Flood danger threatens billions in Salt Lake housing
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Nearly 5% of homes in the Salt Lake metro — worth about $9 billion — face severe or extreme flood risk, per a recent Realtor.com analysis.
Why it matters: Climate change is fueling more extreme weather — driving up home insurance premiums in high-risk areas and leaving some Utahns without coverage as insurers drop homeowners.
Driving the news: Heavy flooding inundated parts of Southern Utah, impacting homes and roads, after a weekend of heavy storms.
The big picture: Nationwide, roughly 6.1% of homes (worth around $3.4 trillion) are at severe or extreme risk of flood damage;
- 18.3% ($8 trillion) from hurricane wind damage;
- 5.6% ($3.2 trillion) from fire.
Reality check: Flood risks, in particular, are "largely underestimated" by homeowners, per the analysis, which looks at figures from First Street, a climate risk data provider.
- Homeowners may not realize their property faces significant flood risk — and opt out of flood insurance — if it's outside a FEMA Special Flood Hazard Area, defined as having a 1% or greater chance of flooding each year.
- Unlike FEMA's maps, First Street's model accounts for heavy rain and future climate change, identifying millions of additional properties facing risk.
Zoom out: Separately, about 4% of Salt Lake homes face severe or extreme wildfire risk, according to the analysis.
- Utah Gov. Spencer Cox in July declared a state of emergency after wildfires burned nearly 114,000 acres for the year, the majority of which were human-caused.
The bottom line: "Understanding climate risk in the housing market is essential, as these challenges not only affect residential safety but also influence property values, insurance costs, and overall market stability," Realtor.com economist Jiayi Xu wrote in the report.