LEGENDARY: Sen. John Kennedy GRILLS Wharton Professor Benjamin Keys over his hypocritical New York Times essay “Climate Change Should Make You Rethink Homeownership”:
Sen. Kennedy: “It’s pretty bold. Do you own a home?”
Keys: “Yes, I do. It’s in a flood zone.”
Kennedy: “Have… pic.twitter.com/OxS86Pb55R
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) December 18, 2024
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https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/29/opinion/renting-owning-climate-change.html
Mr. Keys is an economist and a professor of real estate and finance at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
As the Southeast begins to recover from back-to-back hurricanes, potential home buyers across the country should take notice of the billions of dollars in property damage from the storms, some of it uninsured. The tremendous loss in places such as Swannanoa, N.C., and Keaton Beach, Fla., shows that homeownership in a world of growing disaster risk is less of an asset than it once was.
Homeownership is not simply a financial decision but also a deeply emotional one. It’s core to the American dream, representing financial permanence and a sense of stability for young and old families alike. But climate change is most likely making homeownership more expensive and less predictable in large areas of the country, and it’s only getting worse.
As insurance premiums and property taxes rise and future home values grow more uncertain, it’s time for some prospective buyers set on living in areas with high risk of hurricanes, floods, wildfires and tornadoes to reconsider homeownership as a financial goal. Renting is quickly becoming a better way for many people to enjoy these places with much less financial baggage.
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For many Americans, homeownership has felt increasingly out of reach in recent years as higher mortgage interest rates and high home prices have made owning relatively unaffordable. By raising the costs and the uncertainty around being an owner, climate change is only swinging the pendulum farther from the dream of homeownership.
Being a renter might sound like a step backward to some — a return to your 20s and 30s — but in this case, it may be worth trading some control for reduced exposure and greater flexibility. A new American dream of renting property near the water — imagine that.
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Related:
The Green assault on home ownership: ‘We need to seriously question the ideal of private homeownership’ –“Cheap energy is untenable in the face of a climate emergency. And individual homeownership should be seriously questioned.” UCLA urban planning professor Kian Goh, in an op-ed in the far-left magazine The Nation, wrote that “if we want to keep cities safe in the face of climate change, we need to seriously question the ideal of private homeownership.”
