Are you buying a flood-prone home? It’s hard to find out [Video]

Anyone who owns a home knows its weaknesses when it rains.

But those shopping for a place to live largely don’t have that information, and may unwittingly move into flood-prone areas.

“Consciously or unconsciously, [people] just see a house that otherwise looks nice when they’re looking at it on a sunny afternoon and think, well, this looks like a pretty good deal and the price is a little bit lower and let’s take advantage of that,'” said Blair Feltmate, head of the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. 

“But they’re being very naive in doing so.”

Feltmate says that in the past decade, homes in areas of Canada that experienced catastrophic flooding sold for an average of “minus 8.2 per cent” for at least six months after the flood. A home didn’t even have to be flooded to see this price reduction — simply being in a flood-impacted neighbourhood was enough …