Study says sea level rise will hurt Naples home values

Researchers say more than $20 billion in total home revenue in Collier County will be submerged in the next 81 years.

A new study by GoBankingRates and Zillow finds sea level rise will overtake Naples putting 28,000 homes under water by 2100.

In the study, researchers rank Naples as No. 10 out of 40 cities most impacted by sea level rise.

“It’s something you think about, but it’s not an imminent danger, as I see it,” Mike Milone said. “So it wasn’t a knock out.”

Milone owns two properties near shorelines, on in Naples and one up north. The homes along the shore are the most impacted areas of sea level rise.

“It’s a risk you take, the good with the bad,” Milone said. “There’s bad everywhere just like natural disasters. If it’s not hurricanes; it’s floods; it’s earthquakes; it’s tornadoes; it can be anything anywhere.”

Andrew DePietro, the lead researcher and data analyst of the study, said the issues that may seem decades away could impact property values now.

“On the one hand, you’re having home values that will go down because it’s like OK the city is in danger, and who wants to have a home that will potentially be underwater?” DePietro said. “But at the same time homes that are safe enough that won’t be affected, those might actually go up if that might actually be the new shoreline in the future.”

Trish Kelley said it’s hard to wrap her mind around the data.

“Quite honestly, after living through Irma, it could’ve happened two years ago,” Kelley said. “There’s so much out there now. You don’t know what’s true and false.”

But researchers say people really need to be aware of what is projected for the future, so they can plan ahead in terms of buying and selling.