HUD Sells Flood-Prone Houses To Often Unsuspecting Buyers : NPR
Homes that were sold by the Department of Housing and Urban Development between January 2017 and August 2020 are in federally designated flood zones at almost 75 times the rate of all homes sold nationwide in that period. New Jersey is one hot spot. Here, flooding from Tropical Storm Henri in Helmetta, N.J., this August.
Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
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Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Homes that were sold by the Department of Housing and Urban Development between January 2017 and August 2020 are in federally designated flood zones at almost 75 times the rate of all homes sold nationwide in that period. New Jersey is one hot spot. Here, flooding from Tropical Storm Henri in Helmetta, N.J., this August.
Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
The first thing Larry McCanney fell in love with was the tree in the front yard. It cast shade on the porch of a house that, if he were honest, needed some work. But McCanney is handy, the price was right and the location was perfect, just a couple of miles from his childhood home in Burlington, N.J.
“We just kind of wanted to get our family started, and it was affordable for us,” McCanney says. “I’m still paying college loans off 11 years later, [and] we wanted to ensure that we were purchasing a place that, should I lose my job or if [my wife] lost her job, we wouldn’t be out of a house in two