After Hurricane Katrina ripped through New Orleans and the flood waters subsided, hundreds of homes were beyond repair and restoration. Many homeowners left, abandoning the places they had lived in for years. That left behind a lot of property for the real estate agencies and parishes who had to decide how to turn the properties for good. Now, many of these properties have been sold, rebuilt, and restored. Some of the properties have been used to turn a profit to uplift the community, while others have been used to provide temporary housing for displaced families. Here is how you can do the same with more properties left after a disaster.

Homes for Sale: Inhabitable, but with Potential

The homes that become available and are for sale after a natural disaster are definite fixer-uppers. If you have the money, the time, and/or the skills, you can buy up these properties cheaply. The properties will then have to be prepared as though you are flipping them. What you do choose to do with them then is up to you. The potential in these homes is great, but how you choose to use them after you have restored them is a big deal

Selling the Restored Properties

It may seem a little callous to buy up homes that were destroyed in a disaster, restore them, and sell them for profit, but if the homeowners had absolutely no interest in reclaiming their property, and the homes were sold by a legitimate real estate agency, then the profits are yours. However, if you want to give back to a community that suffered so much loss, you could sell the properties at face value, or the total amount of the expense to you to restore them. You could also donate half of all of the properties you buy and restore to the community for the use of temporary housing for displaced families. Then you could claim the profits from the other half.

Scooping up Properties--Waiting and Checking

Usually it takes a few weeks to a couple of months to assess the total damage done to properties and communities after a natural disaster. Once that is over, the real estate agencies are flooded with properties that need to be sold. That is the right time to begin scooping up these properties and restoring them. Just be sure to buy the houses for sale you know you can afford to restore and which will benefit you or whomever becomes the owner or recipient of the properties down the road.