Article updated with additional information at 6:10 p.m., January 23.
NORTH SHORE — There’s a nice house near Crane Beach in Ipswich. It sits on 2.34 acres, and the entire property is valued at $843,200.
But it should be worth $32,561, or 3.9 percent, more. And over the next 15 years, it will forfeit another $37,571 in appreciation, according to a new study.
Properties in the area are still increasing in value — they are just not appreciating at the same rate as property in areas not affected by tidal flooding, the study said.
The same situation plays out in coastal and riverfront properties from Beverly to Haverhill, where lost appreciation amounts to at least $106 million, the study said.
The money represents the value North Shore properties could have appreciated between 2005 and 2034 had it not been for climate change. (An interactive map can be found below).
The research into forfeit value was released yesterday by First Street Foundation, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit that studies the impact of sea-level rise and flooding.
Even positioned on the Merrimack River and away from the ocean, the old mill city of Haverhill lost a total of $151,453 since 2005, the analysis said.
But that pales in comparison to the lost potential of even single properties on or near the Atlantic.
One house at 64 Oyster Point Road in Rowley, for example, should have appreciated by an extra $102,377 since 2005.
Rowley tax records valued the house at $647,000 in 2018, meaning that property is worth 15.8 percent less than it should be.
But the hardest hit community — by far — is Salisbury, where lost appreciation since 2005 is almost $36 million on 899 properties.
And the town is projected to give up another $41.4 million in appreciation over the next 15 years, when 940 properties will be at risk.
Newbury was the second-worst affected on the North Shore; its properties surrendered $8.3 million in equity.
Gloucester was the third-worst affected on the North Shore. Lost appreciation since 2005 was $7.9 million on 565 properties.
The city is projected to leave behind another $9.1 million in value over the next 15 years on 655 properties.
The Local Ne.ws extracted data from Beverly to Haverhill. However, there were some gaps in FFS’ data. (The group was contacted and partial results were sent back).
North Shore properties
First Street Executive Director Matthew Eby told NPR that the group used data already available to banks and insurance companies.
Eby’s group did its analysis and then decided to release it into the public domain, where individual properties can be looked up on the FloodIQ.com website.
In this analysis, First Street added Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island to its existing database at FloodIQ.com.
The Bay State was hardest hit, losing $273.4 in relative appreciation since 2005, the study said.
The site lets people enter single addresses to determine how much equity has been foregone since 2005. It also estimates how much equity could be lost over the next 15 years.
“Even though the sea level off the coast of Massachusetts’ has only risen around three and a half inches, tidal flooding has increased by 267 percent since 2000,” FloodIQ said.
“With 22 record flood days being reported from mid 2017 through mid-2018 in Boston alone, Massachusetts is greatly at risk from frequent tidal flooding as well as record high tides,” First Street said.
In addition to coastal communities, inland towns are cities are also at risk, according to the group.
Positioned on the Merrimack River, Groveland, West Newbury and Haverhill also have property at risk. However, the total lost appreciation in those communities is smaller.
Methodology
The analysis was done by Steven A. McAlpine, head of data science at First Street Foundation, and Dr. Jeremy R. Porter, a Columbia University professor and First Street Foundation statistical consultant.
They “first established their peer-reviewed methodology with an analysis of the Miami-Dade County real estate market in the academic journal Population Research and Policy Review, FFS said.
They have identified $15 billion in lost value over 14 states since they started the study, the group said.
“Each time we analyze a new state, we see the same phenomenon,” said Porter.
“Increased tidal flooding leads to a loss in home value appreciation. As sea level rise accelerates, we expect the corresponding loss in relative home value to accelerate as well,” he said.
The data scientists looked at “characteristics associated with home value, such as square footage and proximity to amenities, and accounted for economic trends like the 2008 housing recession,” FFS said.
The scientists “were able to isolate the impact that increased frequent tidal flooding caused by sea level rise has had on home value,” it added.
