As seas rise, Florida will likely lose more coastal property value than any other state
Long before rising seas permanently swamp homes, millions of Americans living in coastal communities will likely face more frequent and disruptive high-tide flooding — and the effects will ripple through the local economy.
As the flooding increases over time, coastal residents will be forced to make difficult and costly choices. And if home values decline, an eroding property tax base would jeopardize funding for local services and infrastructure, such as roads, schools, and police and fire departments.
Shana Udvardy, climate resilience analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said homeowners could find themselves with mortgages that exceed the value of their homes, which will be increasingly difficult to insure.
Udvardy believes some homeowners will abandon their properties as they did during the 2008 financial crisis. Banks would then foreclose on those properties. And banks holding risky mortgages on devalued properties — you remember the Great Recession, right?