The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has released an online risk analysis tool that provides geographic estimates for physical risks from various types of natural disasters, as well as nationwide data on housing and the mortgage market.
The tool – known as the Mortgage Loan and Natural Disaster Dashboard – is intended to give stakeholders better insight into which areas of the country are most likely to incur greater damages from hurricanes, flooding, wildfires and other types of natural hazards.
Users can combine FHFA’s Public Use Database (PUDB) with data on previous disasters and other analysis from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). They can identify areas of the country with elevated disaster risk based on several factors, and which of those areas have concentrations of properties financed with loans acquired by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks.
“Climate risks, especially natural disasters, pose a serious threat to housing and other critical infrastructure, particularly in vulnerable communities,” says FHFA Director Sandra L. Thompson. “Providing geographic information on disasters as well as concentrated exposures of loans acquired by our regulated entities can help policymakers and the industry develop solutions to better safeguard those communities from the impact of future catastrophes.”
The dashboard utilizes data from three publicly available sources. The PUDB provides a geographic breakdown of loans acquired by FHFA’s regulated entities. FEMA’s National Risk Index identifies communities most at risk for 18 types of natural hazards. The third source, FHFA’s Duty to Serve High-Needs Rural Areas data, pinpoints rural areas in the country that are characterized by a high concentration of poverty and substandard housing conditions.
The data on mortgages were updated as of 2022, and the data on past natural disasters reflected in the online tool were updated as of 2023, while the census tracts were drawn from the 2020 U.S. Census. Dashboard users can view nationwide mortgage data at the census-tract level overlaid with expected annual damages for 18 different types of natural disasters.
Additional layers measure other factors affecting an area’s susceptibility to certain disasters, including a social vulnerability index, a community resilience index, and an additional layer enabling users to analyze FHFA’s Duty to Serve High-Needs Rural areas.