Six people have been killed and 1,018 homes have been destroyed in the recent Californian wildfire in Redding, Calif., according to Realtor.com. This is becoming an all-too-familiar story for California residents, where in the past few years increasingly destructive wildfires have claimed lives and reduced communities to nothing. Clare Trapasso, of the real estate website, investigates to see how this type of disaster affects home prices. Check out her findings below.
With all of those displaced residents in immediate need of roofs over their heads, prices are expected to soar for homes and rentals in those parts of the Redding region that were untouched by the fire's fury. Prices are likely to rise about 10% to 25%, real estate appraisers say. Redding's housing market is mostly made up of three- to four-bedroom, single-family houses and two- to four-unit, low-rise apartment buildings.
Meanwhile, homes that were miraculously spared in areas that were burned are likely to see price drops of 25% to 50%, he says. That's because no one wants the view outside of their window to be the scorched earth and rubble where other homes once stood. Plus, those communities are likely to have lost many of the amenities that made them popular with buyers, such as shared facilities and landscaping.
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