Ross Hancock sold his four-bedroom house in Coral Gables, a city of pastel luxury at the edge of Miami, because he was worried that sea-level rise would eventually hurt his property’s value. He and his wife, Darlene, downsized to a small condo on Biscayne Bay, perched atop one of the highest coral ridges in the area. There, he presumed, they would be safer.

Then Hurricane Irma hit. 

The September storm pushed water onshore with such force that it penetrated the seams of Hancock’s building, defeating stormproof windows and damaging a third of the units. It knocked out the elevators, ruined the generator, and flooded the parking lot. Months later the park next door remains strewn with mangled yachts hurled from from the ocean.

Hancock’s unit was spared, but he’s facing a potential $60,000 bill from the condo association for his share of what insurance won’t cover. Now, four years after leaving Coral Gables, he and his wife want to move again—this time, out of Florida. But more than two months after listing their property, they haven’t found a buyer.

“It’s not the greatest time to be showing it,” Hancock said, noting the damage to the building. Still, Irma convinced him that it doesn’t make sense to wait. “At some point, we won’t be able to sell.”

Decisions by people such as Hancock to sell their homes demonstrate that one of the great mysteries of climate change isn’t scientific but psychological: When will the growing risks associated with rising seas and more severe storms begin to affect home values in otherwise desirable coastal markets?

Nowhere is that question more pressing than South Florida, which has some of the country’s priciest properties—and some of the most vulnerable. A state built on real estate speculation, whose chief attribute was proximity to the water, now faces a whole new problem: There’s not enough land, high enough above the water, for its residents to pull back from the rising seas. By the end of the century, database company Zillow Group estimates, almost a half-million Miami homes could be—literally—underwater. That’s more than anywhere else in the country.

In a working paper posted this month on Social Science Research Network, an online repository of academic research, professors from the University of Colorado at Boulder and Pennsylvania State University found that homes exposed to sea-level rise sell at a 7 percent discount compared with equivalent but unexposed properties.

“This discount has grown over time,” the authors wrote, “and is driven by sophisticated buyers and communities worried about global warming.” Properties along both coasts of Florida are at risk of sea-level rise, mapping in the paper shows.

Marla Martin, a spokeswoman for Florida Realtors, which represents the state’s real estate agents, wasn’t available to comment.

First « 1 2 3 4 » Next