- Loan-level data tied to climate-driven insurance costs, property taxes, estimated utility bills, as well as property damage risk from climate events
- Original ICE research on the intersection of climate risk and home affordability to be shared at AmeriCatalyst conference in Washington, DC
Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE: ICE), a leading global provider of technology and data, will be presenting original research made possible by the integration of the company’s growing collection of climate, property and loan-level mortgage datasets and proprietary analytics. The research, focused on the critical intersection of climate risk and housing affordability, will be presented during the AmeriCatalyst Going to Extremes Leadership Summit in Washington, DC on Thursday, April 18, 2024.
“Home affordability has been a defining challenge of the U.S. housing market since the pandemic,” said Ben Graboske, President of Mortgage Data and Analytics at ICE. “Until now, the focus has mainly been the low inventory, rising interest rates and high home prices that have been straining affordability. But the potential impact of climate-related events – and their ripple effects - on the true cost of ownership cannot be overlooked. That holds true for homeowners, lenders, investors and policy makers alike.”
Leveraging vast data assets from across its Mortgage and Sustainable Finance businesses, ICE was able to quantify a more all-inclusive cost of home ownership. Using granular, timely loan- and property-level data, ICE researchers aggregated anonymized mortgage payments, property taxes, property insurance, as well as estimated utility bills for electric, water and heating fuels for millions of homeowners.
Combining this information with ICE’s property-level climate risk metrics that cover more than 100M US homes will help improve transparency and risk understanding throughout the housing finance sector. Soon to be available via the ICE Rapid Analytics PlatformSM (RAP) and the contributory McDash® loan-level mortgage performance dataset, the convergence will allow users to apply ICE’s climate metrics to individual loans, properties as well as entire portfolios. ICE is also leveraging the combined insight to incorporate enhanced asset-level climate risk modeling for its existing municipal bond and mortgage-backed securities products.
The downstream impact goes beyond raising further barriers to homeownership for first time buyers hoping to break into the market. Even millions of current homeowners with low fixed-rate loans are seeing such variable costs of homeownership on the rise. ICE’s research shows how such climate-driven factors may contribute to housing cost burdens at every level, and drills down into where climate risk may continue to drive cost growth.
“The nexus of climate and affordability, especially as it relates to insurance cost, is an important topic within the housing and securitized sector right now,” said Larry Lawrence, Global Head of Sustainable Finance at ICE. “Insurers have been raising premiums or, in many cases, pulling out of major markets entirely in an effort to manage their own risks. Climate impacts may also fuel rising utility costs, and multi-billion-dollar disasters are contributing to rising property taxes as well, further constricting affordability. There are no simple solutions to these problems, but what there can be is more transparency and data to aid market participants.”
To learn more about ICE’s Sustainable Finance offering, visit: https://www.ice.com/fixed-income-data-services/data-and-analytics/sustainable-finance-data
To learn more about ICE Mortgage Technology, visit https://www.icemortgagetechnology.com/
