Tens of thousands of Bay Area homes worth about $50 billion are at grave risk of chronic coastal flooding by 2050, according to a new analysis by Zillow and Climate Central.
By 2100, the crisis deepens. As the ice caps continue to melt in the wake of global warming, experts project that 81,152 Bay Area homes with a current value of more than $96 billion, may be swamped. If greenhouse gas emissions go unchecked and seas continue to rise as expected, a wide swath of Bay Area real estate will be endangered. Coveted beach houses may well turn into disasters.
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA – NOVEMBER 24: A beach goer tours Baker Beach as the Golden Gate bridge is reflected in a puddle in San Francisco, Calif., on Saturday, Nov. 24, 2018. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group) 
“This research suggests that the impact of climate change on the lives and pocketbooks of homeowners is closer than you think. For home buyers over the next few years, the impact of climate change will be felt within the span of their 30-year mortgage,” said Skylar Olsen, Zillow’s director of economic research and outreach, in the report. “Without intervention, hundreds of thousands of coastal homes will experience regular flooding and the damage will cost billions. Given that a home is most people’s largest and longest-living asset, it takes only one major flood to wipe out a chunk of that long-growing equity.  Rebuilding is expensive, so it’s doubly tragic that we continue to build brand new units in areas likely to flood.”
There are 5,360 San Francisco homes worth more than $8.8 billion at risk by 2100, according to the report. Alameda County has 21,573 homes at risk, valued at $18.4 billion, Marin County has nearly 10,000 more homes, valued at about $14 billion, in the risk zone and Contra Costa has 6,548, valued at about $4 billion.
“The beautiful coastal setting of the Bay Area is a blessing and a curse for the housing market there: residents value the temperate climate and recreation opportunities by the shore, but the steady upward march of sea levels will threaten tens of thousands of coastal homes, worth billions of dollars, with flooding in the coming years,” says Zillow economist Jeff Tucker. “On the bright side, California’s environmental protections limiting coastal development have largely stopped them from making the problem worse, unlike several East Coast states where homes are multiplying faster in flood-prone areas than inland.”
In San Jose, there are 1,308 homes worth nearly $1.2 billion at risk by 2100, the report notes. Experts warn that’s not nearly as long as it sounds. It’s only about a mortgage away. Santa Clara County has 2,617 homes in danger by 2100.
California is on the list of states most likely to be devastated by sea-level rise and 10-year floods, according to this analysis, with 143,217 homes threatened. Florida tops the ranking with about 1.58 million homes impacted by 2100. Also on the endangered list are 282,354 homes in New Jersey, 167,090 in Virginia and 157,050 in Louisiana.
The findings are viewable on this interactive map which displays the flood-risk zones and details the number and value of homes at risk by location across the country.