How to Gauge Your Property’s Flood Risk by Using Free Flood Maps [Video!]

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With the recent extreme weather conditions hitting the United States, there is heightened concern among real estate investors about their ability to avoid buying in at-risk areas. Fortunately, FEMA provides a free flood map tool that enables buyers to locate their prospective investment property on a map and determine whether or not it is in a “flood zone.”

Related: The 6 Best Things You Can Do to Prep Your Home for Hurricane Season

Using one of our Houston properties as an example, this video takes you step-by-step through locating a property on a FEMA flood map. Before we purchased it, this property was identified as being likely safe from extreme flooding—a quality observed in practice during the recent Hurricane Harvey, the Tax Day floods of 2016, and the Memorial Day floods of 2015.

How to Locate Your Property on a FEMA Flood Map

Watch this video to learn how to screen investment properties for flood hazards before the floods hit!

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Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.