A new study has found that the impact of climate change on homes at high risk in the US is dependent on how the local area views long-term climate change risks. The UBC Sauder Business School set out to find whether climate change beliefs affect house prices. This large-scale study was based on data on sea levels from NOAA, data on climate change beliefs from Yale Program on Climate Change and Zillow real estate transactions data. Researchers found that houses in “believer” climate change neighborhoods sold at a lower price than homes in “denier” climate change neighborhoods. This is despite taking into consideration many factors. According to the researchers, these results suggest that prices reflect differences in views about climate change risk. Markus Baldauf, UBC Sauder School of Business Assistant, explained that if everyone said, “I don’t want to buy beachfront property because it will flood,” then prices might collapse. If you do not believe in climate change you may say that you are insane. It’s impossible to determine the right price for climate change. What price is appropriate? It’s not clear. We don’t know. Baldauf says that it is possible for them to be wrong. Our study found that not all of them can be right. The research was done in the United States. Baldauf stated that he expected the effects they found to be different in Canada and Europe, where climate change belief is more widespread. Journal Citation Baldauf and Markus, Garlappi and Lorenzo, Yannelis and Yannelis: Does Climate Change Impact Real Estate Prices? Only if You Believe In It (August 2019).). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3240200 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn. 3240200
Study finds US home prices are affected by belief differences about climate change
