A CoreLogic report found that 14.5 million properties were subject to natural disasters that caused $56.9 billion in property damage last year. These events can have significant long-term impacts on communities.
As if rising home prices and mortgage rates aren’t creating enough worries for homebuyers, a new report estimates that one in 10 U.S. homes — roughly 14.5 million properties — were subjected to hurricane, wildfire, winter storm or severe weather events last year that caused $56.9 billion in property damage.
That’s according to property information and analytics provider CoreLogic’s 2021 “Climate Change Catastrophe Report,” which provides insights for homeowners, mortgage lenders and insurers on assessing and mitigating risks.
“While risk comes in various degrees, any sort of property damage can have a compounding effect on the homeowner and economic stability,” CoreLogic said in a statement released with the report.
With extreme weather events on the rise, homeowners, mortgage lenders and insurers need to be aware of the potential for natural disasters and their consequences, the report said. These include not only property loss and damage, but also long-term community impacts.
In hard-hit areas, homeowners are already contending with rising insurance rates and repair and reconstruction costs. In California, for example, premiums collected by insurers to provide fire and homeowners insurance increased by 27 percent from 2017 to 2020, to $11.1 billion.
A report funded by the Mortgage Bankers Association last year warned of the potential for increasingly devastating storms, excessive heat and wildfires, and drought that would stretch the National Flood Insurance Program to the breaking point, undermine home prices in vulnerable communities and drive more homeowners to default on their mortgages.
Climate change “poses a serious threat to the U.S. housing finance system,” Federal Housing Finance Agency chief Sandra Thompson said…