Informing Climate-Smart Real Estate
EcoReal Academy is taking the lead on educating Realtors about climate change and real estate.
By Mickey Snowdon, Communications Liaison.
While nationally the real estate spotlight is on sea level rise, Western North Carolina residents must instead contend with climate change effects like increased flooding, landslides, and wildfires.
In fact, Buncombe County experienced 108 million dollars in climate-induced damages between 1996 and 2014, of which 97 percent was due to flooding and landslides. In 2004, Hurricanes Frances and Ivan alone caused more than $200 million in damages in Western North Carolina, including $87 million in tourism losses.
Many businesses in the region didn’t have flood insurance and faced massive out-of-pocket expenses.
Dr. Doug Bruggeman, a member of The Collider in Asheville and a Realtor with National Land Realty, started EcoReal Academy in order to educate real estate agents on threats like these posed by climate change to personal property.
Bruggeman started EcoReal Academy in 2017 when he obtained his real estate license. He has a background integrating environmental science, data science, and market-based incentives, which he uses to create markets for natural capital.
Initially the UN had reached out to Bruggeman to create economic incentives for climate adaptation, given his experience. That international collaboration didn’t come to fruition, but he realized that by becoming a realtor, he could educate other realtors in communicating local climate knowledge in the real estate marketplace to mitigate economic losses.
“Helping clients identify information that would affect their return on investment is a critical part of a realtor’s job,” Bruggeman says. “I foresaw climate change as an integral piece of that information. When you’re buying a house, your realtor knows if it has detrimental factors like lead-based paint or a Superfund Site nearby, as well as factors that increase home values, like a new roof or nearby parks. So why wouldn’t they include climate risks in their assessment?”
According to Bruggeman, there’s currently more awareness around climate and real estate in coastal areas due to the prevalence of sea level rise and flooding, and in the western US around wildfires. While this is a good starting point, he wants to include places not typically considered to be at risk to climate change — like Asheville.
Bruggeman says that most buyers can’t afford to pay for data services like banks or Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITS) can to perform climate modelling on their potential property investment.
However, most of this data is actually public and available free of charge. The barrier is that it needs to be communicated in a way that is digestible for buyers and sellers.
“Realtors have a really unique position to impact the market,” Bruggeman says. “They can prevent huge economic losses due to climate change — losses that would be felt largely within the property market.”
With a lack of federal guidance in place for property buyers and sellers, Realtors could play a critical role — which is what EcoReal Academy did in 2017 with their “Climate Change and Real Estate Investing” course they offered to members of the Asheville-based Land of the Sky Association of Realtors, hosted at The Collider. The course has since been accepted by seven states as satisfying their Continuing Education requirements.
So what can you do to become climate-ready when looking for your next property investment in Western North Carolina?
Bruggeman suggests that if you want to live close to a forest, consider maintaining a 30-foot buffer of grass around your property in order to reduce the risk of wildfire. He also advises getting flood insurance from a reputable insurance company even if your new home or business is within a 500-year floodplain.
Realtors trained through a company like EcoReal Academy can help property buyers make climate-smart decisions when investing in Western North Carolina.
