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Comment by akshayB | Hacker News Reader

With water levels going up and climate change patterns, I find it counter intuitive that lot of luxury/premium properties are built close of water. This not only results into higher insurance rates on these properties but in-case of any natural disaster premiums of regular properties around the area would also take a hit because someone decided to construct a fancy build right next to waterfront.

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Luxury/premium properties make the most sense actually: they are not expected to last. When someone spends 200k on a normal 4 bedroom house they expect to live in that house more or less as is for a long time (they often move sooner and may have plans for minor remodeling but no major changes are expected because they can't be afforded). When someone spends $3 million on a large mansion as soon as the ink is dry they call the bulldozer operator (who is already parked outside) to start knocking it down so they can build the mansion they want. In short they are buying location and the cost of the building is a rounding error.

If the ocean goes up - well they just build higher, it isn't a significant expense.

Some of these luxury properties are condos in already very tall buildings (see South Florida for this).

And what happens when the first floor of your building is now under water? Sure your 30th floor condo is safe but is it really practical to live there at that point?

Not an expert but I highly doubt they are building them so they can be used with them first level underwater. I am pretty sure such a building is a complete loss.

In my neighborhood (New England coast) there are a number of buildings that are built on pillars, with the area underneath used for parking. Sometimes there are nonloadbearing wall panels installed around them to give some weather protection, sometimes not. They're meant to survive storms, and I think at least some of them could be used if the water was permanently at today's storm surge levels.

Most of these buildings were built that way from the start, but at least one on my street was raised on jacks while pillars were put underneath. I wish I'd thought to take pictures of the process.

Is there any evidence of that in Boston's waterfront or in the wider market? Your comment sounds purely speculative.

This is my experience in Minneapolis. Rich people live where the view is great, and they want the home they like not the home someone else wanted.

The exact dollar amount changes from location to location though.

I'm not sure you can just "build higher" to avoid the impact of ocean water destroying your building; otherwise they would likely be building in the ocean already.

Seawater is highly corrosive, but the methods are there to withstand it.

More importantly: if your whole neighbourhood is 2 feet underwater, even if you're fine, the neighbourhood is toast and you're in the middle of nowhere with limited access (boats?).

Not very practical.

A hundred years ago in most parts of the US the rich people lived up on top of a hill. Poor people lived on the waterfront where they had to be near industrial facilities and occasionally got flooded out. Now the situation is reversed.

That’s an important point. Hurricanes and flooding used to damage cheap buildings. Now the most expensive real estate is right at the water.

Has sea level on the easy coast of the continental US changed materially over the last 100 years? I’m asking seriously. All of the googling I’m doing turns up doomsday scenario articles or high tide observations but not changes to measured sea level.

Yes.

https://phys.org/news/2017-05-differences-east-coast-sea.htm... https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate1597

Yes, here are a few articles from Tamino's blog. Note the first one is #1 in a 7-part series

https://tamino.wordpress.com/2018/12/28/sea-level-rise-u-s-e...

https://tamino.wordpress.com/2017/07/24/boston-sea-level/

https://tamino.wordpress.com/2015/11/04/moon-over-miami-bost...

The last one (and related posts) is worth a look even though it isn't what you asked for because it discusses how an apparently small increase in sea level can lead to a surprising increase in flood frequency.

Just what I was looking for. Thank you!

The article does mention that the Boston Seaport District now floods a dozen times a year instead of 2-3 times in the 1960s.

I found several articles on flooding. Specifically I wanted to know if the sea level is actually rising, which should be something easy to measure.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2017...

"trends in flood risk are driven by RSL rise", RSL = Relative Sea Level.

But people are richer. All other things equal people find it pleasing to wake up in the morning and look out over the water. If you have the money to build safely right up against the water people will pay it.

They will make sure that the state will pay for their flood insurance and disaster relief.

The Fed already heavily subsidizes flood insurance and has for decades, so that part's already done

As a Masshole (I don't care if this pronoun offends you, it's what I call myself) who doesn't own waterfront property I'm not going to lose a nanosecond of sleep over the rich Bostonians who their investment in waterfront property tank or lose their Cape Cod vacation houses. Those people are rich enough to deal. If they don't deal in time well then they're paying the stupid tax.

Edit: Sorry, I haven't had my coffee any my cynicism isn't up to normal levels yet. As mentioned, of course they'll get the state to bail them out. There's a chance they might not but as a group they're the ones with the power and the influence. Every few years some houses fall into the sea. It basically always winds up in court with the owners suing the town and/or state. I can't imagine it not going in their favor if the places underwater are in the Boston area. The cumulative political clout would be insurmountable.

That said, so what if they bail them out? If they don't bail them out then it's not like the state won't still take everyone's money and spend a large percent of it on other cause that benefits approximately nobody. As far as I care paying state cops to game the overtime system isn't any better or worse than bailing out people who's property is underwater. The difference is just hair splitting because neither of those should be happening.

They will expect to be bailed out, both literally and financially.

It's nice to hear the original meaning of that. I almost forgot it! Good pun.

I'm not super convinced about that. While it's true that we're ahead of schedule to so speak, Cape Cod has always been a bit of sand pushed up by an old glacier. It's been eroding at an average of three feet every year. Buildings get moved back or left to be swept into the sea constantly. Nantucket used to show visitors a video about how the island was slowly sinking and would eventually disappear. Again, things have accelerated recently, but people in the area already knew that this was all temporary.

Just to give an idea of some of the properties there, Pier 4 is slated to have 1 bedrooms < 1k square feet start at 1.2 million, with an HOA of 1.4k/month -- and it goes up from there.

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