Selling Miami – Marketplace

Whether you live on the coast or not, sea-level rise will have profound impacts on all of us. That is why this season of “How We Survive” is all about how we will adapt (or not) to rising waters. 

So we headed to Miami, a city that is considered one of the most vulnerable coastal cities in the world. Experts say seas here could rise by 5 feet or more by 2100, eventually leaving parts of the city underwater.

But you’d never know that by looking at the housing market. During the pandemic, home prices skyrocketed. Florida’s economy is powered by real estate and the state has no income tax. Local governments depend on revenue from property taxes, which is a precarious situation to be in when billions of dollars of property is at risk from rising seas and flooding (not to mention hurricanes).

In this episode we’re asking: If Miami is doomed, why isn’t the housing market acting like it? 

To find out, we took a page from our favorite real estate reality TV show, toured some very fancy homes and talked with real estate agents about what’s going on. 

“It’s just not the driving conversation,” said real estate agent Dina Goldentayer. She said people are concerned with things that feel more immediate, “like my kids are graduating school, I’m going to be an empty nester, or I’m selling my company for half a billion and I would like to have Florida residency.”

Then there are hopeful homebuyers, like recent Florida transplant Lisa Reaves, who moved to Miami from New York to take advantage of the lower taxes. “I’m in my 50s,” she said. “I’d be concerned if I left [a house] for my daughter, for example. I’ll be gone by the time it would impact me.” It was easy to feel that way until the first big storm of the summer came roaring through. 

In this episode, we go behind the glamour shot, past the picture-perfect homes on the water to find out what rising seas will mean for the many people in Miami who are already dealing with the consequences of rising seas.