My path to being the first climate-focused real estate agent began in early 2022 with two milestones: our family began looking for a house and I started writing about climate change. The previous several years had been thick with climate disasters, including Hurricane Ida, which crashed into New York in September 2021. In January 2022, I tried to contextualize Ida’s deluge:

For more than 37 years, from July 1967 through August 2004, the most rain that ever fell in a single hour in Central Park was 1.58 inches. Then in September 2004, 1.76 inches fell in an hour. This record stood until August 21, 2021, when 1.94 inches of rain came down in sixty minutes. The two previous New York City records for rainfall in an hour had lasted for 37 and 17 years, respectively, but this one would last just 11 days. On September 1, 2021, over the course of one hour, Hurricane Ida dropped 3.15 inches of rain on the city. A record broken twice by 0.18 inches was obliterated by 1.21 inches.

This step change in rainfall intensity was on my mind when we started looking for a house a few weeks later. Knowing we needed one that would be rugged in climate disasters but lacking guidance on what to look for, I read voraciously to teach myself to assess the climate resilience of homes. I studied shifts in rainfall patterns due to climate change, I spot-checked climate risk models by looking at ratings of places I know, I reviewed the history and limitations of FEMA flood maps, and much more.

As I came to understand the factors that produce climate vulnerability, I integrated them into a framework for identifying climate resilient homes. My approach worked and that summer, with help from our agent and attorney, we secured the peace of mind of a climate resilient house.

Our experience buying a home stuck with me. The lack of guidance in the face of sky-high home prices and escalating climate risk was striking. Home-buyers need help evaluating the climate resilience of prospective homes, and I had developed a framework for doing just that. For years I’d been drawn to working on climate, and here was a glaring need for which I was a perfect fit!

Even my academic background is aligned with my work as a climate-focused realtor. My undergraduate coursework at Tufts in civil engineering (B.S.) and economics (B.A.) provided the tools to understand the structural, geotechnical, and financial issues in evaluating and buying resilient homes. And in my three years at Yale Law (J.D.) I learned to think in systems, a prerequisite for understanding our changing world. Studying law also honed my skills for getting the details right every time.