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According to The Hollywood Reporter, the rich and famous are so worried about imminent apocalyptic sea level rise, they’re moving to higher ground to stay safe.
Global Warming Fears Are Driving Malibu Home Buyers to Higher Ground
6:30 AM PDT 4/3/2017 by Alexandria Abramian
Beach buyers including Brad Pitt and Lady Gaga are moving on up (literally) and over to the once-unimaginable side of the PCH for not only more privacy but rising sea level fears: “The smaller the beach gets at Broad Beach, the bigger the numbers are going to get” on the bluffs.
Pacific Coast Highway was once the ultimate dividing line between prime and simply passable Malibu real estate. The beachside nabe, which recently joined the ranks of so-called sanctuary cities by a 3-2 vote of its City Council, remains a hot market (median home value is $2.9 million, up 5.7 percent during the past year). But these days, certain sections of inland real estate are luring buyers to migrate to the once-unimaginable side of the highway.
…
Beyond the stables, riding trails and gated homes, however, real estate insiders say a new variable is driving sales in the area to record levels: concerns over rising sea levels. “The whole ‘being on the beach’ thing has started to fade away in Malibu because of global warming and climate change,” says Sotheby’s International agent Anthony “TJ” Paradise. “Some people will buy on the land side because they’re fearful that ocean-side homes may disappear.” Arana sees a new market rising amid those concerns. “The smaller the beach gets at Broad Beach, the bigger the numbers are going to get here [in Malibu Park],” he says, adding, “Right now, prices are starting to move into the $15 million to $20 million range. Some of that has to do with the fact that in the last five years, people have started looking at beachfront differently.” Arana, along with Mauricio Umansky (also of The Agency), sold Lady Gaga her 10,000-square-foot villa for $23 million in 2014. Situated on 6 acres, the Mediterranean-style compound, previously owned by Warner Bros. exec Dan Romanelli, includes a bowling alley, home theater and 800-bottle wine cellar, along with an eight-stall stable and dressage ring.
…
Sadly nobody seems to be offering endangered Malibu beachside real-estate for $5 per acre, but I live in hope.
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Too funny. They move into the hills and will lose those multi-million dollar homes to the mud slides that frequent the area.
It’ll all be gone anyway if the big one (mag >8.5) hits the San Andreas. Besides that, there are wind factors to be dealt with in the high grounds during storms.
I’d be buying much cheaper land in Canada to get a jump on global warming and the “refugee” swarms. Profit margins have to be higher, if the world is truly warming like the media presents.
look at the area in Google Earth. Slide the Time Bar back to 1990. an amazing thing happens when you do this. you discover that some of the Google images are taken during high tide and some during low tide. High tide images indicate ocean rising under the houses along the Cove road back in 1990 and just as far in 2015.
It also shows Low Tide beaches haven’t diminished in size or area either
Canadian house prices are in the stratosphere. I’ll be thinking about helping out these poor celebrities by taking one of their beach front impending and unpreventable disasters off their hands for a generous 5-10 cents on the dollar. It’s just the kind of guy I am!
Wow, what a great strategy for actually buying shore front property in Malibu. If I were not totally hooked on New England, my other retirement site would be there.
Go to a celebrity with shorefront property and offer to take it off their hands as you have cancer and do not expect to live long enough for the sea level rise to take the property. Perfect plan.
There will be a lot of big earthquakes before anyone gets flooded out by rising oceans.
Mud slides and brush fires…compounded by roads that cannot easily accommodate emergency vehicles, like fire trucks.
One must wonder if the California Coastal Commission’s rulings on beach access is also a factor. The once exclusive beach privileges that precluded the great unwashed masses from visiting the public beaches is being reversed in many areas as real estate easements are being enforced.
One of the few times I ever got in trouble in the US was transgressing on somebodies private beach in the 70s. As a naive young Aussie I had no idea or concept of a “private” beach.
Mark, as a kid in the ’50s and ’60s I spent many summers on South Carolina beaches. We also had no idea or concept of “private” beaches. Maybe its just another one of those “Left Coast” things.
And fires !!
There is real estate going cheap in New York City soon as well. It is a recently renovated tower on the East River.
Keep your eyes on the the real estate listings!
https://thedemiseofchristchurch.com/2016/05/06/un-headquarters-and-usd1-2-billion-upgrade-and-rising/?iframe=true&theme_preview=true
The sea level is rising so very fast! Check this graph from the US EPA :- https://rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com/sea-level-epa-2016/
Cheers
Roger
Eight inches in 115 years, not eighty inches.
Thanks Ken, I guess my arithmetic was influenced by alarmism. 😉
What’s the real real estate story, like maybe scarcity of building sites and prices?
All you need to know about oceanfront property in CA: The California Coastal Commission
Severely restricts where you can build, what you can build, how you can build it as well as permitted public access abutting your property. Their power has been growing recently and the coastal real estate values are seeing the effects.
Yup the same syndrome here in NZ. Check out this.
https://thedemiseofchristchurch.com/2016/05/06/six-reasons-why-you-should-worry-about-climate-change/?iframe=true&theme_preview=true
Cheers
Roger
Yes, the coastal commission can’t make you tear down a property that has already been build before they came into power. So all existing homes by the water are grandfathered in. They can be updated and repaired, but the coastal commission gets pretty nutty about it, and it can take years to get the necessary permits.
Though in some cases this may be good. Where I grew up in Northern CA, there was less building right along the ocean, but in towns like Pacifica, they did have a lot of houses by the edge of the cliff. The cliff has been eroding, and I believe, one block of Pacifica is no more since I was a kid, since the houses either fell into the sea, or were removed, right before they fell. Probably shouldn’t build on the edge of a cliff, when the cliff is made out of soft sandstone.
Definitely agree that the actual problem (now and for the next several centuries) is cliff and beach erosion. Being right on the beach might give you a nice view, but if your house/yard is in danger of falling into the ocean, it is going to be a bit tough to enjoy that lovely prospect. Collapsed bluffs will definitely make your house disappear. Worry about the right (existing) problem.
Besides, anyone who ever took a geology class knows that the West Coast is rising, which is going to (help) offset any “water rise”.
So buy inland and wait for the beach to come to you…
We were in a trailer in a RV park on a Malibu ocean cliff, 1999, as I recall, when in the middle of the night we got the shock of shaking from the bottom. The epicenter (?) was on a marine base far away in the desert. A tent camper from above walked by the next morning maybe looking like the one I saw in Yellowstone who had a grizzly bear run through his camp. No landslide, but cemented the preference for trailer shaking due to wind which is not very good either.
Don’t forget that we also set limitations on repairs to any existing breakers. In most places, only one repair is allowed from here on out. After that, the ocean is allowed to do its worst.
Don’t ask me why. It’s just plain crazy to me. But then, I’m a kook.
An ocassion when ignorance costs you money and a good time. Ask Brad Pitt to state how much higher the sea level is than it was 50 years ago at Malibu. A good time to take advantage of other’s ignorance and buy Malibu real estate.
Not only do people that fear climate change not know the data (like looking at the tide gages in Florida) I generally find that they outright refuse to look, prefering to believe hearsay than to see concrete numbers from an instrument a few miles down the road.
I think it’s falling! When I was a boy the water came up to my waist! Now it only comes up to my knees! Lol! Where’s my Oscar or Nobel?
Arthur4563 – Nah, they are probably just taking advantage of sky-high prices and cashing out, probably as advised by the ‘in crowd’s’ well paid financial advisers, and using the ‘rising sea levels’ meme as a cover story. Then they buy into a less expensive area and watch the prices rise there because of who (now) lives there. Example: Byron Bay in NSW, Australia. My holiday apartment is 20 km south, cost a fraction of BB prices, and the beaches are almost as good and almost empty, and I can park in the main street for free, rather than BB where I pay $4 an hour, if I can find a free spot.
You got it. Taking profits.
That’s a relief. However would we survive in the post-apocalyptic CAGW hell we are creating for ourselves without the Hollywood elite?
The funny part is that they think they’ll be the preferred survivors of the upcoming epic cinematic apocalypse. (Unprecedented in “History” and the most extreme unnatural phenomenon to have ever been spawned by climate & carbon.)
Surely we need them to make movies about how Bad Science triumphs over critical thinking
What you need to do is write a peer-reviewed paper showing that sea level rise will be especially pronounced at latitude 30-40N. Perhaps you could even get the distinguish professor Mann to be one of the reviewers.
Sea levels are mostly “pier reviewed” from my experience. None of them have been replaced yet that didn’t rot first, before being inundated by the sea.
+1
…and the ‘pier’ reviewers are just a punch of old barnacled geezers.
When the stopped floundering around, they got a seal of approval from the IPCC.
Are you guys poking fun at my typing skills?
Some celebrities think the universe revolves around them so maybe they create their own sea level rise.
When it gets down into the mere “hundreds” of thousands, I buy!
ROTFLMAO!!!! This should be moved to Friday Funny’s! Sounds like there will be a beach front buying opportunity soon… and let think for a moment…. fire on a hill goes in what direction? Not that they have EVER had wild fires in the hills of Malibu of course.
Another Friday Funny’s candidate:
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/16/asia/auckland-airport-dog-shot-trnd/index.html
So what’s exactly funny in a dog ending up shot dead at the runway?
Almost all of the California coast has been eroding for a very long time, and officially, the state has control over the actual beach. Erosion controls are not generally allowed, so anything too close to the beach will eventually find itself in the ocean. Some of the properties developed in Santa Cruz before WWII, rather farther north, had to be abandoned due to erosion .
Tom. As I understand it, the Beaches in SoCal consist of sediment deposited by the region’s few rivers (pathetic though they may be most of the time). The sediment then migrates Southward under the influence of prevailing winds and currents until it encounters one of several deep submarine canyons where it flows out onto the outer continental shelf — which is quite near the coast. Problem is that the rivers that source the sand have been channeled and flood controlled and no longer provide the volumes of sand they once did. Those beaches may be doomed anyway.
I don’t know why these stars don’t just wait until it happens and then fly away in their private jets (Oh wait! I forgot. By then it will be clean energy all the way, so no jet fuel will be available).
Just solar planes… Good luck… It strikes me as foolish to jump off the “energy cliff” trusting that the governments will keep you from falling.
The erosion even extends to the road above the beach last time I was there. I did see one dinky house that had sprayed cement onto the cliff to delay the inevitable.
Yes erosion not rising sea levels. Even NOAAs prediction for the nearest location is only predicting 1 foot in 100 years, Hardly a reason to pack up and move today.
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=9411270
For 1% of market value per year I will ensure any Malibu property in full against any loses attributable to sea level rise.
Maybe not a good idea Rob. What are the chances of a California court blaming anything other than climate change/sea level rise for any beach topography change?
First real estate story: “Buy land. They’re not making any more of the stuff.”
Second: What is the worth of a piece of real estate? “The value of real estate is what a willing buyer will offer and what a willing seller will accept.”
Third: What are the three most important aspects of real property? “Location, location, location.”
In rough sum, these three axioms rule what happens to a piece of real property. The sum is rough because of all the ancillary details, including subsidence, erosion, avulsion*, and other natural and artificial causes of change. In this case, of course, the sea level rise is mostly imaginary, so the changes in value are also mostly imaginary; but if buyer and seller agree, the price will be paid in real money.
Fourth: “A fool and his money are soon parted.”
*Avulsion is the sudden loss of land due to earthquake, tsunami, or the like. Under current US real estate law, as I recall, land lost by avulsion remains the property of the owner, even though the land itself is no longer there. In other words, if the sea level rises quite suddenly and your seaside estate is reduced overnight from 10 acres to 1, you still own where those 10 acres had been. Sales price may suffer, though.
When land prices get high enough, they do make more of the stuff. By going up, as well as down.
There’s also the old classic. Land fill.
Mann-made islands.
Here are some more of those There not making any more of it
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22dubai+islands%22&lr=&hl=en&as_qdr=all&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjdis-orp3TAhXqq1QKHXvxCUUQsAQIGw&biw=1902&bih=1070#spf=1
Yes, of course, there are little spits of “land” now being “made” in places like Dubai. The quote originated when people were opening up land by the section (640 acres, a square mile), or the township (36 square miles, 6 miles by 6), or even more. What can you do with your Dubai land–assuming you can afford it and are permitted to own it? You surely can’t farm it, mine it, landscape it on any but a Lilliputian scale; chances are, it’s already built on, and you can’t change it. I don’t count that as “land” in the original sense.
Anyhow, California still has millions of acres of real land, but until the address becomes more fashionable, it will probably not excite the new market.
China is good at creating land – in the ocean too.
Avulsion applies mostly to acute river channel changes (its geologic meaning). So if a flood causes river avulsion, the property lines do not change, however, long term cutting/accretion of the river does change property boundaries.
So in their mind is it against California law to sell those homes knowing that the sea is going to jump up and get’em at any moment?
As long as they disclose it to the buyers, it should be legal.
Sounds like a great bargaining tool for the savvy investor.
…So you’re saying this house is only going to be here 5 more years…How about 10% of the asking price?
I’d love to be a fly on the wall as a real estate agent tries to sell a multi million dollar residence while also claiming that it will soon be destroyed.
I grew up not too far from there. Moving a bit away from the beach, even if for the wrong reason, may not be a terrible idea. One year in the 1960s, a series of Winter storms removed the entire beach South of the pier. I remember visiting college friends for a few (well, really quite a lot of) beers. Their apartment built on pilings shook with every incoming wave. They assured me that the beach would return in the Spring as it always does. And they were right, it did. But too late to help them. Their apartment collapsed a few weeks after my visit.
Two things about the high ground the folks are retreating to.
First, it is infested with a multitude of rattlesnakes
Like all the hilly areas in Southern California, Malibu is subject to devastating wildfires.
Also subject to mudslides
Yup – the mudslides are what’ll put their homes in the ocean, not sea level rise.
Rattlesnakes, nothing! Now there’s realtorsnakes!
I doubt rising sea levels has much to do with buying on the other side of the highway way up the hill. Maybe the threat of a tsunami would be more in mind regarding this dumb piece of journalism. It don’t take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows so I don’t think anyone takes too seriously sea level raise in our life time, other than using it to raise grant monies.
In Brad Pitt’s case now, he will be so broke after the divorce that he couldn’t afford waterfront, with Angie getting a boatful of spousal support and all the kids to pay for. I have have also never heard Brad spouting any nonsense on all this CAGW BS, as compared to some of the other brainwashed Hollywood types, so I think this story is just click bait.
I better tell Rockford to put his trailer up on stilts, at Paradise cove.
Wish we could…
Per NOAA data the average sea level rise in the LA area is 0.95mm per year, or 95 mm per century, or 3.74 inches per CENTURY!
At that rate, my God, those poor poor gazillionaires in Malibu will have to bankrupt themselves by adding another layer of concrete block to their home foundations, in just three centuries! It might even cost them as much as a flight hour, maybe even two hours, in their G4s to survive the flood! How will those poor dears survive the financial apocalypse!
Duane. The numbers look about right, but you’ve (inadvertently, I’m sure) picked what may be one of the least suitable tidal gauges on the planet to look at. The problem is that pumping of oil from the Wilmington oil field caused much of the area to the SouthEast of the gauge to sink up to 9 meters. That caused a bit of a problem, so in the 1950s “they” started pumping water into the ground to stabilize the subsidence. They could conceivably be pushing the gauge up a bit. See http://articles.latimes.com/1985-02-14/news/we-2782_1_wilmington-oil-field
A better, and much closer, gauge would be Santa Monica.where SLR is probably a bit less than 1.5mm per year https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_update.htm?stnid=9410840
Still less than 6 inches a century though. Given modern construction practices and the fact that termites like the weather in Southern California as much as humans do, it seems unlikely that many buildings currently in Malibu will still be standing a century from now.
Not much to worry according to USGS
“West Coast sea level rise has been
suppressed for the last thirty years due to
prevailing wind patterns in the Eastern
Pacific“
https://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/coastal_processes/cosmos/CAStateAssembly_May2013.pdf
Aren’t they moving closer to wildfire territory? What about “The Big One”? Have they considered soil liquefaction? Oh the huge manatees!
No manatees anywhere near Malibu. Wrong coast.
He’s referring to the Hollywood elites. They’re pretty huge on the west coast.
rocketscientist
Agreed,
But – what about the methane from unicorn farts? Some unicorns will – gasp – be piebald!!!
Auto.
Mods – unicorns – yes – /Sarc. For double diddly sure. Cubed.
Lady Gaga may be scared into moving uphill in Malibu, but Scripps Institution of Oceanography is not surrendering its beachfront campus in La Jolla. There’s a lesson in that stance for the media!
Well they could give the new community a trendy French name: Mal la boue, which means Terrible the mud.
We’ve had our fun but the real reason for moving off the beach is privacy. California law you only own to the mean high tide line. No private beaches.
“Sanctuary city,” lol.
I think this Malibu sign would have been more appropriate 🙂
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Fake-Sanctuary-City-Sign-Causes-Stir-in-Malibu-418442593.html
http://media.nbclosangeles.com/images/652*368/MalibuCapture.JPG
It is good to see the truth posted. But of course, being liberal, they will never admit that is the reason for the sanctuary status.
They should be burrowing into the hills and laying up supplies and ammo to fight off all the “climate refugees” fleeing from fire, floods, drought, and scorching heat. Climageddon is coming, after all.
That’ll be very useful if/when the next massive earthquake arrives. Sarc/ necessary?
The “climate change” angle is, like, TOTALLY bogus. Like, get REAL, man.
1972
http://media.vanityfair.com/photos/54ca99adb624d6910575441d/master/w_690,c_limit/image.jpg
Malibu’s Broad Beach some 40 years ago, when it was 65 feet, © 2002-2013 Kenneth & Gabrielle Adelman, California Coastal Records Project
2013
http://media.vanityfair.com/photos/54ca99aeb8f23e3a0314337b/master/w_690,c_limit/image.jpg
(Source: http://www.vanityfair.com/style/2013/08/end-of-malibu-nantucket-erosion )
Even allowing for the photos not being taken at the same tide (tide levels not given in article), the photos show significant beach erosion.
Now how do them rich folk keep the riprap out? [drrrrrrrrrrrr-rump-bump!]
I don’t think so Janice. In the lower photo the beach looks smaller because it is covered with rocks and plants. There is still almost as much area in front of the homes as the homes cover themselves. In the top picture there is about 30% more beach which could be entirely the difference between low and high tide.
Yes, sand erosion. The sea level looks about the same because you have a steeper drop off from the rock wall.
Wow. Is that the same stretch of beach? Not one single house looks to be unchanged. In fact, all of them appear to have been replaced by larger structures. Could some of the beach loss be from larger houses and backyard landscaping intruding onto historic beach space? I wonder if the distance from the road edge to the water line has changed?
My first reaction is that the neighbourhood looks junky. Yes, I do realize how much those houses are worth, but I’ve seen more attractive trailer parks.
By California standards, that IS a trailer park! 🙂
@commieBob – Having been along that highway many times, I can tell you some of those areas do look trashy close up. Most of them cause you to park on the street because of the crowding. A lot of those structures are rental units and the amount of money they get for rent is ridiculous.
The big problem with these photos is that the modern one is a wider view and when you take that into account I see no sea incursion. It appears to me that , also that they have built the rip-rap wall to extend useable property and may have raised the soil level. The distance to the ocean edge looks about the same when you account for the different scales. I call bogus on this comparison. They should have cropped the bottom one to match.
The landscapes above these areas of the coastline are scruffy looking oak trees and brushy canyons that burn fiercely during fire season. If I had the money I would not live there.
Looks to me as though they’ve got somebody to pay for expensive rock armo(u)r so they can extend their gardens. The 2013 picture is taken from higher up and more overhead. “It’s the pictures that got small.”
“Norma Desmond”. I take PayPal.
Kah-CHING! (nice one, brian ((applause)) 🙂
Most of those lots have been significantly redeveloped. One house, though, in the middle, has very tall, expansive trees. Using that as a referent helps to understand the relative scale.
Dear Mr. Clagwell,
Your surmising is sound. The fact is, nevertheless, that Broad Beach is almost gone, now.
(Source: Broad Beach Restoration Project Coastal Development Permit Project Description, FINAL, p. 4, http://www.malibucity.org/DocumentCenter/View/1223 )
Also, the difference between low and high tide at Malibu, CA is only around 5 feet.
(Source: http://www.surf-forecast.com/breaks/Malibu_1/tides/latest )
Thank you for the great insights — you are a good detective!
Janice
Actually the rip-rap is detrimental it accelerates erosion because at high tide the current right below them take more sand away.
I wonder how sea level rise could be tied into highway erosion/replacement (left side of photo).
So was all of that greening due to CO2, or is it from the rich preferring lush and green yards over nature or just even normal water use (let alone water conservation)?
Someone killed the dune grass. That will allow the sand to wash away. Preserve the dune and you preserve the beach.
(Of course it was probably “Climate Change”wthat done it)
This is indeed a high tide low tide pair of photographs. You can see the tide line in the top picture and when you use photoshop to match the scales of these pictures there really is little difference. Also, the angle from which the bottom picture was taken is different. This is in line with what the tidal gauges show for the Southern California coast. There is a well known rock formation at La Jolla, near San Diego, which was photographed in horse and buggy days. It shows the same amount of exposure above the surf today that it did back then.
Not necessarily so! There is also a pronounced seasonal cycle in west-facing beaches in SoCal, with the sand eroded by winter storms and deposited in bars offshore being returned to the beach by SH swell in the summer. The exposure above the surf-line in any photo tells us little about true sea level.
1sky1, you are right about the seasonal sand. There is the so-called ‘nude beach’ south of Point Dume that regularly disappears entirely in the winter and reappears in the summer.
Upon looking up the most recent Google Maps satellite image, it appears that newer larger houses have been built right out over the ocean on pylons. It doesn’t seem that everybody is worried about beach erosion.
This is another moving option, Belle Toute (ex)lighthouse at Beachy Head moved 56 feet back from cliff edge.
http://www.belletoute.org.uk/moving.html
It’s part of the ‘Brexit’ strategy, we are moving further away from the EU (600mm/yr)