Uncovering Hidden Flood Risks in Florida Homes

MIAMI — For decades, Florida home buyers have relied on the honor system — or lawsuits — to ensure the house they bought didn’t have a secret history of floods.

That could change this year, if Gov. Ron DeSantis signs into law a new policy requiring sellers, as well as landlords, to inform new residents of the property’s past experience of floods. But experts say a disclosure is not enough, and they have recommendations for anyone hoping to avoid purchasing a soggy home.

Start with FEMA flood maps

Many home buyers in Florida probably don’t think much about flood threats unless they’re shopping on coastline exposed to hurricane storm surge or, most often, if a mortgage lender tells them they’re in a flood zone and need mandatory federal insurance.

Those policies, and how much you pay for them, are based on FEMA’s well-known flood maps. Periodically updated — revised ones for Miami-Dade are due this summer — the maps divide counties into zones of widely varying risk based on property elevations, drainage systems, rainfall, hurricane strikes and other data.

They’ve been the go-to for decades, but academic studies — and the lived experiences of Floridians after a flood — have shown they are not as accurate as residents would want. They also only look backward, taking into account past flooding, and not future flooding from sea level rise.

“Even in areas that are not flood-prone, insurance is a good idea. More than 30% of flood claims come from people who live outside of high-risk flood zones,” FEMA’s website states.

Still, experts say, the maps are a good first step.

They also recommend purchasing flood insurance, whether the home is inside a flood zone or not. The past history of floods reported to the insurance company, usually FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program, is also available. But only to customers who both already own the property and pay for a flood insurance policy.

Prospective buyers can also always ask sellers to provide them with the property’s flood history, which FEMA makes readily available to current policyholders.

Check third-party sites

New non-profit products like First Street’s Flood Factor have popped up to offer homeowners what it bills as a more nuanced look at a property’s flood risk, and it’s since been integrated into popular real estate listing websites like RedFin.

Now, would-be home buyers can see a property’s estimated risk of floods, fire and hurricanes right next to information about local schools or neighborhood walkability.

“We believe everyone should know their climate risk and have climate risk and climate information before making a decision,” said Jeremy Porter, First Street’s head of climate implications.

But, those ratings — on a scale of 1 to 10 — are still missing crucial elements that help explain Florida’s flood issues. They don’t take into account groundwater, which is so close to the surface in South Florida that it rises and falls with the tides and makes it all the easier to flood when rain piles up. And they don’t factor in poor drainage systems, of which South Florida has many.

There are also for-profit services, like Jupiter Intelligence, which primarily targets companies instead of individual home buyers, and Fort Lauderdale-based Coastal Risk Consulting, which serves both.

Talk to neighbors

Several of the flood horror stories cited in a Miami Herald investigation about secret flood histories might have been averted by chatting up neighbors.

Elizabeth Corales, who lives in the Melrose Manors neighborhood in Fort Lauderdale, gave her new neighbor the bad news on moving day in 2022. A few months later, the April “rain bomb” filled the home with several feet of water. “All the neighbors knew. They said, oh, that house has flooded before,” she said.

Several real estate agents told the Herald they encourage their clients to ask neighbors about flood issues, some even join in on door-knocking in a neighborhood they hoped to call home.

Look for city projects addressing drainage

Cities, counties and the state are spending billions to try and keep homes and streets dry in the face of a seemingly relentless onslaught of flooding — from rain, high tides and hurricanes — across the state.

A good way to know if a neighborhood has flooding issues is to see if local officials are working on fixing them. An internet search, or a dig into recent commission or council agendas, can reveal what projects municipalities are considering.

And those projects can make a big difference. In Miami Beach, elevated roads with new flood pumps have averted dozens of floods in the previously soggy neighborhoods of Sunset Harbour and Hibiscus and Palm Islands. A city-sponsored study also found that higher roads led to higher property values.

Read your disclosure form

Make sure to ask to see the flood disclosure form, ideally before you’re sitting down to sign closing papers.

Currently, Florida home sellers are required to inform buyers if they’ve ever made a federal flood insurance claim or received money from a flood insurance claim. It’s a separate document, issued “at or before the time the sales contract is executed.”

That could change in October, if Gov. DeSantis signs into law a new policy expanding the state’s new mandatory flood disclosure.

The potential new law includes an important question: if a seller knows of any flooding that has damaged the property while they owned it.

Sen. Jennifer Bradley, a Republican from Union County, and Sen. Christine Hunschofsky, a Parkland Democrat, worked with Florida Realtors® to fashion the first formal disclosure law in 2024.

Bradley said she was inspired by all the homes in her district that had flooded during the passage of recent hurricanes across the state even though they weren’t in flood zones.

“This information is not readily available when you go and visit the home. It’s important information for them to make a risk-informed decision about what will likely be their largest asset,” she said. “To me, that’s a no-brainer.”

The 2025 version of the bill also expands those protections to renters, to be shared “at or before” the rental agreement is signed.

Ask your home inspector

A home inspection, which typically occurs after an offer has been accepted, is another opportunity to try to learn more about a property’s past flood history.

Brendan Haggerty, secretary of the Home Inspector Association of South Florida, said home inspectors are like “detectives” trying to do their best to protect buyers, but they’re not infallible.

“Home inspection is a visual inspection of the property. If it’s all been covered, up there’s really no way for a home inspector to distinguish if there’s been a flood or not,” he said.

Inspectors can look for past permits for previous home improvement projects, but sometimes homeowners don’t pull a permit for flood repairs — much less report it to their insurance company. Haggerty urged would-be buyers to ask a lot of questions and contact insurance companies early in the process, instead of at the last minute.

© 2025 Miami Herald. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.