San Francisco Chronicle: "Same Forces Driving Insurers Out of California Have Already Taken Toll on Home Prices"
A new paper coauthored by RFF scholars Matthew Wibbenmeyer and Margaret Walls is profiled in this timely piece.
"Wildfire risk in California played a big part in why insurance giants State Farm and Allstate recently decided they would no longer write new homeowners’ policies in the state. Buying a home in California may become tougher as insurance becomes more of a headache to procure, but new research finds disclosures of wildfire danger are already affecting the real estate market.
California homes that required disclosure of high wildfire hazard had prices about 4% lower than similar homes that didn’t, according to a new working paper led by researchers at Resources for the Future and the University of Kentucky."
