Landlords demand rent on flooded Houston homes

Re:Landlords demand rent on flooded Houston homes by bdcravens on Tuesday September 05, 2017 @12:40AM (#15172587)

I appreciate the sentiment, but not every landlord is a tycoon. Houston doesn't have the real estate crisis other cities have, so you may charge about 2x the mortgage. (Not to mention the mortgage you eat when a property sits vacant, which is pretty common .. again, there's not the real estate crisis here you see other places where rentals get snatched up quickly) So a month or two without income means the property may be in the red, and as there are many landlords without substantial capital to float a non-paying tenant, that tenant may find themselves in a foreclosed property, where everyone loses.

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Re:Landlords demand rent on flooded Houston homes by breakyerself on Tuesday September 05, 2017 @01:32AM (#15172746)

My dad was a middle class landlord. He bought the duplex we lived in and rented out the other side and eventually moved into a better place and rented both sides. People move out. People become delinquent and have to be evicted. If you can't handle unexpected periods without rental income then you've blundered into the business of owning rental property. He had all kinds of problems and periods without rent coming in. He always found a way to keep in the black with the bank.

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Re:Landlords demand rent on flooded Houston homes by pmiller2 on Tuesday September 05, 2017 @03:49AM (#15173267)

There's a certain amount of risk one takes in buying rental property in a flood plain. Not prepared to take that risk? Don't play the game.

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Re:Landlords demand rent on flooded Houston homes by trapperkeeper74 on Tuesday September 05, 2017 @03:43AM (#15173243)

Here's a very small violin. Landlords can cry to FEMA.

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Re:Landlords demand rent on flooded Houston homes by seanp2k2 on Tuesday September 05, 2017 @06:21AM (#15173857)

Shoulda bought that flood insurance for the mortgage. I don't have much sympathy for rent-seekers when the renters probably can't even work right now. This hurricane has really been bringing out the worst in humans; $20/gal gas, $100/case water, scam robocalls to flood victims, this, etc. This is what happens when you put money before humanity.

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Re:Landlords demand rent on flooded Houston homes by toomuchtodo on Tuesday September 05, 2017 @11:13AM (#15175989)

> Shoulda bought that flood insurance for the mortgage.

Flood insurance is hard because flood plain data is notoriously inaccurate. We would need to require everyone to buy flood insurance.

"Water Damage From Hurricane Harvey Extended Far Beyond Flood Zones"

"About 40 percent of the buildings estimated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to have been flooded in Harris County, Tex., are in areas considered to be “of minimal flood hazard.”

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/01/us/houston-da...

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