The Nightmare Scenario for Floridas Coastal Homeowners

[Cattledog]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-04-19/the-nightmare-scenario-for-florida-s-coastal-homeowners

Demand and financing could collapse before the sea consumes a single house.

by Christopher Flavelle

On a predictably gorgeous South Florida afternoon, Coral Gables Mayor Jim Cason sat in his office overlooking the white-linen restaurants of this affluent seaside community and wondered when climate change would bring it all to an end. He figured it would involve a boat.


When Cason first started worrying about sea-level rise, he asked his staff to count not just how much coastline the city had (47 miles) or value of the property along that coast ($3.5 billion). He also told them to find out how many boats dock inland from the bridges that span the city’s canals (302). What matters, he guessed, will be the first time a mast fails to clear the bottom of one of those bridges because the water level had risen too far.

“These boats are going to be the canary in the mine,” said Cason, who became mayor in 2011 after retiring from the U.S. foreign service. “When the boats can’t go out, the property values go down.”


Jim Cason, mayor of Coral Gables, in his office. He worries that rising insurance costs, reluctant lenders or skittish foreign buyers could hurt home prices well before sea-level rise gets worse.

If property values start to fall, Cason said, banks could stop writing 30-year mortgages for coastal homes, shrinking the pool of able buyers and sending prices lower still. Those properties make up a quarter of the city’s tax base; if that revenue fell, the city would struggle to provide the services that make it such a desirable place to live, causing more sales and another drop in revenue.

And all of that could happen before the rising sea consumes a single home.

[pansypoo53219]

1. my cousin lives in miami. he is a climate PHd. he lives on the highest point

he could find.he is a WHOLE 7 ft above sea level.

[pscot]

2. Same as Mar a Lago

[NNadir]

3. Florida voted for Trump. Although I admire Abraham Lincoln, I think the time has come...

...to reevaluate whether the maintaining the Union in the 21st century is a good idea.

I think Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas should all be encouraged to secede. All of these states are parasites on the Federal government, soak up more Federal tax dollars than they contribute while burdening us with their liabilities.

In the case of Florida, they deserve what they're going to get.

I hope they'll take Kansas and Arkansas, most definitely South Carolina, and for that matter, Louisiana with them.

...This is only a little tongue-in-cheek.