Charlottesville isn’t safe from climate change, but I’d argue that some of the data says we’re safer.
I was in a meeting this week at Nest, with about 30-40 agents, and we talked about Zillow’s new display of climate risk, and I mentioned that this is something our buyer and seller clients will be referencing and asking about; almost every person in the room voiced agreement with this, and that our clients are referencing climate change and climate risk.
““You’ll never find an insurer saying, ‘I don’t believe in climate change,’ ” John Neal, the C.E.O. of Lloyd’s of London, the insurance behemoth, told the Financial Times a few months back. “The frequency and severity of weather-related losses are exponential.” Testifying to Congress last year, Eric Andersen, the president of Aon, the world’s largest reinsurance intermediary, said, “Just as the U.S. economy was overexposed to mortgage risk in 2008, the economy today is overexposed to climate risk.”” – the New Yorker, 10/14/2024
I was in a meeting talking about green/energy efficient building meeting earlier this year, and someone asked a question about the HVAC or something, and the builder’s answer struck, and has stuck with, me.
“Our homes are so tight that they are designed to not have the windows opened; the interior climate is conditioned and programmed to be closed.” (yes, I’m paraphrasing)
That’s not good. Listen to the entire How I Built This podcast series. Please. We are on this world together, and isolating from each other is, in a word, bad.
The tl;dr:
- Climate change is going to drive more people to relocate to Charlottesville, Albemarle, Central Virginia
- Our communities need to execute plans in anticipation of this – housing, infrastructure, denser multi-use communities.
- With higher demand, I suspect prices will increase – or at least be somewhat protected from broader market fluctuations.
- Nowhere is “safe” from climate change
- Homeowners insurance will continue to increase
- Buyers and sellers (and agents) now have more tools at their disposal to educate themselves about climate risks
- Sooner rather than later, homes with “high” climate risks will be harder to sell; and much like school districts with “good” ratings do better, the ratings lack the appropriate nuance and will do good, and will also do bad.
Questions about the Charlottesville real estate market, whether you’re moving here, or selling in Charlottesville? Please ask me. Or text/call – 434-242-7140
Hi! My partner and I are looking to purchase a house in Charlottesville to get the hell outta SWFL and the hurricanes and tornadoes now too. How do you all consider weather to be there in view of the global warming and such?
The questions I’m wondering, as our climate changes
- How does one evaluate climate risk?
- Underground utilities?
- Sustainable water supply?
- Easy transportation to necessities in under X miles?
- Preparation of local governments?
- Infrastructure?
- Proximity to freshwater and government resources?
- Are we finally going to use the Homeowners Insurance Addendum in the Charlottesville market? I wrote about it first in 2009.
I don’t know the answers, but as a Realtor representing buyers and sellers, I think I need to know more than I do now.
Rightly or wrongly, the Charlottesville area is considered safer with respect to climate change than many other parts of the United States.
It’s impossible to miss the stories from Florida, and everywhere else, about massively increasing homeowners’ insurance. And it’s impossible to miss that the market and climate are changing.
From the WSJ’s The Great Florida Migration is Coming Undone
“Across much of Florida and especially along the western coast, a surplus of inventory and dwindling buyer interest are slowing sales and keeping homes on the market longer. That is cooling off what had been one of America’s biggest housing booms this decade.
Tropical storms and hurricanes, increasingly hitting the state’s western coast, are making matters worse.
Now less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene hit, Tampa Bay is bracing for Hurricane Milton. …
Florida’s population soared between 2021 and 2023, making it the fastest-growing state during much of that period. Remote work and other lifestyle changes that were spurred by the pandemic accelerated a migration trend to the Southeast, and the Sunshine State in particular.
The warm climate, lack of state income tax and less business regulation than in many other states made Florida a hotbed for corporate relocations and new residents. For wealthier migrants from New York, Chicago and California, Florida homes seemed like a bargain.
But surging insurance costs, high mortgage rates and high home prices have more people reassessing the Florida dream. Those who must sell their homes right now because of life changes are finding a frosty reception as demand dwindles.”
I was talking recently to a colleague about finding a resiliency or home-hardening expert to
1) learn from and 2) come to Nest and help us learn more about what we could be sharing with our buyer and seller clients.
Their response – “with all the close-in neighborhoods, your house will be flooded by your neighbors, no matter how hard your house is.” And that made me think of this story –
The developers of the new Hunters Point community, Pearl Homes, billed the property as the first “net-zero” single-family home development in the US, meaning residents produce more energy from solar panels than they need, with the excess energy either being stored or sold back to the grid – in a state where most electricity is generated by burning natural gas, a planet-warming fossil fuel.
They also boast some of the most sustainable, energy-efficient and hurricane-proof homes in the country: The streets surrounding the homes are intentionally designed to flood so houses don’t. Power and internet lines are buried to avoid wind damage. The sturdy concrete walls, hurricane-proof windows and doors are fortified with a layer of foam insulation, providing extra safety against the most violent storms.
Climate resiliency and storm protection were built into the fabric of the homes. And while the newly developed homes have endured a few storms since people moved in around February 2023, Hurricanes Helene and Milton put those features to the true test over the last two weeks.
He’s right. Hardening houses is one thing. Hardening and building communities is what matters. Look to the communities in Western North Carolina for examples of how communities respond.
Like building sidewalks and other infrastructure, these things need to be done at scale, and not pieces here and there. My house might be fine, but if my neighbors’ aren’t, we have some work to do.
In 2012, Crozet, Virginia experienced a derecho. And we heard the word “derecho” for the first time.
A storm came, ripped off shingles, knocked out power for a week, it was freaking hot, trees were down everywhere. Crozet Fire Department was distributing water. It was so hot.
The people at Mudhouse – and everywhere else in Crozet – were manually grinding coffee, music was playing on a radio, and they were boiling water on their gas stove to make the community coffee.
Facebook was already awful, and Twitter was already better for rapid information dissemination.
The community came through, and it’s incumbent upon us to build and strengthen our communities, as we are going to need it.
I’ve said and written before – we need to re imagine and rebuild our society –
our built environment, how we move around (people, commerce), how and where we work and farm, and we need societal cohesion and the right leadership to accomplish this, from the local to the national levels.
Cynically acknowledging that that’s not going to happen … we do the best we can.
Charlottesville and Albemarle need to aggressively plan for more inbound climate migration. We aren’t safe, but we are likely safer than other parts of the world and US. Housing, transportation, services, etc. What’s the saying? If it costs too much to address climate change before it happens, how much will it cost when it does?
There are climate refugees.
There will be climate refugees.
We (in Charlottesville, Albemarle, Central Virginia, and everywhere else) are going to have to accept, plan, deal with, respond to, this. How and how well, are the questions.
Showing my references
Some of the stories I either read, referenced, or didn’t quite get to including.
-
Local Climate Projections Tool Guide from CLIMRR – Climate Resilience and Decision Science
- The U.S. Climate Vulnerability Index
- Charlottesville, Albemarle, and UVA sort of working together?
- The Washington Post has remarkable stories and resources
- I Wasn’t Prepared to Be a Climate Refugee
- First Street – The Standard for Climate Risk Financial Modeling
