How climate change is impacting home buying

So far this year, the United States experienced 19 confirmed weather or climate disaster events with losses exceeding the $1 billion mark, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. With severe weather becoming more of a reality for Americans, Middleburg Communities chief economist and former Fed economist Brad Case breaks down how it is impacting homebuyer mindsets.

"There's no question that people are revealing that they would rather live in a place where housing costs are lower and the weather is more moderate, and that's the Sun Belt. For my company, that means the southeast and the Mid-Atlantic," Case explains.

He notes that his company is focused on building away from coasts as more buyers turn to opportunities in the southeast, southwest, and Mid-Atlantic. "The people who are going to continue to move, move to actually the coast itself, are going to be very wealthy people who don't need to worry about the disasters. The people who do need to worry about weather disasters? They're going to move to more inland locations within those markets," he adds.

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This post was written by Melanie Riehl

Transcripción del vídeo

One of my um you know, favorite and unfortunate stats that I need to track uh is in relating more to weather.

And I I bring this up and go with me here.

I bring this up because this also impacts where people are migrating to or purchasing new homes as well.

And in 2024 in progress, according to the National Oceanic um and Atmospheric administration, here, there have been 19 confirmed weather, climate disaster events with is exceeding the $1 billion mark to affect the United States.

Last year, we saw a record with regard to that.

Is there any kind of changing in mindset more broadly that you're tracking or seeing as a result of some of these billion dollar disasters that are taking place that are impacting home buyer mindsets as well?

Yeah, there's no question that people, people are revealing that they would rather live in a place where housing costs are lower and the weather is more moderate.

And that's, that's the, the, the Sun Belt um for my company that means the Southeast and the, and the Mid Atlantic.

Other companies focus on, on sort of the western part of the country.

Uh But as you say, weather is an issue, weather is really an issue on and coastal markets.

Um So, for example, you know, for my own company's activities, generally speaking, we're not building on the coast.

We're, we may be building in coastal markets, but we're building away from the coast itself.

And so I, I think that that is what we're likely to see.

People continuing to move to the sun belt, to the southeast, to mid Atlantic, to southwest, but not to the ocean side areas there.

The people who are going to continue to move, move to, actually the coast itself are going to be very wealthy people who don't need to worry about, uh, about the disasters.

The people who do need to worry about weather disasters, they're gonna move to more inland locations within those markets.