Do Wind Hazard Mitigation Programs Affect Home Sales Values?

The FORTIFIED Home Program is a voluntary construction and re-roofing program designed to strengthen residential properties to withstand damages from severe weather events. The FORTIFIED designation framework can accommodate sustainable new home construction and existing property retrofitting efforts. Applying a two-state utility framework to Zillow's ZTRAX and IBHS's FORTIFIED designation data, we estimate the effect of a FORTIFIED Home designation on residential property values using sales transactions for coastal Alabama from 2011 to 2021. We add to the growing body of literature examining the relationship between eco-friendly construction applications and home prices by deriving the contribution of a FORTIFIED designation to enhanced risk reduction and lowered insurance costs. The results of our full- and nearest-neighbor-matched sample design suggest a likely price premium significance on the order of 2-4% for FORTIFIED homes.