Rising Sea Levels Reshape Miamis Housing Market

MIAMI—Concerns over rising sea levels and floods are beginning to reshape one of the country’s largest housing markets, with properties closer to sea level now trading at discounts to those at higher elevations.

Research published Friday in the journal of Environmental Research Letters shows that single-family homes in Miami-Dade County are rising in value more slowly near sea level than at higher elevations, as buyers weigh the possibilities of more-frequent minor flooding in the short term and the challenge of reselling properties that decades from now could be permanently submerged.

Jesse Keenan, a real-estate professor at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and author of the paper, said he was initially surprised to see ordinary homeowners already seeming to factor future sea-level rise into their calculations.

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Miami is a testing ground for the vulnerability of housing markets in other coastal cities, such as New York and Boston, because its elevation is as little as one foot above sea level and its porous limestone makes it especially vulnerable to rising sea levels.

Another new paper, from researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder and Pennsylvania State University, shows that the trend in Miami is playing out across the country, with homes that are vulnerable to rising sea levels now selling at a 7% discount compared with similar but less-exposed properties. The paper, which is under peer review, shows that the size of the coastal discount has grown over time.

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In Miami-Dade County, some areas flood during heavy rainfall and, even on sunny days, especially high tides known as “king tides” can swell the sea. A 2016 study in the journal Ocean and Coastal Management found that the frequency of flooding increased significantly in Miami Beach between 2006 and 2013, with rain-induced events jumping 33% and tide-induced events soaring more than 400%.

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Miami Beach is pursuing a $500 million program of infrastructure upgrades to reduce flooding. It is elevating roads in areas that get inundated frequently and installing about 80 new pumps over a 10-year period, starting in 2015, to push floodwaters out to sea.

It also raised the minimum height of newly constructed homes to one foot above base flood elevation, which ranges between five and eight feet above sea level in Miami Beach.

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https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-fears-reshape-miamis-housing-market-1524225600