Would you buy by the sea?

antiskeptic

In another thread, I took the stance that buying beside the sea was, to put it bluntly, a fool's errand.

• There's a steady flow of reports pointing to instability of icecaps
  
• The science is overwhelmingly for continuing melting of icecaps
  
• Warming temperatures means sea level rises through thermal expansion
  
• Weather changes brings on storms of increasing intensity, turning placid seas at shoreline sea level A into raging seas at shoreline sea level B.
  
• Scientific prediction of climate change past has undershot the extent of the problem. Things are worse than what was predicted to occur
  
• No one knows about what complex interactions there may be that would turn even current predictive ability on it's head in a heartbeat. Example of same is recent NASA (I think) discovery of glacier melting from below (due to warming seas), whereas the forecasts were looking at things from a top down paradigm. Melting from below is considered significant because that's where the interface between the ice and the land is. Melt there and the whole thing can slide into the sea.

In light of this, buying by the sea looks like sticking your head in the sand. A case of form (sea views, sea amenity, fresh air) over function (being very careful as to the debt your saddling yourself with for 30 years)

The problem isn't necessarily restricted to your own house being consumed by rising seas. Before that occurs you would have the problem of collapsing value: in the event anything happens that indicates the risk of being overwhelmed by the sea is becoming more of a reality. Can't get insurance, can't sell, for example.

You can see it happen: world toddling along with global warming (subtley retitled to the somewhat less alarming "Climate Change" in the last few years). Then something happens and everyone (bar those active in the area who are already awake) wakes up. Your house plummets in value.

Realities like this occur all the time to folk who toddle along as if everything will continue to go on as it has done, forever. Tsumani? Wildfire? Fukushima?

What do folk think? Do they consider future of the sea in their reckoning of location, location, location?

Are folk Climate Change Delayers (sometime in the future, long after I'm gone), if not Climate Change Deniers

You'll be dead long before such issues occur.

dudara

While I do worry about climate change, I’d be more worried about salt corrosion in the short term, and I’d also wonder if I’d suffer more during periods of bad weather

.......

dudara wrote: »

While I do worry about climate change, I’d be more worried about salt corrosion in the short term, and I’d also wonder if I’d suffer more during periods of bad weather

Its kind of swings and roundabouts, I work in Dun Laoghaire and when it snows where I live and I am trapped at home, people living close to the job report no or very little snow on the coast.

When the weather is hot (yes rare I know) there is a nice coastal breeze rather than the dead heat you get in the city centre.

ednwireland

absolutely not i know someone who is on the bay up here in the nw and they are losing parts of the garden to the sea and the garden floods most years - luckily the house is slightly higher so has avoided any of it so far , also they get absolutely battered by the winter storms.

sbsquarepants

Personally, I'd love to live by the sea. I think the benefits far outweigh any negatives - within reason obviously!

antiskeptic

ednwireland wrote: »

absolutely not i know someone who is on the bay up here in the nw and they are losing parts of the garden to the sea and the garden floods most years - luckily the house is slightly higher so has avoided any of it so far , also they get absolutely battered by the winter storms.

Similar to a friend down near Courtown. He's been holidaying down their since a child and has watched vast swathes of land being gobbled up by increasingly violent seas. Such that holiday shacks which were 5 minutes walk from the beach years ago are half overhanging new cliffs, ready to tumble into the sea.

awec

Unless you are buying literally right on top of the sea at current sea level I don't think you've a whole lot to worry about any time soon.

Many properties around the coast are far enough back, or high enough above sea level where losing part of your garden or not getting house insurance would be the least of your worries if the sea ever reached you.

Duffryman

Not Courtown, but close enough to show that it's happening all right:

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/it-could-go-in-half-an-hours-time-couple-forced-to-abandon-dream-home-as-75-foot-cliff-crumbles-34461325.html

Personally though, it's salt corrosion and the thoughts of horrendous summertime tourist traffic that would stop me from living anywhere near the sea...

jasper100

antiskeptic wrote: »

In another thread, I took the stance that buying beside the sea was, to put it bluntly, a fool's errand.

• There's a steady flow of reports pointing to instability of icecaps
  
• The science is overwhelmingly for continuing melting of icecaps
  
• Warming temperatures means sea level rises through thermal expansion
  
• Weather changes brings on storms of increasing intensity, turning placid seas at shoreline sea level A into raging seas at shoreline sea level B.
  
• Scientific prediction of climate change past has undershot the extent of the problem. Things are worse than what was predicted to occur
  
• No one knows about what complex interactions there may be that would turn even current predictive ability on it's head in a heartbeat. Example of same is recent NASA (I think) discovery of glacier melting from below (due to warming seas), whereas the forecasts were looking at things from a top down paradigm. Melting from below is considered significant because that's where the interface between the ice and the land is. Melt there and the whole thing can slide into the sea.

In light of this, buying by the sea looks like sticking your head in the sand. A case of form (sea views, sea amenity, fresh air) over function (being very careful as to the debt your saddling yourself with for 30 years)

The problem isn't necessarily restricted to your own house being consumed by rising seas. Before that occurs you would have the problem of collapsing value: in the event anything happens that indicates the risk of being overwhelmed by the sea is becoming more of a reality. Can't get insurance, can't sell, for example.

You can see it happen: world toddling along with global warming (subtley retitled to the somewhat less alarming "Climate Change" in the last few years). Then something happens and everyone (bar those active in the area who are already awake) wakes up. Your house plummets in value.

Realities like this occur all the time to folk who toddle along as if everything will continue to go on as it has done, forever. Tsumani? Wildfire? Fukushima?

What do folk think? Do they consider future of the sea in their reckoning of location, location, location?

Are folk Climate Change Delayers (sometime in the future, long after I'm gone), if not Climate Change Deniers

Dublin, cork, limerick, waterford and galway are our biggest cities and all by the sea. As are many of the worlds biggest cities. If sea levels rise as predicted all these cities will be under threat.

Old diesel

Worth noting and remembering that Dublin, Cork, Waterford etc are ALL by the sea.

So this will be an important issue for loads of people going forward.

However in a city situation Government and others will end up having to take remedial actions to metigate.

A bigger risk is where you are in a small village by the sea in somewhere like Kerry, Clare or Mayo.

It's much harder to force everyone in Dublin to move.

Whereas numbers in small villages (population wise) are lower so it's easier to move people on to other locations

Bluefoam

it's easy... if there ever is a rise in sea levels... just pump it away, further out to sea

Jet Black

http://www.floodmap.net

Have a look to see how it would affect you above. I'd be more worried about the damage to property or cars by corrosion. A girl I know said the cables on her house that were constantly being damaged because of living by the sea and they companies who owned them started to charge her for the repair.

Panic Stations

Was only thinking this the other day. Sure there's always the risk of mother nature but I'd love the thought of waking up and being able to look out at the sea on a calm sunny day or a horrible rainy day.

Beats waking up and looking at Betty across the road struggling to get into her Nissan Micra everyday.

the_syco

antiskeptic wrote: »

In another thread, I took the stance that buying beside the sea was, to put it bluntly, a fool's errand.

• There's a steady flow of reports pointing to instability of icecaps
  
• The science is overwhelmingly for continuing melting of icecaps
  
• Warming temperatures means sea level rises through thermal expansion

"By the sea" is not always 10 feet from the sea. It's often 20 minutes from the sea, and can be up a hill.

Heck, a load of seaside properties are up a hill to see the sea better.

Jet Black wrote: »

http://www.floodmap.net

Have a look to see how it would affect you above. I'd be more worried about the damage to property or cars by corrosion. A girl I know said the cables on her house that were constantly being damaged because of living by the sea and they companies who owned them started to charge her for the repair.

Had a car from Donegal whose underside was badly damaged by the salt from the sea long before I go it.

zreba

....... wrote: »

Its kind of swings and roundabouts, I work in Dun Laoghaire and when it snows where I live and I am trapped at home, people living close to the job report no or very little snow on the coast.

When the weather is hot (yes rare I know) there is a nice coastal breeze rather than the dead heat you get in the city centre.

Are you living in Malaga?

zreba

Seaside living: great for 1 week in B&B during summertime. To survive an Irish winter beside the sea? Well, good luck.

loyatemu

"it depends" is the answer. In Greystones the sea is gradually eating away the cliffs at the north end of the town, but the flipside is that much of the material is being washed up to the south and the beach there is 3 times the size it was when I was a kid.

In the UK, particularly eastern England they have a policy of "managed retreat" where they are abandoning certain areas of the coast (and any houses built thereon) to the sea, rather than engaging in costly and ultimately futile sea defence works.

antiskeptic

loyatemu wrote: »

"it depends" is the answer. In Greystones the sea is gradually eating away the cliffs at the north end of the town, but the flipside is that much of the material is being washed up to the south and the beach there is 3 times the size it was when I was a kid.

Product subject to change without notice.

In the UK, particularly eastern England they have a policy of "managed retreat" where they are abandoning certain areas of the coast (and any houses built thereon) to the sea, rather than engaging in costly and ultimately futile sea defence works.

Its less the everyday sea that I'd be worried about. We are in unchartered territory which would render normal modelling irrelevant overnight.

Like I say, it's an event, that doesn't necessarily produce coastal flooding, that would immediately turn the landscape on it's head. Let's say a significant glacier slip - which then points to the potential of many more glacier slips. The prediction paradigm (it won't happen until long after your dead) alters.

And along with it, insurance prices and coastal house values.



It appears from comments that Climate Delayer is the operative position, whereas the waters are clearly unchartered

antiskeptic

loyatemu wrote: »

In the UK, particularly eastern England they have a policy of "managed retreat" where they are abandoning certain areas of the coast (and any houses built thereon) to the sea, rather than engaging in costly and ultimately futile sea defence works.

That policy would apply, probably, to areas of low habitation. The cost to save being too great.

But the same applies when slow scale coastal erosion becomes larger scale sea rises / larger peaks in seasonal flooding. The cost to save is too great.

Anyone who deals in the sea knows it's a far greater force, if it so wills, than anything man can put up against it.

awec

What are you suggesting, nobody should live within a kilometre of the sea at any of our coasts? Maybe any water source at all?

In reality, it's a lot more complicated than that.

Going on about insurance prices and house values. As said before, if sea levels rise so much as to start claiming coastal properties on any mass scale then insurance and house values will be the absolute least of your worries. Deck chairs on the titanic.

Baybay

zreba wrote: »

To survive an Irish winter beside the sea? Well, good luck.

To be fair, I think that’s overstating things somewhat. I, like many others, have not only survived years of coastal living but did so very happily. And not just in Ireland.

John_Rambo

I’m part of an island nation. Live by the sea, holiday by the sea, play in and on the sea at the weekend and sometimes before & after work! I couldn’t ever see myself not living by the sea. It just gives to much. Beach, cliffs, surf, food, fun, sport, wildlife, peace & tranquility.

teggers5

I've been renting a house by the sea for almost 10 years now. It's in a small fishing/tourist village in the south east.
If the opportunity ever arose that I could buy this property I would do so without a second thought.
To me there are absolutely no negatives to living by the sea.

antiskeptic

awec wrote: »

What are you suggesting, nobody should live within a kilometre of the sea at any of our coasts? Maybe any water source at all?

In reality, it's a lot more complicated than that.

Going on about insurance prices and house values. As said before, if sea levels rise so much as to start claiming coastal properties on any mass scale then insurance and house values will be the absolute least of your worries. Deck chairs on the titanic.

Clearly problems would abound.

All else being equal however, the one on sea has a number of specific problems not experienced by the one living on a hill.

Put it this way. Let's suppose a few years down the line. Events have happened which point to a more imminent sea problem than is being considered now - even if levels haven't risen appreciably yet.

You are on the market for a house? Do you by on sea or do you buy uphill?

The answer to that being self-evident, the question for a person buying a house now is whether they take a punt on no such event happening in near/mid future.

I'm not suggesting that no one live near the sea. I'm asking whether you would live near the sea. A different question altogether.

Fian

I grew up on the connemara coast. Yes it was wild in winter, probably a little more beautiful then, than during the summer.

There is a reason seafront properties commanda a premium rather than a discount

antiskeptic

teggers5 wrote: »

I've been renting a house by the sea for almost 10 years now. It's in a small fishing/tourist village in the south east.
If the opportunity ever arose that I could buy this property I would do so without a second thought.
To me there are absolutely no negatives to living by the sea.

You have confidence that the science (which has persistently underestimated the scale of the problem) predicts no problem in the near/mid term?

antiskeptic

Fian wrote: »

I grew up on the connemara coast. Yes it was wild in winter, probably a little more beautiful then, than during the summer.

There is a reason seafront properties commanda a premium rather than a discount

You know what they say on the bottom of every investment product.

antiskeptic

John_Rambo wrote: »

I’m part of an island nation. Live by the sea, holiday by the sea, play in and on the sea at the weekend and sometimes before & after work! I couldn’t ever see myself not living by the sea. It just gives to much. Beach, cliffs, surf, food, fun, sport, wildlife, peace & tranquility.

I live a 10 minute walk from the sea. And share your enthusiasm. But that 10 minutes walk is on the way down. It takes 17 minutes to get back home - on account of the 200 foot elevation of my home above sea level.

I've no issue living by the sea. It's the height above sea that interests me.

killanena

I have family that live near Doolin, Co. Clare. I remember visiting as a child / teenager and playing with my cousins. Behind their house there was a barn, behind that was a massive drop down a cliff to the ocean. I remember thinking my cousins were so lucky living so close to the sea but thinking back on it now, I wouldn't be able to relax if my kids were playing outside knowing that massive drop is less then 100 metres from the house.

John_Rambo

antiskeptic wrote: »

I live a 10 minute walk from the sea. And share your enthusiasm. But that 10 minutes walk is on the way down. It takes 17 minutes to get back home - on account of the 200 foot elevation of my home above sea level.

I've no issue living by the sea. It's the height above sea that interests me.

I'm around 30 metres up with natural defences against storm surge and wave actions with a few acres of flood plain in front of me and the sea.