Newbie from Houston... Marketing help?

Question

Howdy,

My wife and I moved to Houston two years ago from the Dallas area. In that time we have seen one World Series championship, a Hurricane, a snow storm, and had our first child so we are on a good run so far. With both graduated from Texas A&M and I work in outside sales for an industrial distributor in Houston.  We have no real estate experience yet. But over the last couple of months I have met with a wholesaler, looked at multiple houses, and placed one offer. Over the next three months I would like to focus on closing a buy and hold property in the North Houston area and I would like to learn from those that already have.

I am new to real estate but my wife and I do have some experience with GIS mapping programs and with the help of a couple of friends I have assembled a list of over 65,000 flooded homes in Houston. This has a lot of information everything from depth of flooding, home address, mailing address, parcel number,  value, tax info, year built and the list goes on. Would this be helpful information? I think it would be great for marketing but I don’t know where to start. If anyone in Houston would like to review this information and partner to move forward I would like to put this to good use. I am trying to bring value.

http://arcg.is/2kg0Zx8

As Zig said you will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want. I look forward to working with y’all!

Travis

Account Closed · Answer

4) Can something be done to the land to prevent flooding in the future on properties that only got a little flooded this time?

Sometimes, a simple modification can make a big difference. Widening the ditches and improving drainage can help a lot, especially if your team is working on multiple homes in a row. Some plants (such as bamboo, Hawaiian Ginger, banana trees,) rapidly drink up water and return it to the atmosphere. Altering the grade of the land around the house can make a huge difference. These are all relatively simple projects that don't involve much capitol; just a good planning session and lot of sweaty, dirty, muscle-building work.

Clumping bamboo is preferred, the other variety can take over. Sweet hollow plants like Hawaiian ginger and banana trees should not be planted up against a structure because they are perfect homes for the big water cockroaches that Houston has in abundance. It's better to put these in the far reaches of the yard.

Liz

Account Closed · Answer

Howdy and welcome! I'm a RE noob, too; however, I'm also a native Houstonian. I've seen a lot of flooding. Some things to consider right now with flood properties include:

1) Can you get contractors? Can your contractors get materials in a timely manner?

Many of us have difficulty getting a complete team right now. The cost of materials has spiked, and availability of materials has declined. The cost and timeline at which a project could be completed before Harvey is completely different today.

2) Have the houses been gutted and treated accordingly?

Flood houses that didn't get immediate attention can pose a major health hazard. (At the very least the flood-soaked drywall should have been ripped out, there's a bit more to it, but that's a big, easily identifiable red flag.)  I personally wouldn't dare set foot in one that wasn't stripped and has been sitting like that for months.

3) Are you looking at today's property values or pre-flood values?

Property values in areas that have flooded (especially for the 1st time) are going to be severely lower than they were before the flood. Even homes that did not flood in neighborhoods that experienced heavy flooding decline in value. When prospective home buyers drive through a neighborhood looking for a place to raise a family, if there are rotting unattended flood houses on a neighboring block, most will look elsewhere. If you are looking at blasting through these areas and resurrecting whole neighborhoods, more power to you. It is a needed service to the community. A few "missed" houses in obvious need of rehab can hurt the value of the whole neighborhood. There are likely to be quite a few upside-down mortgages in these areas now.

I have to go for now. If I think of more, I will update. Good luck in all your endeavors.

Liz

Travis Kuehler · Answer

@Nick Smith

Yes HCAD has everything. I just searched the basemap layers and found that FEMA has posted alot of this data on HCAD. We just compiled all the layers made a map and then exported to excell to make it easier to sort. If you want to see the sheet let me know and I will send you a link to the google sheets page.

@Vijaianand Thirnageswaram

Thank you for the feedback. I would prefer to not start with flooded houses but I wanted to present this information to someone that is looking for houses in that market. I will shot you a message!

Vijaianand Thirunageswaram · Answer

@Travis Kuehler  Welcome to BP. I love Zig's quote and like to follow it as well. I am currently mentoring few newbie investors. Couple of them already landed with their first property and working on closing and rehabbing it.

I work in IT and oil and gas field where GIS data plays major role. I know what you are getting to but lots of new investors are staying away from flooded properties and I have wrote post about it too. Do you really want to be involved in flooded properties? In that case, yeah that data might be really valuable. You have to decide which strategy you want to implement on those properties and work accordingly.

I am happy to communicate if you want and direct you accordingly.  Don't hesitate to ping me.

Nick S. · Answer

Pretty interesting project. I’ve played around with GIS software a bit, and I like all the different ways of looking at data that it allows.

What did you use as your source of data? Are there publicly available records of things like flood depth by address that you used to compile this database? I assume you used the HCAD database for most of the other info?

Newbie from Houston... Marketing help?

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