Houston will not be rebuilt in a day.
Jonathan Spader, a Senior Research Associate at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, writes that the rebuilding process after Hurricane Harvey will be long and extensive, especially for rental properties.
He cited Hurricane Katrina as an example. Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, and even in 2010, 17 percent of hurricane-damaged properties in Louisiana and Mississippi showed substantial repair needs. Half of those properties were considered uninhabitable. Only 70 percent of hurricane-damaged properties had been rebuilt within five years of the storm.
Rental properties will take even longer to rebuild. Compared to homeowners, landlords are less motivated to make repairs after a storm, especially if landlords have their own homes to deal with.
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