New research suggests that real estate values were declining before prices started falling, but a climate-driven housing crisis could already be here in coastal Florida.
Christopher Flavelle reports on the plight of the real estate market in Florida, which is slowly starting to show signs of awareness about the effects of climate change and sea-level rise.
Central to Flavelle's reporting is a report published yesterday by the National Bureau of Economic Research that finds a real estate market waking up to the risk of sea-level rise (SLR in the following passage). From the study's abstract: "From 2013-2018, home sales volumes in the most-SLR-exposed communities declined 16-20% relative to less-SLR-exposed areas, even as their sale prices grew in lockstep. Between 2018-2020, however, relative prices in these at-risk markets finally declined by roughly 5% from their peak."
Flavelle's summary of the report's findings read thusly: "The authors argue that not only is climate change eroding one of the most vibrant real estate markets in the country, it has quietly been doing so for nearly a decade."
According to the article and the study, the decline of Florida's coastal real estate market started in 2013, but no one noticed.
The focus on Florida's coastal real estate market follows shortly after a similar article detailed the effects of climate change-induced flood risk on the real estate markets of the coastal Carolinas.
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