Houston rental apartment landlord ask for rent after Harvey

Some families in the Houston area being asked to pay rent, with late fees, after Hurricane Harvey caused catastrophic flooding to hit southeast Texas and drove them from their homes, The Guardian reported.

“Our landlords say we have to pay rent and late fees and every day it is going up,” Rocio Fuentes, of Pasadena, Texas, told the newspaper. “We are paying rent for somewhere we can’t live in. They said, ‘You aren’t the only ones in this situation,’ but what are we supposed to do? We don’t have any money. We don’t have anything.”

A spokeswoman for Houston city government said officials were aware of such situations, but that state law would have to resolve them.

Under Texas statutes, either a tenant or a landlord can break a lease for residences deemed “totally unusable.” If a property is partially useable, a court would have to determine if rental costs could be reduced.

Meanwhile, hundreds of residents who were forced to evacuate a flooded apartment complex in Katy, Texas, have been given eviction notices, The Houston Chronicle reported.

The residents have been given less than a week to retrieve whatever property they can, a letter from the property manager said. The letter also said rental charges for the last few days of August will be refunded, according to the Chronicle.

Disputes between landlord and tenants are among the first conflicts to emerge in the wake of a hurricane, lawyer Saundra Brown, a disaster manager at Lone Star Legal Aid, told the newspaper.

“Right now there are going to be many landlord-tenant issues: people who don’t think they should give back the security deposit for flooded properties,” she said. “There will be people who will try to kick out their tenants because their brother-in-law needs some place to stay. There’s going to be a severe shortage of rental space in the community.”

RICK WILKING / REUTERS

Nancy McBride collects items from her flooded kitchen as she returned to her home on Sept. 1, 2017, for the first time since floods caused by Hurricane Harvey inundated Houston.

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The Federal Emergency Management Agency expects nearly one million applications for aid stemming from Hurricane Harvey, according to The Dallas Morning News.

FEMA has used vacant hotel rooms to help house 53,630 Texas residents with no place to go, CBS News reported Monday.

Bob Howard, a FEMA spokesman, said the agency is weighing the use of mobile homes as temporary residences for others. Also, displaced residents able to find an apartment on their own can receive two months of paid rent through FEMA and might qualify.

“FEMA is going to be [in Texas] for years,” FEMA administrator Brock Long told  CNN. “This disaster is going to be a landmark event.”

The bulk of a $7.85 billion initial Harvey relief package that President Donald Trump has requested from Congress is earmarked for FEMA.

 

Houston apartment rental market after Harvey

Developers are just starting to survey the extent of Harvey’s damage in Houston, now that roads are reopening and they can inspect their properties. At least 75,000 homes have been damaged, said Jeff Lindner, a meteorologist with the Harris County Flood District — “and I’m pretty confident saying it’s higher than that.”

Loss estimates of total damages across Texas and Louisiana run the gamut, with Accuweather projecting more than $190 billion in total losses, the most expensive natural disaster ever. Moody’s Analytics released more conservative estimates, up to $108 billion with homeowners and businesses suffering a combined $60 billion to $75 billion in property damage.

“This is the costliest and worst natural disaster in American history,” Dr. Joel N. Myers, founder and chairman of AccuWeather, said in a statement.

It could take months or years for Houston’s vibrant housing market to recover from the storm, analysts and developers said. Deals that were scheduled to close will be delayed, and buyers who were shopping for homes may reconsider Houston. Crews scheduled to build new homes will likely be lured away for the reconstruction, delaying new homes by months and increasing the costs of labor and materials. The housing market will tighten as the supply of homes shrinks, pushing rents higher in areas that weren’t flooded.

Hurricane Harvey Flooded Houston

U.S.

Birds-eye view of flooded Houston captures Harvey's totality

 Paul j. Weber, Associated Press,Associated Press 32 minutes ago

Flying over the Houston area most days is a postcard of America: crisscrossing highways, skyscrapers, hulking shopping plazas, oil refineries, big houses, cattle pastures. Then there's the view after Harvey.

"I had an idea, but once you can get up there and actually physically see it, the water is never-ending," said David Phillip, an Associated Press photographer who has called Houston home for two decades.

Phillip got a bird's-eye view this week after Harvey dumped more than 50 inches (127 centimeters) of rain in and around the nation's fourth-largest city. His photographs show rows of suburban streets turned into canals and brownish floodwaters creeping up to rooftops. In one photo, a mansion's long cul-de-sac driveway resembles a drawbridge over a moat.

Phillip was taken aback by water submerging the Interstate 69 bridge over the San Jacinto River.

"It makes you pause and think about it. This is my home. It has been for 20 years. It's tough to see your friends and neighbors and people in the community go through that," he said.

Phillip hasn't stopped often since Harvey made landfall Friday night. He started in Galveston and by Sunday was driving the wrong way down Houston's flooded Interstate 610, normally one of the busiest sections of highways in the U.S. Later he was on board a rescue boat when it struck something, flipping him backward and out of the boat.

The propeller got his leg before Phillip was pulled from the water, leaving a bruise. He lost his glasses and ruined a camera lens.

Phillip, who is 51, is no stranger to photographing major storms, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005. As the water from Harvey recedes he sees familiar devastation. "Everything, generally, 4 feet down is taken out of every house." Streets in Houston are now becoming lined with couches, hardwood flooring, baseboards and pianos.

He called covering Harvey more personal than previous storm assignments. Phillip said Wednesday was his first day he could travel the roads freely again, and in the neighborhood of Meyerland, he found homeowners tearing out drywall and trying to salvage belongings.

"People have had to break windows of neighbors' homes to get to their second floor while swimming through floodwaters. Crawled through windows. Swam to be picked up," Phillip said. "Everybody has a survival story."

 

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Houston Hurricane Harvey flooding:

Houston crippled by catastrophic flooding with more rain on the way

By Ruthy Munoz and Marianna Parraga

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Houston is facing worsening historic flooding in the coming days as Tropical Storm Harvey dumps more rain on the city, swelling rivers to record levels and forcing federal engineers on Monday to release water from area reservoirs in hopes of controlling the rushing currents.

Harvey was the most powerful hurricane to strike Texas in more than 50 years when it came ashore on Friday near Corpus Christi, about 220 miles (354 km) south of Houston, and has killed at least two people. It has since lingered around Texas' Gulf Coast, where it is forecast to remain for several more days, drenching parts of the region with a year's worth of rain in the span of a week.

Rains have submerged cars and turned freeways into rivers, with more flooding expected when the storm shifts back in the direction of Houston. Harvey's center was 90 miles (148 km) southwest of Houston on Monday morning and forecast to arc slowly toward the city through Wednesday, with the worst floods expected later that day and on Thursday.

Schools, airports and office buildings in the nation's fourth largest city were shut on Monday as chest-high water filled some neighborhoods in the low-lying city that is home to about 2.3 million people.

The metropolitan area, home to 6.8 million people, also is the nation's refining and petrochemical hub, which has been crippled by the storm. Numerous refiners shut operations, likely for weeks.

Torrential rain also hit areas more than 150 miles (240 km) away, swelling rivers upstream and causing a surge that was heading toward the Houston area, where numerous rivers and streams already have been breached. Some areas have already seen as much as 30 inches (76 cm) of rain, according to the National Weather Service.

By the end of the week in some Texas coastal areas the total precipitation could reach 50 inches (127 cm), which is the average rainfall for an entire year, forecasters said.

Harvey is expected to produce an additional 15 to 25 inches (38 to 63 cm) of rain through Friday in the upper Texas coast and into southwestern Louisiana, the National Hurricane Center said.

How to prepare for a hurricane Harvey in Houston;

How to prepare for a hurricane Houston is one of the most populated metropolitan areas in the country and one of the fastest growing, according to the US Census Bureau.

The National Weather Service office in Houston warned flooding and winds could render parts of South Texas "uninhabitable for weeks or months."

And CoreLogic, an analytics firm, said Harvey, which developed into a Category 4 storm on Friday, could bring $20 billion worth of damage to metropolitan Houston alone.

 

Outer bands of Hurricane Harvey swipe Texas as more residents flee

Harris County, home to Houston, has issued voluntary evacuation orders for several communities near Trinity Bay. But Houston itself has not been put under an evacuation order.

"Right now, it appears that the Houston area will be spared the brunt of the hurricane force and the surge that goes along with it," said Gov. Greg Abbott at a press conference. "So that will minimize some of the danger."

Still, the governor encouraged people to consider evacuating.

Hurricane Harvey in Houston

(CNN)As Hurricane Harvey barrels toward the Texas coast, the Houston metropolitan area, prone to flooding and home to more than 5 million people, is bracing for the potentially devastating storm.

Houston's school system has already canceled classes on Monday, the first day of classes. The city's parks and main zoo are closed.

The Houston Dynamo, the city's Major League Soccer team, canceled this weekend's games and Coldplay nixed its Friday night concert, all in preparation for Harvey, which was expected to make landfall by early Saturday.

    Houston's main concern is the risk of flooding. In May, the city was hit by heavy flooding when 240 billion gallons of rain fell on the city. That claimed eight lives, flooded more than 1,000 homes and caused more than $5 billion in damage, according to officials.

    Now the city is staring down Harvey, which Brock Long, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, called "the first major hurricane the nation has dealt with since 2005."

    Single Family house in Houston for sale-rent:

    Single-family home sales totaled 8,414 last month, the largest one-month sales volume in Houston’s history and up 8.3 percent from June 2016. Home sales for the first half of 2017 are up 7.4 percent from the first half of 2016. Total property sales also increased 8.3 percent to 9,993 in June.

    The luxury segment — homes priced at $750,000 and above — saw the largest increase in sales, jumping 13 percent year over year in June. That marks the eighth straight month of increases in that segment. Sales in the segment between $150,000 and $499,999 saw increases around 12 percent, and sales in the $500,000-to-$749,999 range increased 6.9 percent.

    Both the average and median price for single-family homes hit all-time highs last month. The median increased 2.6 percent year over year to $239,023, and the average inched up 1.5 percent to $304,155. The total dollar volume of all property sales, however, jumped 10.4 percent to nearly $2.89 billion.

    Forward-looking metrics also remain strong. Single-family pending sales soared 18.9 percent year over year, and total active listings jumped 16.4 percent. Single-family inventory increased to a 4.4-month supply in June, the highest level since October 2012. It’s also up from a 4.1-month supply in May and a 3.9-month supply in June 2016. Months of inventory estimates the number of months it would take to sell all the home listings on the market today based on the pace of sales over the past 12 months. For comparison, nationwide inventory stands at a 4.2-month supply.

    Meanwhile, demand in Houston’s rental market also continued to surge. Single-family home leases jumped 17.4 percent, and townhome/condominium leases skyrocketed 21.3 percent. The average rent was down 4 percent to $1,806 for single-family homes and up 2.5 percent to $1,698 for townhomes and condominiums.

    “June proved to be another phenomenal month for the Houston real estate market with buyers and renters sending volume and pricing into record territory,” HAR Chair Cindy Hamann said in a release. “Between continued strong employment numbers and healthy housing inventory levels, we expect the market to remain vibrant.”

    Houston Real Estate:

    Houston Real Estate Highlights in July

    • Single-family home sales rose for the tenth straight month, up 5.0 percent year-over-year with 7,440 units sold;
    • On a year-to-date basis, single-family home sales remain 6.8 percent ahead of the 2016 volume;
    • Total property sales increased 4.5 percent with 8,821 units sold;
    • Total dollar volume climbed 7.5 percent to $2.5 billion;
    • The single-family home median price remained statistically unchanged at $230,000;
    • The single-family home average price increased 2.4 percent to $299,131;
    • Single-family homes months of inventory grew to a 4.5-months supply, the highest level since September 2012;
    • Townhome/condominium sales fell 9.0 percent, with the average price up 1.8 percent to $201,148 and the median price down 6.2 percent to $150,000;
    • Leases of single-family homes jumped 15.6 percent with average rent down 3.2 percent to $1,815;
    • Volume of townhome/condominium leases rose12.3 percent with average rent down 5.1 percent to $1,546.