Seas Rise, and Crisis Looms on Coast
gering another housing meltdown — except these housing prices would likely never recover.
“Some residents will cash out early and suffer minimal losses,” he wrote. “Others will not be so lucky.”
Florida has six of the 10 American urban centers most vulnerable to storm surge, according to a 2016 report from CoreLogic, a real estate data firm. Southeast Florida experiences about 10 tidal floods per year now. That number is likely to be around 240 floods per year by 2045, according to climate researchers.
In the past year, home sales have increased 2.6 percent in the United States, but have dropped about 7.6 percent in high- risk flood zones in Miami-Dade County, according to housing data. Many coastal cities are taking steps toward mitigation, dig- ging runoff tunnels, elevating roads and building detention ponds.
James Murley, Miami-Dade’s chief resilience officer, said it was important to avoid spooking the market since real estate investment produces much of the revenue that pays for these upgrades. This balancing act is especially important in Florida because the state and localities rely heavily on property and sales taxes for funding such projects.
Florida is not alone. Forty percent of Americans live and work in coastal areas, and those who can afford it are protecting their investments by building private bulkheads and lifting their homes onto stilts. But skeptics question the logic of upgrading individual properties if the surrounding areas do not keep pace and flooding or the rise in sea levels swamps nearby roads.
For many home buyers and owners, the cost of flood insurance is a growing worry. As premiums rise, property values fall, a trend already hurting home prices in places like Atlantic City, Norfolk, Virginia, and St. Petersburg, Florida, according to local real estate agents.
In Florida, agents have to notify purchasers if a property is subject to natural hazards, but the law applies only to a limited area along the coast and has no penalties for noncompliance.
In the United States, median home prices in areas at high risk for flooding are 4.4 percent below what they
A decline is seen in the interest in owning property at the shore.
were 10 years ago, while home prices in low-risk areas are up 29.7 percent over the same period, according to the housing data.
David Jacobs, 54, said he expected that his home — about 15 meters from the water in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina — will be washed away soon enough.
“It pains me to think my children and grandchildren may not be able to enjoy it,” he said.