Signing the sales agreement for the property was exciting. It was the first time I thought, "This is really happening, we're really building a beach house." As the excitement subsided, reality settled in and it occurred to us that we only have 45 days to research the property, confirm what we wanted to build was possible and contact the city for any necessary missing documentation before handing over our hard earned cash. Time to roll up our sleeves and get to work.

The property has been on the market since November 2014 and there was a pending sale in October 2016 that fell through. Properties that sit on the market for several weeks, months, let alone years typically have red flags. This doesn't mean they're a bad purchase, but it does indicate that the property has issues which have deterred other buyers and require further investigation.


From a simple visual inspection, there's not much to the property. The site is relatively flat, with a gentle slope to the southwest corner and it's evident that all utilities (city sewer, water, gas and electricity) is available at the street. The 3 key questions we had, and they're no small questions, are:

1. Is there flooding in the area?
2. Can we build a different house on the lot? 
3. Can we build the house we want? 

Is there Flooding in the Area?

Given that we're a short walk to the ocean and a few blocks away from a lake, flooding was definitely a concern.  I quickly did some research online and confirmed that the property was located within FEMA Advisory Flood Plain X, an area determined to be outside the 0.2% annual chance flood plain. So good news there.

Even so, with climate change and increasing risk of extreme weather events, we wanted to better understand what we may be facing as homeowners. Doing some additional searching, I found the article, Fed Flood Maps Left NY Unprepared for Sandy and FEMA Knew It, published by WNYC News. This was concerning but fortunately the FEMA Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM) we referenced was updated in 2015, a few years after Superstorm Sandy.  WNYC also published an interactive map with Sandy actual flooding and predicted surge zones by hurricane size.

Sandy Actual Flooding [source: WNYC]

Sandy Predicted Surge Zones [source: WNYC]

Based on the maps, our property wouldn't have been impacted by Sandy but it would be impacted by a category 4 hurricane so there's some risk here we need to consider.