4% of Travis County Houses Sit in a FEMA Flood Hazard Area

Of the 289,594 one-family houses on the Travis County appraisal roll that we could place on a map, 11,525 sit inside an area FEMA has mapped as a flood hazard. That is 4.0 percent. About half of them, 5,896, are in the high-risk zones that trigger the flood insurance rule for many mortgages. The other 5,629 are in the 0.2 percent annual chance band, the one that is easy to overlook. If you are buying in Travis County, one question on the Texas seller's notice and one map lookup get you to the same place a lot faster than a listing description will.

What we counted

We took the Travis Central Appraisal District's 2026 roll and kept one record per property that the district classes as a one-family house (state class A1) with living area on record. Then we placed each parcel's center point against FEMA's flood hazard layer for Travis County, which in our copy carries a single effective date of January 22, 2020.

Shares and totals are our arithmetic. Three limits: a parcel is counted by its center point, so a house on a parcel the zone only clips is not in the table; the count covers all of Travis County, not just the City of Austin; and a map is a snapshot, so a lot can be mapped differently after a revision. FEMA's own 2020 date is the one in our file. Our research database has no sync entry for the flood layer, so we cite its load date.

It also does not say how any house has behaved in a storm. The 96 percent figure means a house is outside the mapped areas, not that it cannot flood. For two places where we went deeper, see our pieces on flood policies in 78744 after the Halloween flood and the Hyde Park flood project.

What the Texas seller's notice asks

Section 5.008 of the Texas Property Code sets out the seller's disclosure notice that sellers of residential property with up to four units give a buyer. Its flood section lists these items, in the statute's own words (Tex. Prop. Code 5.008):

• "Present flood insurance coverage"
• "Previous flooding due to a failure or breach of a reservoir"
• "Previous water penetration into a structure on the property due to a natural flood event"
• Whether the property is located wholly or partly in a 100-year floodplain, a 500-year floodplain, a floodway, a flood pool or a reservoir

The same section defines the terms on the form. A floodway is an area identified on the flood insurance rate map as a regulatory floodway, and the "flood insurance rate map" is the most recent flood hazard map published by FEMA. The most recent amendment to the section, House Bill 697, took effect September 1, 2023, according to the statute's history notes. The notice also carries a paragraph on flood insurance for homes in high-risk zones.

Two things follow. The seller's answers are the seller's, and they cover what the seller knows. And the question about water entering a structure is the one that no map can answer: a house can sit outside every zone in the table above and still have taken water. Read that line first.

Renters get a version of this too. In 2022 TREC adopted a Landlord's Floodplain and Flood Notice that asks whether the dwelling is in a 100-year floodplain or has flooded within the last five years (TREC, August 10, 2022).

Check the address yourself

Two official lookups take a few minutes, and they do not always say the same thing.

• FEMA. The FEMA Flood Map Service Center is the official public source for the flood maps behind the National Flood Insurance Program. Enter the address in its search.
• The City of Austin. Inside the city, use ATXFloodPro.com: click "I want to," choose "Find Floodplain Information," and enter the address. The city's floodplain office lists a phone line, 512-974-2843.

Why two? The City says the National Weather Service finished its Atlas 14 rainfall study in 2018 and that Austin, Travis County and other Central Texas communities are updating floodplain maps from it. The page gives no completion date, and says that until the updates are done, the regulatory floodplain is based on the current FEMA 500-year floodplain. In plain terms, inside Austin the shaded band in our table can matter for city rules even though it is not a FEMA high-risk zone. Ask which map applies to the address you are considering.

What this means if you're buying or selling here

If you are buying: before you write an offer, do three things. Run the address through both lookups above. Read the flood section of the seller's notice for the house, especially the water penetration line. Then ask an insurance agent for a flood quote on that specific address, because the notice's own flood paragraph says homes in high-risk flood zones with mortgages from federally regulated or insured lenders are required to carry flood insurance, and the cost differs by address. Your option period is the time to do it. Our piece on expired permits is another check that belongs in the same window.

If you are selling: fill in the flood section with care and from your own records, including any flood insurance claim history you know about. Pull your own lookups before you list, so the answer on the form matches what the buyer will find on the map in an hour.

If you are renting: the landlord's notice above is yours to ask for.

This is general education, not insurance, legal or lending advice. For your address, talk to a licensed insurance agent and your lender, and to a real estate attorney for questions about disclosure obligations.

If you want a local agent to walk through the flood section of a seller's notice with you before you make an offer, start here, or look up what we have on record for an address in our home research tool.