Spare a moment to think about the those in the Houston region whose houses flooded AGAIN. You can think, "Hey, they ought to move." But disasters like this can present you with some really bad options:
You can try to sell, but houses that have flooded (esp. repeatedly) lose A LOT of value, so you're going to take a beating on the sale price. Too bad if you needed that $$$ to live on, or if the sale price doesn't cover the mortgage.
You can try to rebuild. But where does the $$$ come from? Unless you have $50K lying around, you're not going to get your house to pre-flood condition.
Should you even fix your house? While you nod when Fox News says scientists are alarmists, you secretly know that they're right and you're terrified b/c they say extreme precip events are getting worse. Do you want to go through this again in a few years?
Maybe you should just abandon the house and walk away. You might get sued by your bank and your credit will be shot — good luck buying another house or car — but, hey, you're out of that flooded dump.
This can lead to neighborhoods just evaporating ...
politico.com/story/2018/05/…
This can lead to neighborhoods just evaporating ...
politico.com/story/2018/05/…
And as always, the bad effects fall more strongly on the poor, which makes these disasters a moral as well as physical disaster. But, hey, that's the free market in operation, right. If poor people don't like it, they should become rich. AmIrite?
nytimes.com/2018/09/03/us/…
nytimes.com/2018/09/03/us/…
