I was watching a video on rural Arizona homeowners losing their homeowner's insurance due to wildfire risk and it cited this USDA climate website I found really helpful: https://research.fs.usda.gov/firelab/products/dataandtools

Those that follow me know that part of the reason we invested here in 2018 was due to a horrific heatwave in So Cal that year and I was astonished at how temperate the coastal climate was. I figured fast-forward a decade (or three) and the coast might be a good place to invest for the future..

Since then the coast has become a climate refuge for us from smoke, heatwaves and COVID and there has definitely been an uptick in interest from further away with each season. This year we received investor, second home and relocation interest from as far away as DC, DE, NY (and even Europe) and come to think of it - I actually sold a property to a climate scientist from California late last year.

That isn't to imply there are not risks (I'm certain we will field some Cascadia comments) but we have implemented wildfire mitigation techniques on our property and temperatures consistently average 30+ degrees cooler than inland in summertime. We've also found insurance rates to be incredibly stable (and affordable) we pay around $1400/yr for a 1K SF riverfront cottage on 2.5 acres and our most recent STR investor pays $3500/yr for a their 4KSF riverfront home.

The data would suggest we are not alone in our concerns as 7/10 homeowners apparently share the same worries of climate related property impacts. https://www.lendingtree.com/insurance/climate-change-survey/ How could you not?

What I found striking from the map was that if you're going to invest in the West, the PNW coastline is really the only area at 'low risk' (and this map is from 2023). Considering there are on average about 2000 TOTAL single-family residences listed for sale for the entire 363 mile coastline (and there is very little new development under construction) what do you think the future of PNW real estate could look like?