New Era of Real Estate Investors are Considering Climate Change Before Buying a Home
For aspiring homeowners, climate has transitioned from a selling point to a critical risk factor. Prospective home buyers must educate themselves on the tangible impacts of climate change to safeguard their property investments from potential catastrophic events.
In sizing up a property, environmental considerations used to be a matter of taste – does the buyer prefer the warm, sunny summers on the coast or the snug, cool, white winters of the northern interior? Now, aspiring homeowners must consider how climate change will affect their property over the long run and what costs they may incur as a result.
Per a recent Forbes survey, nearly a third of Americans cited climate change as a reason to move last year.
“As awareness of risk grows, the financial value of risky places drops,” says climate futurist Alex Steffen, saying rising costs of climate change will make some properties indefensible.
“[They] will be unofficially abandoned. That will then create more problems. Bonds for big projects, loans and mortgages, business investment, insurance, talented workers — all will grow more scarce… then, value will crash,” Steffen predicts.
In coining the term “brittleness bubble,” Steffen wants to raise awareness of brittle properties prone to sudden, irreparable climate-fueled failure and resulting unrecoverable losses for their owners.
The climate crisis poses dire choices, especially for those buying a home for the first time. Yet being forewarned is being forearmed. The sooner investors and home buyers alike bone up on the ground facts of climate risk, the better they can mitigate their property portfolio against the perils of extreme weather.
Few Good Options
As a planetary phenomenon, climate change impacts human settlements everywhere. Nowhere in America is truly immune from the fallout. When disaster strikes one part of the country, everyone suffers since they depend on the supply of goods and services nationwide.
However, some regions are being hit sooner and harder than others. This information can help those buying land as an investment navigate the ever-changing climate map.
Data from First Street and Moody’s Analytics shows that Texas, Florida, New Jersey, and California, four of the country’s largest and most populous states, are all likely to face more climate change risk sooner.
With its vast coastline and wetland ecosystem, Florida is most vulnerable to rising sea temperatures and exacerbated tropical storms. The state has been a favorite destination for “snowbirds” from the North, especially among Canadian homebuyers. Florida accounts for almost half of all Canadian property purchases in the United States.
According to the 30-year forecast by Moody’s, climate change events will continue to affect communities up and down the East Coast and, at some point, will impact the livability of states such as Florida and the Carolinas. In the southwest of the country, e.g., Arizona, record heat and fires increase weather dangers and threaten reliable water supplies. The nation’s interior is also feeling the climate stress with intense heat and unprecedented rainfalls recorded in recent years. As the weather becomes more extreme, smaller, less exposed cities such as Boise, Idaho, are poised for an influx of newcomers seeking shelter from climate catastrophe.
Floods and Fires
Of all the natural disasters impacting home valuations in the U.S., wildfires and flooding are among the most damaging.
As more study on climate change risk is undertaken, the potential effect on the American real estate market becomes apparent. For instance, the journal Nature Climate Change recently published a study that claims property prices in flood zones are overvalued by $121 to $237 billion.
“Increasing flood risk under climate change is creating a bubble that threatens the stability of the U.S. housing market,” said lead author Dr. Jesse Gourevitch, a postdoctoral fellow at the Environmental Defense Fund. “These risks are largely unaccounted for in property transactions, encouraging development in flood-prone areas. Accurately pricing the costs of flooding in home values can support adaptation to flood risk, but may leave many worse off.”
Unaccounted for environmental risks bode poorly for low-income households. The study found this demographic may lose up to 10% of their property’s market value to the risk of significant flooding.
“For many people, their most valuable asset is their home. We need policy approaches that improve the transparency of climate risk in markets while also providing increased support and protection for frontline communities,” said co-author Dr. Carolyn Kousky, Associate Vice President for Economics and Policy at the Environmental Defense Fund.
Insure Yourself
The rising risks will make home ownership, already out of reach for most Americans, even more unaffordable. The increasing costs of covering the damage from natural disasters are unsustainable for homeowners and even insurance companies.
Huge claims from natural disasters in states such as California and Florida are causing companies to rethink their risk and opt out of insuring susceptible regions. State-backed insurers cover some gaps in this landscape, but the premiums don’t often cover the bills that homeowners are forced to pay. This situation worsens as climate change continues to upend the weather patterns and wreak havoc through extreme weather events.
Slowing the impact of climate change is a global effort requiring deeper coordination between governments, corporations, citizens, and the world. Unfortunately, the average American can do little to change the broader trends. However, by being informed of the dangers posed by climate catastrophe, homeowners can prepare for the worst and safeguard their families’ future. Real estate remains Americans’ primary investment vehicle, so contingency planning is urgent. Without it, a local extreme weather disaster could bring untold financial ruin.
Josh Dudick
Josh is a financial expert with over 15 years of experience on Wall Street as a senior market strategist and trader. His career has spanned from working on the New York Stock Exchange floor to investment management and portfolio trading at Citibank, Chicago Trading Company, and Flow Traders.
Josh graduated from Cornell University with a degree from the Dyson School of Applied Economics & Management at the SC Johnson College of Business. He has held multiple professional licenses during his career, including FINRA Series 3, 7, 24, 55, Nasdaq OMX, Xetra & Eurex (German), and SIX (Swiss) trading licenses. Josh served as a senior trader and strategist, business partner, and head of futures in his former roles on Wall Street.
Josh's work and authoritative advice have appeared in major publications like Nasdaq, Forbes, The Sun, Yahoo! Finance, CBS News, Fortune, The Street, MSN Money, and Go Banking Rates. Josh currently holds areas of expertise in investing, wealth management, capital markets, taxes, real estate, cryptocurrencies, and personal finance.
Josh currently runs a wealth management business and investment firm. Additionally, he is the founder and CEO of Top Dollar, where he teaches others how to build 6-figure passive income with smart money strategies that he uses professionally.