Evaluating the impact of flooding on property prices and home ownership duration in England’s housing market

Global warming is increasing the frequency and severity of physical climate hazards, such as flooding, creating significant challenges for housing markets worldwide. Flooding, one of the most economically damaging hazards globally, threatens homeowners by devaluing property, limiting mobility, and straining financial stability. These pressures stem from rising global exposure to flood risks as a result of increased settlement into flood-prone areas, combined with climate change increasing and expanding areas at risk. Together, these drivers prompt urgent questions about the resilience of housing markets to flooding and climate change, with major implications for homeowners, insurers, lenders, regulators, and policymakers.

Recent studies show that physical climate hazards like flooding, are contributing to a phenomenon known as climate gentrification. This thesis expands on these by providing a new definition of climate gentrification and a structured assessment of its key drivers. A case study of a UK flood prone city demonstrates how climate gentrification has suppressed property price appreciation by up to 50% in flood-exposed locations compared to unexposed areas over a 13-year period. These findings underscore long-term implications for homeowners and other housing market stakeholders. The thesis also explores the ethical considerations surrounding the publication and dissemination of climate gentrification research, emphasising the responsibility researchers have in protecting vulnerable communities.

While prior research shows that flooding immediately devalues property prices, the effects on housing market liquidity remain unexplored. A national case study in England, using historical residential property transaction data on 27 million property sales over a 28-year period, demonstrates that flooding exerts long-term impacts on property prices and market liquidity, as measured through the proxy of home ownership duration. Inundated properties are found to lose 7% of their value immediately, increasing to a 12% fall in value after 10 years, resulting in an aggregate loss of £2.2 billion due to flooding. Flood-affected properties are owned, on average, for a decade longer than those that have never been flooded before, an observation most notable in cheaper housing.

The national case study is extended to examine how flooding immobilises homeowners through lock-in effects and reveals policy blind spots present in current flood risk management strategies. Properties in the worst flood-affected areas are owned for up to 18 years longer than properties unexposed to flooding, suggesting that homeowners face challenges in selling or relocating, likely due to stigmatisation around the threat of flood reoccurrence, limited access to finance and reduced buyer interest. Home ownership durations are mapped across local authority districts in England as a function of flood exposure and flood history. The findings indicate that the Flood Re scheme has been successful in maintaining affordable home insurance but overlooks housing market liquidity in flood-affected areas.

The credibility and transferability of the analytical framework developed in this thesis are then discussed in relation to other physical climate hazards, such as wildfires, sea level rise, and extreme heat, alongside the broader financial impacts arising from the observations in this thesis. The findings from this thesis underscore the urgent need for adaptive, resilient-focused policies that address the long-term impacts of flooding on housing markets, particularly on the issues of environmentally driven lock-in effects and climate gentrification. This research adds a new dimension to understanding the impacts of flooding on housing markets by highlighting liquidity constraints alongside long-term property value depreciation.

In the context of global warming and an intensifying hydrological cycle, this thesis emphasises the importance of balancing risk management and dissemination of research with ethical considerations. Proactive approaches can help manage the impacts of climate gentrification research, avoiding disproportionately negative effects on vulnerable populations.