Rising sea levels, biodiversity collapse, extreme weather—these are the grisly horsemen of climate apocalypse. But don’t forget the fretting loan officers. A study published earlier this year found that US mortgage approvals tend to dip following periods of hotter-than-normal weather. For every 1 degree Celsius that temperatures rise above average, approvals fell by nearly 1 percent—and their value by more than 6.5 percent.
’s UK website, for example, has a page about how climate change could affect people’s mortgages. But Burt argues that buyers aren’t always being told about the medium- and long-term risks, nor are they necessarily having the amount they borrow scrutinized in terms of how their home might plummet in value in the coming years. And yet, plenty of people are still buying US coastal properties, for instance—and paying ever bigger sums for the pleasure.