Climate change to obliterate $1.5 trillion in U.S. home values, study finds

Climate change will wipe out about $1.47 trillion in U.S. home values over the next three decades and hasten economic gaps in U.S. communities, a report released on Monday finds.

Already high insurance rates are escalating, rendering large portions of the nation’s largest cities unaffordable, according to a study by First Street Foundation which analyzes the effects of climate change on real estate. As property values across the country decline by almost $1.5 trillion in total, other properties will increase in value to the tune of $244 billion.

By 2055, climate-driven weather is expected to hike homeowners’ insurance premiums nationwide by an average of 29.4%, the organization found. At the same time, climate-related migration from extreme heat, wildfires and flooding will have 55 million Americans relocating within the U.S. over that 30-year period, beginning with more than 5 million this year. 

“Climate change is no longer a theoretical concern; it is a measurable force reshaping real estate markets and regional economies across the United States,” according to Jeremy Porter, First Street’s head of climate implications research. “Our findings highlight the urgent need to understand how rising insurance costs and population movements are transforming the economic geography of the nation.”  

The three biggest Sun Belt states — California, Florida and Texas — have taken on more than 40% of the country’s $2.8 billion in natural disaster costs since 1980. And in another 30 years, the First Street data estimates a more than fourfold increase in premiums in Miami, a tripling in Florida’s Jacksonville and Tampa, and in New Orleans, and a doubling in Sacramento, California. 

The data projects that some counties in California, Florida and Texas will experience net declines of 10% to 40% in their property values by 2055. 

The last month saw dozens of people killed, tens of thousands evacuated and thousands of structures damaged or destroyed in the Los Angeles area due to wildfires.