New partnership offers insight into climate risks for Canadians
One of the most unsettling images to come out of Hurricane Ian last week was of an orange roof floating past palm trees on the flooded streets of a Florida city, captured by a stunned onlooker in a tweet with the words “houses are moving.”
From Ian’s U.S devastation, to Fiona’s battering of the East Coast, catastrophic flooding in Pakistan, or forest fires in Europe this summer, the dreams, retirement plans and literal roofs over people’s heads have become collateral damage in extreme weather events.
But what about your house, or one you’re considering buying, how could it be impacted? That’s about to become a little more clear. A new measure of climate risk, similar to a walk score, that offers more transparency about these short and long-term risks is headed to Canada by the end of the year, starting with a handful of brokerages next month.
The U.S. online real estate climate risk calculator ClimateCheck has partnered with the Montreal-based platform Local Logic to deliver these climate risk insights, and the brokerages will be adding the data to their listings for open access to the public, said Cal Inman, founder and CEO of ClimateCheck.
“What we’re trying to do is communicate climate risk in an easy to understand way to all real estate stakeholders,” said Inman. “That anyone can understand, someone without a PhD in climatology.”
The website allows American homeowners and would-be buyers to type in an address and get a free
Homes have become collateral damage in extreme weather events, such as post-tropical storm Fiona, which hit the East Coast. FRANK GUNN THE CANADIAN PRESS
score that tells them the risk of several key climate related variables, including storms, heat, drought, fire and flood.
The scores offer a 30-year look into the future, using 2050 “as a benchmark” said Inman, pulling together data from climate change projection models and government agencies. For example, how many hot days per year were there historically and how many are expected by 2050? What’s the percentage chance of the home burning over the next 30 years?
The rating system looks at each home individually and rates it from one to 100, with one being the lowest risk, and allows users to compare across multiple properties. Canadian access to the website, including for condo buildings, is planned for later this year.
Much of this information already exists, for example flood plain maps, but it’s scattered across different sources, which are not always easy to find or understand.
“It’s top of mind, because you’re reading about it and you’re experiencing it, but there’s no real place to access the information,” Inman said.
“It’s such a local story too, different parts of a neighbourhood could be impacted by flooding, and some might not.”
Karen Yolevski, COO of Royal LePage real estate services, welcomes the arrival of climate risk scores in Canada, as “very valuable” information to both buyers and realtors, especially millennial and gen-Z consumers who will feel the brunt of the climate crisis.
“When you’re looking at purchasing a home that’s generally people’s largest investment that they’re going to make in their lifetime,” she said.
“So certainly more information is better.”
Issues like past flood or fire damage should come up in a home inspection, she added, which is part of why they’re always recommended.
Of course, in Toronto’s still tight housing market, a distant seeming threat like climate risk may not be enough to deter a potential sale. “There are trade offs,” Yolevski said.
But it’s still something Eric Swanson, whose Rockcliffe—Smythe basement flooded during a brief but intense rainstorm in summer 2020, would have appreciated knowing.
“Absolutely” a climate score would have been helpful when he bought the palace earlier that year, he said.
It started raining “insanely hard” that July day and “in about 15 minutes” his basement flooded, causing about $200,000 worth of damage.
It was covered by insurance. But that “still doesn’t replace, like, your favourite hoodie.” He knew there was some past flooding in the neighbourhood before he bought — from doing his own research and asking around — but didn’t know the extent until it happened to him.
The city and the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority are working on a flood mitigation plan for the neighbourhood. But Swanson isn’t counting on that to save him.
He has since invested in flood proof doors from Germany, and is confident that the home won’t flood to the same extent. Would he have still bought it? “I probably would have been like, look man, your house floods, and tried to negotiate the price down another 25, 30, 40k so I could have afforded to put in some flood prevention,” Swanson said.
Still, he feels lucky, in this market, to have something at all.
“I couldn’t afford my house today, so at least I have a house,” he added.
“I think there are solutions, and if people are aware they can choose whether to invest in solutions or not.”
It is disturbing though, to see some homes in the neighbourhood, where owners haven’t put in any flood protection measures and don’t disclose the risk to potential buyers, or renters, especially for basement apartments, where tenants could lose everything in one bad summer storm.
“I joke that if you see a listing with a freshly renovated basement, what does that mean? It means you had a basement flood.”