One could call it the "Tale of Two Cities".  After Hurricane Ike flooded almost every home in Bridge City, home sellers had a tough choice to make.  Repair the damage and hope for a buyer not frightened away by the flood damaged town who would be willing to pay the fair market price or sell "as is" and cut their losses.

Since last October, Bridge City has seen 104 homes change owners.*Data from the Orange MLS. Home sellers that opted for the sell "as is" route quickly dropped their prices to less than 50 cents on the dollar of pre-hurricane value.  Investors saw opportunity. 

The highest priced home to sell since Hurricane Ike was a beauty on Grand Court.  It had no flood damage, according to remarks in the MLS.  It sold for $440,000.  Just $9,919 less than the asking price and close to $100 per square foot.  See top photo.

The lowest priced home to sell since Hurricane Ike was an "ugly duckling" on Osborne.  This one was flooded and needed to be gutted down to the studs. But when have you ever seen a 1576 square foot home sell for $12 per square foot?  See bottom photo.  

I've started to gather some data on Bridge City home sales -specifically, "as is" sales vs "renovated after flood" sales. 

Over half of the homes that have sold post Hurricane Ike sold for less than $100,000.  Most of them at a fraction of their pre-Ike appraised values.  But give Bridge City home buyers some credit.  There have been 24 sales over $150,000.  Not too bad consideration the havoc caused by "Ike". 

Stay tuned…

After entering the data into Excel and doing some serious number crunching, I'll see if I can give you some good insight into how home sales are recovering after the devastating tidal surge and flooding that affected the whole town.