Hurricane Ike Damages Multi #1

Regular readers may have guessed this, but for those readers that don't also read Kenric's blog Live Learn Invest, I should point out that both he and I have invested in the same apartment complex in Houston. On his blog, it's Houston Apartment #2 and here I called Multi #1. I was out of town for the weekend, so he beat me to the punch on posting pictures of the damage Hurricane Ike did to this property, so I'll just link to them instead of reposting them here.

We have gotten some additional info about the damage:

• Approxiamtely 12 trees were knocked down and in the process, the trees roots may have damaged some pipes.
  
• The gas is turned off on one of three boilers, so units connected to those boilers do not currently have hot water.
• Brick siding fell off two of the buildings and damaged car ports and air conditioner units. It looks like only one A/C unit was damaged badly enough to have to be replaced.
• There appears to be some possible electrical wire damage as well, but no word yet on the extent of that.
• There was some roof damage which led to leaks, which caused drywall and carpets to get wet and require repair or replacement.
  
• Some patios were damaged by falling trees.

The good news is the utilities are on for all buildings with the exception of the one gas boiler. The property management is distributing information about obtaining aid from FEMA to the residents and is also working hard to get the property back into shape.

We were supposed to receive our first profit distribution this month. I'm sure that will be affected to some extent by this, both in the amount and the timing. We do have insurance on the property, so hopefully that will cover most of the costs. Obviously, the management's priority is on helping the residents, so the investor reports will be put on the back burner.