re: Has anyone here heard back from FEMA since registering?

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Out of curiousity how much equity do you have in your home?

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That's an interesting question. Not much, honestly. At least certainly not now.

We were able to get a Rural Development loan when we first bought. I was a teacher and my soon-to-be wife was getting her masters (which she was getting paid for as a TA). An RD requirement is "low" income. We moved in the same week we got married. An RD loan also means no money down. But after 5 years, growing developments, and Juban crossing, homes in our neighborhood at our size were going for 160k. That would have given me 30k in equity. We still owe 130k on the house.

We bought well under our means, even on such a small income because we had so much saved. And that's even more true now since we've both changed jobs and gross 120k together. With bonuses, that can be as high as 140k. We were about 2 years away from moving into what would have hopefully been our "final" home, probably something in the 250-300k range. Having a second child isn't in the cards for us, so we don't need much to be happy and comfortable. Of course, this changes all of that. We are likely going to have to stay an extra 5-7 years for things to make financial sense again. It's tough to lose so much that you've worked for and start over, but that's what we are looking at.