Luxury homes on these beaches are losing value fast, as effects of climate

As sea levels rise and storms intensify, coastal real estate is seeing flooding and erosion like never before. From Dana Point, California, to Long Island, New York, and Nantucket, Massachusetts, some of the nation’s priciest coastal real estate is in an increasingly precarious position due to climate change.

This year’s hurricane season is already underway, and the forecast is for “above-normal” activity, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It predicts up to 13 hurricanes, with four to seven categorized as “major” storms.

Various risk models have shown myriad projections for falling real estate values, but the effects of climate change are already hitting the market — and at a faster pace than most expected.  

A Nantucket home listed last summer for just over $2 million sold early this year for just $600,000. A barely remarkable Nor’easter in the fall wiped away an astounding 70 feet of the beach it sits on, thanks to sea level rise and unusually intense rainfall.

The buyer told The Boston Globe, “the price mitigates the risk to a good degree.”

And it’s not the only one.

“There have been several,” said Shelly Lockwood, a real estate agent on Nantucket. “One sold in the mid 7s, and one sold in the mid 8s, which I know that sounds like a lot of money, but those houses, if they weren’t at erosion risk, would have sold for, I don’t know, 10 or 12 million [dollars].”

Lockwood just launched a seminar for fellow agents to help them reprice homes at risk.

“I think we owe it is a duty to our clients to tell them what the risks are, and I was getting frustrated that that wasn’t being communicated to my satisfaction, because I saw houses selling and I thought that’s not worth that, it’s falling in the ocean,” said Lockwood.