Grist, September 2025
Extreme weather disasters — made larger, longer, and more intense by climate change — are taking an heavier toll on the possession that many Americans consider to be their most important asset: the home.
A slew of big events, from deadly wildfires in California and Oklahoma to tornadoes in Missouri and Kentucky to floods in Texas, have already destroyed some 63,000 residential buildings and other structures so far this year and caused more than $20 billion in direct damage. That’s in addition to an unending parade of smaller extreme weather events. These compounding extremes aren’t just being felt by homeowners — they’re changing the financial calculus that underpins the companies that insure them.
A report published this week by Realtor.com, a brokerage platform, found that slightly more than 1 in 4 U.S. homes, representing nearly $13 trillion in value, are vulnerable to “severe or extreme climate risk.” The biggest danger by far is hurricane-related wind damage, with some 18 percent of homes vulnerable, followed by flood risk, 6 percent of homes, and wildfire risk, 5.6 percent. The report used data from a nonprofit climate risk assessment group called the First Street Foundation, which incorporates the effects of climate change into its modeling to identify how much of the country’s housing stock is at risk.
