Great question! And when you are ready to buy be sure to get a CMDR https://www.tdlr.texas.gov/mld/mldfaq.htm#cert if it was in a water damage remediation event in the 5 prior years. Call a licensed Mold Assessment Consultant to investigate and clear. Dunn Inspection Services can help.
source:
Texas Department of Licensing & Regulation https://www.tdlr.texas.gov/
I recommend contacting your Realtor and your insurance agent as both can be a great resource as it relates to specific properties - flooding, flood zones, flood areas, areas impacted specifically by certain events (i.e. Harvey), etc. It's important to note that some properties may be in the 100 of 500 flood plain and have never flooded while others aren't in either and have flooded. It's important to be aware of these incidents. Your Realtor can reach out to the Sellers' agents on properties for disclosures and our updated disclosures go into a lot of detail on related flood information (if known) and our MLS super imposes the flood maps on each property we pull. It's difficult sometimes if a property was purchased by an investor and that investor doesn't have / claims not to have specific knowledge of any previous flooding and additional detective work takes place!
Use Matrix....Click Search and then Map. Once you have zoomed in enough on the map, you can click the "Flood Zones" checkbox and it will display them. Super handy! MATRIX ROCKS!!
The website to find this information is FEMA Site:https://msc.fema.gov. I would be happy to go over this information with you. Please give me a call at 713-530-3828 if you do not already have a realtor.
When you are looking at houses, in the "Map" section of Matrix, you can see if the house you're looking at is in a flood zone by selecting the filter. The only downside is you have to be pretty zoomed in to see the flood zones.
Please be aware that during some events, property not in flood areas (according to FEMA maps) flooded! If you are trying to avoid flooding, there are several things to consider. Flooding is a "risk" anywhere, as is any disaster. The important part is to mitigate that risk according to your personal tolerance level. In business, we hire consultants and experts to do this. As a consumer, you can do the same. Hire a Realtor that has the knowledge and skill to advise you according to your specific needs. I personally have a background in water resource and environmental management in Texas and I ended up in a neighborhood that flooded unexpected. Call me if you would like to discuss!
Hello. You asked about "flooding areas", but you should also consider areas of "subsidence" in my opinion. Flooding is only half of the story when purchasing a home in Houston. Maps can be found here: https://hgsubsidence.org/
I'm not sure which county you are looking in but you can use the GIS maps. Fort Bend's is here. https://fbcgis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/OnePane/basicviewer/index.html?appid=48c56fd022e24c5489bf3707a335276f Go to Layers and turn on the Current National Flood Hazard layer. There are a lot of other layers you can turn on as well, such as ETJ maps if you are outside of the city limits. This will allow you to see which City can annex your area one day.
Harris County has one also. Go to the Basemap at the top. When you click on that, you will see a check box for turning on the FEMA Flood Zones. https://arcweb.hcad.org/parcelviewer/
You can go to FEMA, https://msc.fema.gov/portal/home, sometimes they are a bit difficult to navigate, feel free to give me a call for assistance, Sherry 281-746-5088