Wealthy beachgoers are left devastated when they are forced to slash the prices of their luxury seaside homes by millions due to climate change.
Climate experts believe rising sea levels and relentless storms, heavy rain, and coastal flooding and erosion are to blame for homeowners being in a precarious position — and the unpredictability of it all. .
Areas with some of the most expensive real estate that have been hardest hit include from Dana Point, California, to Long Island, New York, and Nantucket, Massachusetts. CNBC reported.
In September, a beachfront home on Nantucket that was listed for $2.3 million dropped to a staggering $600,000 after its shoreline lost 70 feet to erosion. Owner Lynn Tidgewell said “this rate of erosion was not typical” and “lowered the price significantly knowing that any potential buyer was taking a risk.”
PICTURED: A house on Pocomo Beach on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts. Various preventative methods are used to keep levees intact near where expensive homes are built.
A for sale sign is posted on a beachfront property where a home used to stand before it was devastated by Hurricane Sandy in October 2013.
Storm erosion in Pismo Beach, California, worries beachfront homeowners
Tidgewell said he purchased the Nantucket property on Sheep Pond Road in 2021 for $1.65 million, as city records confirm.
At the time, the house was more than 100 feet from the top of a coastal bank, and a geological study estimated that the house would last at least two decades, if not longer, at the current rate of erosion.
She said she’He took a chance because of the magnificent beauty of the place,’ but after two years he began to notice that the land near his house began to disappear, claiming approximately 15 feet of his backyard.
In the few years he lived there, he said his house was hit by other storms, including Hurricane Lee swept away another 20 feet in September, and a staggering 70 feet were swallowed between then and December, the news outlet reported.
Brendan Maddigan, who purchased the property in February, took advantage of the price drop but went in knowing the risks.
He said The Boston Globe: “I like to think it will be there for a while, but I was definitely aware of the risk of any particular storm causing a problem in the future.”
This year’s hurricane season began with forecasters predicting “above normal” activity.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts up to 13 hurricanes, of which four to seven are classified as “major” storms for this year’s hurricane season.
Waves crash against rocks in front of homes on Capistrano Beach in Dana Point, one of the most expensive real estate properties, and the hardest hit areas
Leah Hill, Nantucket’s climate resilience coordinator, said some property lines on the island are now completely underwater.
He told the news outlet that nearly 2,400 structures are at risk from coastal flooding and erosion, with annual damages estimated at $3.4 billion, if the city fails to reduce coastal risks between now and 2070.
Based on the findings Hill noted, a Nantucket-developed coastal resilience plan was created, which helps educate homeowners on ways to protect their property.
According to the plan, sea level has risen eight inches between 1965 and 2019 in Nantucket.
Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard have one of the highest rates of beach erosion statewide, according to the Coastal State Reserve Trustees’ 2021 report, which found that parts of Nantucket’s southern shoreline have receded up to 1,800 feet since XIX century.
The city of Pacifica, just south of San Francisco, is ground zero for the coastal erosion problem. From January 20 to 21, the combination of ocean swell and a king tide caused high waves. Some homes and apartment buildings have already been lost to the forces of nature.
Construction crews prepare to tear down a home that fell off its foundation after yesterday’s winter storm eroded the shoreline on Plum Island.
In Montauk, the eastern tip of Long Island, a series of storms battered the area and multimillion-dollar homes like never before.
“Where we’ve seen flooding in the past and the water subsided immediately, it’s no longer subsiding,” said Kay Tyler, executive director of Concerned Citizens of Montauk.
“We have a friend who has a $10 million house and he’s not even sure what to do with it because if he sells it it will never go back to the $10 million he bought it for.”
Some Nantucket homeowners are seeking a property tax reduction as their property values fall due to issues they cannot control.
Some are consulting with an attorney to have their homes reevaluated.
“I think we just bury our heads in the sand,” said attorney Chris Farley. “Values didn’t go down until the last 10 years and it’s still been a quiet decline.”
Farley pointed to a property, which he said was valued at $2.2 million.
Although he noted that it has not been appraised recently, two other houses on the same street and seaside bluff have been appraised: one for $500,000 and another for $250,000. The cliff is eroding a lot.