After Helene, climate concerns ripple through North Carolina real estate market :: WRAL.com

When floodwaters from Hurricane Helene tore through western North Carolina last year, the damage extended far beyond washed-out roads and broken homes. It also changed how many people think about where they live and what their homes are really worth.

Now, climate risk is emerging as a new force in the state’s housing market, influencing everything from insurance premiums to buyer confidence. Real estate agents say the conversation has shifted, with stormwater maps and flood histories becoming nearly as relevant as square footage and school districts.

Ashley Rummage, a Raleigh-area Realtor who grew up in Boone, said Helene was a wake-up call.

“We really have an ethical duty to our clients to be more informed about sustainability and the built environment,” she said. “We need to be educated on how to advise people when it comes to where to look for floodplain information.”

Traditional FEMA maps, long used to determine flood risk, are now being supplemented and sometimes contradicted by new predictive tools. One example is the First Street Foundation database, which is integrated into Zillow listings through a “climate check” feature that estimates a property’s future vulnerability to flooding or wildfires.

Rummage said that data has helped buyers become more informed but also more uncertain. Many North Carolinians are already anxious about climate impacts after seeing neighbors blindsided by Helene, some without flood insurance, and are now trying to navigate conflicting information about their own risks.

“We’ve had clients who see their home rated at higher flood risk on Zillow, while FEMA shows they’re not in a floodplain,” she said. “It’s confusing for consumers. They need someone they trust to help make sense of it.”

To bridge that gap, Rummage often calls the City of Raleigh’s stormwater division directly for parcel-by-parcel information. “They’ll send the details I need so my clients can make informed decisions,” she said.

That kind of extra effort has become more common in a state where climate patterns and real estate trends are changing together. Sharon Gupton, president of the Raleigh Regional Association of Realtors, said awareness has grown dramatically among both buyers and builders since she started selling homes in the 1980s.

“Every homeowner and home seller is more inclined now to understand that weather affects so much of our properties,” Gupton said. “As agents, we talk through that with them. The public is just much more knowledgeable about how the environment affects our homes.”

Still, Gupton said few buyers make insurance costs or flood risk their top concern at first. “People are motivated by price and location,” she said. “Those other factors come up later, often when lenders go over the costs.”

Even so, those costs are getting harder to overlook. Insurance premiums have climbed sharply in North Carolina and across the country, driven by mounting claims from extreme weather. Some major insurers have already scaled back coverage in high-risk areas, and agents are beginning to see the effects in buyer hesitation.

Craig Foley, chief sustainability officer for LAER Realty Partners and a member of the National Association of Realtors’ executive committee, calls climate change “an existential threat to the industry.”

“We’re seeing insurance costs skyrocket in Florida, Louisiana and California, and that’s creeping north,” Foley said. “It’s not just coastal flooding. It’s wind, hail, extreme heat. The insurance industry knows it.”

Foley, who trains agents nationwide on sustainable building and climate resilience, believes climate risk is already playing a role in the national housing slowdown, particularly among younger buyers.

“Interest rates are part of it, but they’re not the only factor,” he said. “There’s enough data now for young people, especially first-time homebuyers, to wonder if this investment makes sense. They’re seeing these disasters unfold and questioning the long-term risk.”

In North Carolina, those questions are colliding with the realities of rapid urban growth. Cities such as Raleigh and Wilmington are rewriting long-term development plans that integrate stormwater design, tree canopy protection and denser, more efficient housing.

“We’re seeing places flood that have never flooded before,” Gupton said. “So municipalities are rethinking zoning, in some cases going higher instead of wider.”

That shift toward building up rather than out is part of what Raleigh’s new 20-year comprehensive plan aims to achieve, as city planners weigh housing demand against aging infrastructure and a changing climate.

Rummage said there are signs of progress in how buyers and developers approach risk.

“There’s more interest in resilience,” she said. “People are starting to pay attention. It’s unfortunate that it takes a disaster to make that happen, but if that means we make more resilient choices for future North Carolinians, that’s something to build on.”