State Floodplain Managers. In 1998, he was a planning director in Perry County, Ohio, building a buyout program after a flood damaged 70 percent of the homes in a 1,000-person village there.

"My main competitor was someone I would call the local slumlord," Berginnis said. And that investor, he said, was quite successful.

The Chronicle asked the Harris County Flood Control District to match homes it was hoping to buy out to those sold since Harvey; the county estimated 88 buyout targets, and perhaps many more, have already sold to private parties.

LISTEN: How a Houston investor buys and sells flooded homes

Investors already are insuring their new purchases through the National Flood Insurance Program, a part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency; several have said that such investments wouldn't be possibleinside. At others, piles of drywall and detritus, torn from homes too late for county pickup, still sit curbside. Work crews are just arriving at many.

Ed Trejos, 67, a retired engineer in the oil and gas sector, bought a Bear Creek house in December for $68,000 and remodeled it. He had planned to rent it, but his wife and daughter fell in love with the tiled bathrooms, wood floors and granite countertops. The house is in the flood plain, and Trejos knows it has flooded at least twice. But he hasn't bought flood insurance.

"I'm betting it's not going to happen again," he said.

Krystal Nixon, 33, a nurse aide, recently moved into a rental with her five kids, ages 15 months to 18 years. Her landlord told her he