The coastal mortgage time bomb
BY BRYAN WALSH DEC 18 2017
SNIPPET:
As seas continue to rise — with levels projected to increase by as much as six feet by the end of the century — flooding will become more common and more devastating. (A recent Zillow report found a six-foot rise in sea level by 2100
would likely submerge 1.9 million homes.)
Eventually insurers could begin to pull out of coastal markets altogether, as could lenders who fear that homes won’t be able to retain their value through the lifespan of a 30-year mortgage. Unable to get insurance to repair their repeatedly flooded properties — and tired of navigating the now constant risk of water–homeowners might end up desperate to sell, only to find that no one wants to buy.
The result would be a wave of defaults — while homeowners tried to keep paying their mortgages when their homes were financially underwater during the crisis, they’re more likely to give up if their home is actually underwater. They would know that there would be no hope their flooded homes would ever regain value.
“All of a sudden we’re going to reach a tipping point and no one will touch these mortgages,” says Edward Golding, a fellow at the Urban Institute and the former head of the Federal Housing Administration. “At some point it becomes undesirable risk and people start pulling out from entire regions.”
When that happens,
coastal communities will enter a death spiral, as property taxes vanish even as the cost associated with responding to ever more frequent floods rises. “You don’t need to be too smart to figure out how this affects your tax base,” says Philip Stoddard, the mayor of South Miami. “No one is going to buy or invest in the community after that. This is not going to be pretty.”
Full artcle with lots of DETAILED stats on which homes (cost estimates) are doomed in US coastal areas: https://www.inman.com/2017/12/18/coastal-mortgage-time-bomb/