La Union family takes county buyout following second appraisal of flooded home

Leah Romero, Las Cruces Sun-News
·2 min read

LA UNION – A family whose La Union home was devastated by flooding in August has accepted the county’s buyout following a second appraisal.

Monsoon rains in mid August 2021 caused roads to become rivers and homes to flood in the southern Doña Ana County colonia just north of El Paso. While properties throughout La Union were impacted, five properties in particular were hit hard: four along the hilly Mendez Street and one on Mercantil Avenue.

Doña Ana County offered to buy those five properties following appraisals of each. The county planned to construct a flood control system where the Mendez Street homes were located.

Guillermo and Patricia Aguirre's home on Mendez Street in La Union is still a mess Feb. 2, 2022, months after it was devastated by flooding in August 2021.
Guillermo and Patricia Aguirre's home on Mendez Street in La Union is still a mess Feb. 2, 2022, months after it was devastated by flooding in August 2021.

However, the Aguirre family found the county’s first offer to be far less than what their property was worth. The family home of 30 years is in the middle of Mendez Street, between two other properties whose owners were offered $95,000. The Aguirres were offered $55,000.

The Sun-News spoke to the family in February as they were trying to find a company to complete a second appraisal of the property.

Patty Talamantes, daughter of homeowners Guillermo and Patricia Aguirre, told the Sun-News recently that since February, her father has made improvements to the home including fixing walls that were sagging and threatening to fall.

She said all the companies the family approached for a second appraisal turned them down. The county eventually agreed to pay for a second appraisal, Talamantes said, which took place in April. The second appraisal came back at $107,500, nearly double what the property had been appraised the first time.

“We had to get together and clean the whole house, take everything out,” Talamantes said. “That helped a lot and that's what they told us, that the cleaning and the little touches that we did.”

She added that her father said that if he didn’t like the results of the second appraisal, he was going to move back into the home. He built the house for his family about 30 years ago, after he and his wife moved to the area from Mexico.

Names and handprints pressed in cement are some of what remains at Guillermo and Patricia Aguirre's Mendez Street home in La Union. The home was devastated by flooding in August 2021. Pictured Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2022.
Names and handprints pressed in cement are some of what remains at Guillermo and Patricia Aguirre's Mendez Street home in La Union. The home was devastated by flooding in August 2021. Pictured Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2022.

Talamantes said her parents found the second offer fair and agreed to the buyout. If they had not, the situation would have been taken to court. The family had until June 1 to remove any final belongings from the residence before it’s demolished like the rest of the homes.

The Aguirres have been staying with their daughter and her family since the flood. Now, they are working on moving to a place in Santa Teresa just before the start of this year’s monsoon season.

“They still wanted their house, but the county was saying that if they kept it it was going to be harder, stuff like that. But I mean 30 years there, it’s history for them,” Talamantes said. “(My parents) said well they don’t have another option. They’re going to start somewhere else.”

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Leah Romero is the trending reporter at the Las Cruces Sun-News and can be reached at 575-418-3442, LRomero@lcsun-news.com or @rromero_leah on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: La Union family takes county buyout following second appraisal of flooded home