Fight intensifies over the fate of homes falling into the sea: California homeowners are building a costly rock wall to hold back the ocean, escalating a battle over private property and what to do about years-long beach erosion amid storm damage and higher tides. - "The residents of Beach Road know that not everyone sympathizes with wealthy families losing their second homes with ocean views. Driessen sees comments on social media that suggest they deserve the misfortune. Some say they should have seen it coming in the risky business of beachfront real estate.
"Driessen says she worked hard for her dream beach house, purchased two years ago. She took out loans and put herself through school." [ed. note: two! years! ago!!]
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"Like other homeowners in the area, he said, he only has $250,000 in flood insurance — not enough to cover the loss. His lot is empty. His daughter has urged him to give up on his second home there. 'I’m telling you — water is rising, you need to sell the property,' he recalled her saying."
The open houses at the edge of disaster: What are buyers being told about climate risk in Miami? I posed as one to find out. - "The luxury house helped me put what I’d seen all weekend into context. At the very top of the market, climate risk could be acknowledged because the buyer presumably had enough money to insure against it, adapt to it, or simply lose the bet.
"Everywhere else, the risk kept getting moved just out of frame. Hill suggested one reason why: 'It’s the people who are scraping money together to buy a condo who are at risk and don’t have the resources for either maintenance or insurance.'
"For those buyers, climate risk is not another expense to price into the deal. It could make the entire purchase untenable. And when acknowledging a problem might kill a sale, everyone involved has an incentive not to look too closely at it."
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