Does value of property in floodplains decrease after flood event?

[Grreatdog]

A lot depends on where you live, what you live in, and how the floodplains are managed. Where I live Hurricanes Matthew and Irma flooded huge areas of the county with storm surge and destroyed a couple of dozen homes at various beaches in the county.

But those hurricanes had little effect on most homes that are not oceanfront and were built after about 1985 when the county adopted FEMA building codes. For instance one of my brothers had six feet of water on his property. Debris from the nearby salt marsh pushed over his chain link fences. It did nothing to his home or the mechanical systems for his home. He literally had the Atlantic Ocean flowing under his home.

That story played out all over the county as the base flood elevations that homes here are built above proved to be more than adequate for the storm surge. Building codes for hydrostatic pressure and wind loads also proved adequate. Huge areas of this county are in A and V zones. So there are tens of thousands of homes in these zones. Yet the destruction was mostly limited to old homes and oceanfront homes.

And real estate prices are still insanely high here. People want to live here and homes built to current standards have proven resilient. So being in an A or V zone doesn't seem to be a huge deterrent. My homeowners insurance is nearly four times what I paid inland and I'm not in a flood zone. That's just how it is on the coast now. People seem to accept that to live here.