Theresa and Daniel Ochs, Vallejo residents discovered just the perfect place to spend their retirement years: a three-bedroom home on two acres in Garden Valley, in verdant rolling hills a few miles from the Eldorado National Forest.
“You should go see it,” Theresa Ochs commented. “It’s got craftsmanship in there. The woodwork is amazing. It’s got a nice chef’s kitchen. I could just see myself waking up in this house.”
The couple consequently made an offer — and then experienced a not-so-good surprise. One insurance company after another outright refused to sell them a homeowners’ policy specifically as a result of the wildfire risks in El Dorado County. The Ochses reluctantly withdrew their offer last week.
California’s wildfires have found yet another way of doing serious harm to rural California — by hammering its housing market.
The refusal of insurance companies to cover homes in fire-prone areas is prompting home buyers to cancel purchases and look elsewhere.
That’s depriving struggling rural areas of one of their most reliable sources of economic oxygen — the steady stream of well-off retirees and other transplants from Sacramento, the Bay Area and other prosperous areas.
“It’s another hardship that’s hit because of the wildfire issue,” said eonomist Jeff Michael of the University of the Pacific. “We tend to see lower incomes in those areas. People are attracted to them by the housing affordability and rising insurance costs put a real dent in that.”
Pounded by two years of dangerous wildfires, insurers are raising rates, abandoning long-standing customers and refusing to write new policies. Many homeowners are forced to purchase from unregulated “surplus” carriers or the California FAIR Plan, a bare-bones policy that acts as the state’s insurer of last resort. The resulting coverage can cost up to triple what a traditional carrier would charge. Some desperate homeowners are getting quotes of up to $10,000 a year.
Realtors said this translates into lost business. Home buyers give up on purchases, or their lenders scuttle the deal because the borrowers no longer qualify for their loan.
There are no official estimates on how the insurance crisis is destroying real estate deals during escrow. But Ken Calhoon, a real estate broker who lives in the Pilot Hill region of El Dorado County, said as many as 10% of the deals in his area are falling through “because insurance is either unavailable or the premiums are just too high. Buyers just don’t expect that kind of cost.”
Bay Area transplants, normally a big segment of the purchasers in the El Dorado foothills, are backing off.
“They’re choosing not to live there; that’s what’s happening,” Calhoon said. “We’re not seeing the sales activity on the more rural properties, properties that are in the more fire-prone areas.”
Loan officer Toni Ryan, who works in the Meadow Vista area of rural Placer County, has watched three home sales fall out of escrow in the past two months. She said the rising premiums can unexpectedly add hundreds of dollars to potential buyers’ monthly mortgage payments.
“All of a sudden their payment goes up $200,” R toyan said.
She said home buyers are so discouraged, they’ve stopped looking. Restaurants and others in rural areas “are complaining that they’re not seeing the same traffic as they used to,” she said. “You’re not seeing people up here looking for homes.”
