Checking The Flood Map

Since Hurricane Sandy, Five Towns homebuyers have been much more diligent in researching if a potential new home sits on the updated flood maps that FEMA posted since that devastating storm.

Before Sandy, most homebuyers didn’t really pay that much attention to whether a house was built in a zone that required some form of flood insurance unless it was located on a small area of streets that was known to flood any time it rained.

Ironically, those streets that flooded when it rained were only avoided by a minority of potential homebuyers since most looked at flooding as a minor inconvenience when one had to go someplace while it rained. For the most part, worrying about a house flooding during a rainstorm was not an issue that caused worry back then and most people proceeded with purchases.

Fast forward to today, when so many homeowners who never considered that their homes were susceptible to flooding during a storm got hit so badly during Sandy that flood insurance has become a front and center issue, and people who never considered buying flood insurance in the past now have to deal with the newly-raised premiums that have become permanent fixtures.

New homebuyers looking to purchase a home now have to take into consideration flood insurance as part of a mandatory expense on top of taxes and homeowners’ insurance (not to mention a mortgage) when they budget for how much house they can afford when shopping for a new home.

Unfortunately, flood insurance has become a more difficult expense to calculate since under the new formula, each house on a given block may be earmarked by FEMA differently based on criteria such as height, land elevation, basement or no basement, to name just a few categories, so that one house could be priced at a low yearly premium cost while the house next door might be twice or even three times the amount according to FEMA guidelines.

The best way to actually figure what the flood insurance would be on a given address today is to first ask the existing homeowner what their flood insurance premium is for the given year. If for some reason the homeowner does not have flood insurance (since homeowners who do not have mortgages are not required to have flood insurance), the mortgage lender can do a flood search and based on the FEMA flood map, can determine if that home is within the flood map even to the slightest degree, which would mandate the purchasing of flood insurance. The buyer can then contact his insurance company and give them the address of the potential house under consideration and have them advise him as to what flood zone determination that address falls under and the amount based on present rates that a flood insurance premium would cost if they decided to purchase that particular property.

For those wanting to research more about flood insurance and the guidelines and different zoning determinations used by FEMA, I recommend going online to the FEMA website and looking through the extensive consumer information available. 

Anessa Cohen lives in Cedarhurst and is a Licensed Real Estate Broker (Anessa V Cohen Realty) with over 20 years of experience offering residential, commercial and management real estate services. You are invited to visit her website at AVCRealty.com. She can be reached at 516-569-5007 or Readers are encouraged to send any questions or comments by email to [email protected].