A Personal Finance Reporter Ponders His Own Climate Change Risk
March 20, 2025
A Times reporter co-wrote a guide to buying a home in an era of record heat, floods and billion-dollar disasters.
It’s kind of a lot to live with a personal finance reporter like me. Everything is diversification and risk, prudent investing and delayed gratification.
So it was not a surprise a few years ago when my wife started asking open-ended questions about what constitutes smart real estate decision-making as the planet warms and the weather gets more severe.
She was right to ask. When the federal government alters its flood maps, it can affect your property values. Insurance companies want out of entire areas, in one fell swoop.
We live in Brooklyn, and I’d long wondered what a storm like 2012’s Hurricane Sandy, except three times as strong, would do to our city. We’re not on a flood-prone block, and the apartment we own is pretty well protected from the elements. But could (another) storm of the century render the city unlivable for months?
And there was another conundrum: Like many Americans, we’ve been lucky enough to own our dwelling for a while, as housing prices have largely risen. As a result, our home equity is a decent chunk of our net worth. We have a lot riding on this one home of ours. Too much, maybe.
Everything is diversification and risk, remember?
But in the wake of my wife’s questions, it wasn’t immediately apparent where else we should live — if not tomorrow, then someday soon, in some magic, climate-safe landing spot.
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