IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rff/dpaper/dp-23-26.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Risk Disclosure and Home Prices: Evidence from California Wildfire Hazard Zones

Author

Listed:
  • Walls, Margaret A.

    (Resources for the Future)

  • Wibbenmeyer, Matthew

    (Resources for the Future)

  • Lennon, Connor
  • Ma, Lala

Abstract

Damages from wildfires have increased dramatically in recent years. This study uses a boundary discontinuity design to estimate the effect of wildfire hazard disclosure on house prices. Using the universe of single-family sales transactions from the Zillow ZTRAX program in California from 2015 through 2022, we find that, on average, homes that faced disclosure requirements sold for approximately 4.3 percent less than nearby homes that did not. Price impacts are higher in recent years, following several damaging wildfires. Our findings highlight the use of disclosure regulations to ensure that disaster risks are reflected in housing markets.

Suggested Citation

  • Walls, Margaret A. & Wibbenmeyer, Matthew & Lennon, Connor & Ma, Lala, 2023. "Risk Disclosure and Home Prices: Evidence from California Wildfire Hazard Zones," RFF Working Paper Series 23-26, Resources for the Future.
    • Handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-23-26
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rff.org/documents/3979/WP_23-26.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. H. Spencer Banzhaf, 2021. "Difference-in-Differences Hedonics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(8), pages 2385-2414.
    2. Sandra E. Black, 1999. "Do Better Schools Matter? Parental Valuation of Elementary Education," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(2), pages 577-599.
    3. Piet Eichholtz & Nils Kok & John M. Quigley, 2013. "The Economics of Green Building," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(1), pages 50-63, March.
    4. Laura A. Bakkensen & Xiaozhou Ding & Lala Ma, 2019. "Flood Risk and Salience: New Evidence from the Sunshine State," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(4), pages 1132-1158, April.
    5. Geoffrey H. Donovan & Patricia A. Champ & David T. Butry, 2007. "Wildfire Risk and Housing Prices: A Case Study from Colorado Springs," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 83(2), pages 217-233.
    6. Imbens, Guido W. & Lemieux, Thomas, 2008. "Regression discontinuity designs: A guide to practice," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 615-635, February.
    7. Becka Brolinson & Karen Palmer & Margaret Walls, 2023. "Does Energy Star Certification Reduce Energy Use in Commercial Buildings?," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 10(1), pages 55-93.
    8. Ajita Atreya & Susana Ferreira & Warren Kriesel, 2013. "Forgetting the Flood? An Analysis of the Flood Risk Discount over Time," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 89(4), pages 577-596.
    9. Carolyn Kousky, 2010. "Learning from Extreme Events: Risk Perceptions after the Flood," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 86(3).
    10. Matthew Gibson & Jamie T. Mullins, 2020. "Climate Risk and Beliefs in New York Floodplains," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 7(6), pages 1069-1111.
    11. Kuminoff, Nicolai V. & Parmeter, Christopher F. & Pope, Jaren C., 2010. "Which hedonic models can we trust to recover the marginal willingness to pay for environmental amenities?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 145-160, November.
    12. McCoy, Shawn J. & Walsh, Randall P., 2018. "Wildfire risk, salience & housing demand," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 203-228.
    13. Ajita Atreya & Susana Ferreira, 2015. "Seeing is Believing? Evidence from Property Prices in Inundated Areas," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 35(5), pages 828-848, May.
    14. Walls, Margaret & Gerarden, Todd & Palmer, Karen & Bak, Xian Fang, 2017. "Is energy efficiency capitalized into home prices? Evidence from three U.S. cities," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 104-124.
    15. Matthew A. Turner & Andrew Haughwout & Wilbert van der Klaauw, 2014. "Land Use Regulation and Welfare," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(4), pages 1341-1403, July.
    16. Halvorsen, Robert & Palmquist, Raymond, 1980. "The Interpretation of Dummy Variables in Semilogarithmic Equations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(3), pages 474-475, June.
    17. Bakkensen, Laura A. & Ma, Lala, 2020. "Sorting over flood risk and implications for policy reform," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    18. Brounen, Dirk & Kok, Nils, 2011. "On the economics of energy labels in the housing market," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 166-179, September.
    19. Okmyung Biny & Stephen Polasky, 2004. "Effects of Flood Hazards on Property Values: Evidence Before and After Hurricane Floyd," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 80(4).
    20. Beltrán, Allan & Maddison, David & Elliott, Robert, 2019. "The impact of flooding on property prices: A repeat-sales approach," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 62-86.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Justin Contat & Caroline Hopkins & Luis Mejia & Matthew Suandi, 2023. "When Climate Meets Real Estate: A Survey of the Literature," FHFA Staff Working Papers 23-05, Federal Housing Finance Agency.
    2. David Wolf & Kenji Takeuchi, 2022. "Who Gives a Dam? Capitalization of Flood Protection in Fukuoka, Japan," Discussion Papers 2203, Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University.
    3. Graff Zivin, Joshua & Liao, Yanjun & Panassié, Yann, 2023. "How hurricanes sweep up housing markets: Evidence from Florida," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    4. Georgic, Will & Klaiber, H. Allen, 2022. "Stocks, flows, and flood insurance: A nationwide analysis of the capitalized impact of annual premium discounts on housing values," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    5. Wolf, David & Takeuchi, Kenji, 2022. "Holding back the storm: Dam capitalization in residential and commercial property values," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    6. Marie Lautrup & Lasse Læbo Matthiesen & Jette Bredahl Jacobsen & Toke Emil Panduro, 2023. "Welfare Effects and the Immaterial Costs of Coastal Flooding," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 85(2), pages 415-441, June.
    7. Allan Beltrán & David Maddison & Robert J. R. Elliott, 2018. "Assessing the Economic Benefits of Flood Defenses: A Repeat‐Sales Approach," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(11), pages 2340-2367, November.
    8. Meri Davlasheridze & Qin Fan, 2019. "Valuing Seawall Protection in the Wake of Hurricane Ike," Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Springer, vol. 3(3), pages 257-279, October.
    9. Mutlu, Asli & Roy, Debraj & Filatova, Tatiana, 2023. "Capitalized value of evolving flood risks discount and nature-based solution premiums on property prices," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    10. aus dem Moore, Nils & Brehm, Johannes & Breidenbach, Philipp & Ghosh, Arijit & Gruhl, Henri, 2022. "Flood risk perception after indirect flooding experience: Null results in the German housing market," Ruhr Economic Papers 976, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    11. Robert J. Johnston & Klaus Moeltner, 2019. "Special Flood Hazard Effects on Coastal and Interior Home Values: One Size Does Not Fit All," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 74(1), pages 181-210, September.
    12. Beltrán, Allan & Maddison, David & Elliott, Robert, 2019. "The impact of flooding on property prices: A repeat-sales approach," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 62-86.
    13. Walter D'Lima & Timothy Komarek & Luis A. Lopez, 2023. "Risk perception in housing markets: Evidence from a fighter jet crash," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 51(4), pages 819-854, July.
    14. Moeltner, Klaus & Puri, Roshan & Johnston, Robert J., 2023. "Regression and matching in hedonic analysis: Empirical guidance for estimator choice," 2023 Annual Meeting, July 23-25, Washington D.C. 335807, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    15. Coulson, N. Edward & McCoy, Shawn J. & McDonough, Ian K., 2020. "Economic diversification and the resiliency hypothesis: Evidence from the impact of natural disasters on regional housing values," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    16. James R. Meldrum, 2016. "Floodplain Price Impacts by Property Type in Boulder County, Colorado: Condominiums Versus Standalone Properties," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 64(4), pages 725-750, August.
    17. Ruchi Avtar & Kristian S. Blickle & Rajashri Chakrabarti & Janavi Janakiraman & Maxim L. Pinkovskiy, 2023. "Understanding the Linkages between Climate Change and Inequality in the United States," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 29(1), pages 1-39, June.
    18. McCoy, Shawn J. & Walsh, Randall P., 2018. "Wildfire risk, salience & housing demand," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 203-228.
    19. Livy, Mitchell R., 2023. "Assessing the housing price capitalization of non-destructive flooding events," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 265-274.
    20. Yun Qiu & Sathya Gopalakrishnan & H. Allen Klaiber & Xiaoyu Li, 2020. "Dredging the sand commons: the economic and geophysical drivers of beach nourishment," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 162(2), pages 363-383, September.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-23-26. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Resources for the Future (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rffffus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.