Floodplain buyout: Maybe it’s time to stop rebuilding

My heart — that mean-spirited little pump I keep around for “Casablanca” and odd emotional assignments — hurts for the Midwest folks who have been wiped out by flooding, once again.

Three to four million acres were under water. About 2 million acres will not be planted. Twenty-four lives have been lost; property in the billions has been damaged or destroyed.

The full economic impact will come into focus several years from now when all the damage, lost wages and lost sales are tallied against the money coming in from disaster aid and dollars spent rebuilding.

In 1993, Midwest flood damage came to $23 billion. It’s tough getting kicked in the teeth again and again.

My little valley below Snowy Mountain has cleaned up after three 100-year floods during the last 25 years. In the upper Potomac River watershed, we, too, have lost lives and homes. Read more

Real Estate: Let us now appraise appraisers and appraisals

Appraisers are being punched up in the courts and the press for not always providing honest real-estate valuations.

What’s going on? What exactly do appraisers do?

An appraiser forms an opinion of a property’s current Fair Market Value (FMV) by judging its attributes in relation to recent selling prices of nearby comparable properties. Adjustments are made for differences between the target and the “comps” to arrive at a dollar valuation for the target.

Appraisers get into the buy-sell process during escrow, after the buyer and seller have agreed on price and terms. If the buyer wants a mortgage from an institutional lender, he should have a financing contingency in his contract that allows him to back out of the deal if acceptable financing cannot be arranged. Read more