Do you know if you need flood insurance? Do you know if you have flood insurance? What happens when your house gets flooded?
Flood risk information has not been readily available to the average consumer. Climate change is making your flood risk drastically increase.
Now, one of the major real estate databases (Realtor.com) is making flood information available to the public.
In the NPR story, Major Real Estate Website Now Shows Flood Risk. Should They All?, experts explain the trend.
“People are buying property with little knowledge of whether it’s going to flood or not,” says Harriet Festing, co-founder of the advocacy group Higher Ground, which connects people across the country who have survived floods. “It ruins lives.”
Millions of buyers risk overpaying for homes likely to be hit with a natural disaster over the course of a 30-year mortgage. But representatives for other realty sites say home sellers are reluctant to publish flood risk information, since it could decrease their home’s value.