- The most expensive property for sale right now in the US is a sprawling mansion on the coast of Florida.

It's listed at nearly $300 million, and according to First Street flood maps, it's all but guaranteed to flood in the next 30 years.

Just up the coast, hurricanes Helene and Milton flooded thousands of homes.

Now, homeowners post hurricane flooded houses for sale as is at steep discounts.

But even as disasters and insurance rates make news across the Sunbelt, the population of the south just keeps rising.

Ever since the widespread use of air conditioning, Americans have been flocking to the warm sunny south.

And during the pandemic, that trend really escalated.

- We saw a big spike in migration to places like Florida, Texas, Arizona, the Sunbelt region during the pandemic, and that was largely brought on by low mortgage rates and also remote work, allowing people to live in new parts of the country and still keep their old jobs - Record breaking heat, destructive wildfires, floods, and of course hurricanes have pushed many parts of the south onto the list of riskiest places to live.

So why do people keep moving there?

And will that ever change?

We're going to figure out the one place where that trend has already reversed because the reasons for its population decline gives us a good idea of when people might start leaving places like Florida.

And there's an even more dangerous population trend that's catching homeowners and insurance companies off guard.

So stay tuned to learn what the future holds for the south.

(curious music) The south is truly ground zero for most of the extreme weather we currently face, and nearly all of it is projected to get worse in the future.

But where are the riskiest parts of the region?

Well, let's take a look.

As I know firsthand from living in a place like Atlanta, the south is no stranger to extreme heat and that heat keeps getting worse.

The hottest city in the US, Phoenix, Arizona, is also one of the fastest growing cities.

In 2024, it broke its own heat record with 70 days over 110 degrees.

And on top of that heat, the south is also likely to experience more extreme precipitation in the future.

The US experienced as much as $500 billion of flood damage in 2024.

And a recent study showed that extreme precipitation events are expected to get worse as the climate warms.

And sea level rise will make many coastal towns uninhabitable.

By 2100, we can expect around three to six feet of sea level rise along the southeast and Gulf coast, which would be devastating.

But remember, extreme precipitation will also be getting worse.

So if we add a 100 year flood to that sea level rise map, the results are catastrophic.

Sea level rise and coastal flooding are impacts we are just not prepared for.

Honestly, neither is that $300 million home.

And of course, many of those places exposed to sea level rise are also experiencing larger and more devastating hurricanes.

- The warmer ocean temperatures made the hurricanes bigger and stronger and they push more water than would've been the case in the past.

And there's no reason to think that that's just gonna stop happening in the future.

- I'm not saying that the rest of the country is safe from climate change.

Far from it, actually.

Places that we once thought of as climate havens have experienced some of the most destruction in the last few years.

But if you look at the layered risks that the southeast is up against, it's clearly a particularly dangerous place to live.

But have all these climate disasters impacted people's decisions?

- People usually think of those disasters as being one off or maybe part of the deal if you're living in a place like Florida, and it doesn't really disrupt the way that people think about buying a home.

- But this hurricane season must be different, right?

We asked Daryl if she thinks the combination of Hurricane Helene and Milton could be a tipping point for real estate in Florida.

- For most natural disasters, what happens is that there'll be a slowdown in housing market activity, fewer were listing, fewer sales during the disaster and for some time after disaster, say a few weeks, and then there'll be a recovery period where sales go back up.

And if you look at the overall picture for a whole year, you usually don't notice any one disaster.

- So even if one area suffers huge losses, the rest of the state can rebound shockingly quickly.

Those losses do highlight the risk of hurricanes, wind, or wildfires, which could decrease demand.

Instead, we often see home prices nearby going up because there is less housing supply in the region and lots of sudden competition between buyers.

Extreme events can have a long-term impact if they're part of a trend and a recent study showed a strong correlation between rising homeowners insurance costs and climate risk.

- Florida does have the most expensive home insurance in the country and by a pretty substantial margin.

Residents in Florida are literally paying four, four and a half, sometimes even five, times as much for home insurance as the average American.

- With premiums so high, 15 to 20% of Floridians have chosen not to have homeowners insurance at all.

That's twice the US average, putting people at high risk when disaster strikes.

- I think those ongoing expenses, those monthly expenses, that's where people really start to realize that these costs are not one-off and that they are going to be an ongoing expense for them if they choose to buy in a risky area.

- So does that mean Florida is our one example of this Snowbelt to Sunbelt migration starting to change?

- [Daryl] So Miami saw a net outflow of people in 2023.

In Miami, almost 40% of homes face high flood risk.

And also Miami has gotten quite expensive.

As climate change makes those Sunbelt destinations less affordable, they're gonna become less attractive.

- A recent analysis by the moving company Pods showed that Florida dropped down the list from number one to number three for people moving into the state.

But while migration has slowed a bit, that's far from a reversal in trends, and Florida continues to be a top migration destination.

- [Daryl] In general, people are leaving the most expensive metros, which tend to be on the coast, California, the Northeast, and moving to the Sunbelt.

So everywhere from North Carolina through Florida, through Arizona, people go there for job opportunities, but also for the mild winters.

And people are also leaving the Midwest because there aren't as many job opportunities there, and they have those harsh winters.

- The top 20 places people are leaving are mostly expensive cities, and people are flocking to smaller metros and suburbs in Florida, Texas, Arizona, the Carolinas, and even Idaho.

But there is one place in the south that has lost population for more than five years in a row.

And this place provides some important clues as to when other states might follow suit and why.

Last year I traveled along the coastline of Louisiana and I was shocked to see so many abandoned homes flooded or knocked over by one of the many hurricanes that hit the area.

And the impact of Hurricane Katrina that happened 20 years ago was still so visible in New Orleans.

If you look at billion dollar disasters since 1980, Louisiana ranks in the top three states and people have left.

From 2020 to 2023, the state lost 1.68% of its population.

- Louisiana has the second highest rates for home insurance in the nation, but Louisiana has the third lowest medium income of any state.

There's no state with a larger discrepancy between those numbers of income and a home insurance.

In Louisiana, I think it's very possible that it is influencing some people's decisions.

- But why have other disaster prone Southern states not had the same fate?

- Louisiana, it doesn't have the same job opportunities that Florida has.

It has a big oil and gas industry.

And from what I understand, the tax structure is pretty beneficial to the oil and gas industry over residents.

High property taxes, you know, those could be substituted with high business taxes if they chose to.

So that might be why they're losing population.

- If you look at the list of billion dollar disasters, there's another telling number.

Not only has the state experienced the most expensive disasters in the US, but the ratio of disasters to GDP is unsustainably high.

Losing population can be a vicious cycle for a state.

Fewer people means a smaller tax base and less money to support public services.

Decreasing public services can lead to lower quality of life, causing more people to leave.

When we visited the state in the summer of 2024, leaving was a major topic of conversation, but there is another region that has a high climate risk and just keeps growing.

- [Daryl] North Carolina has consistently been a top migration destination.

- [Maiya] The Pods analysis showed that the Carolinas accounted for 30% of the top 20 cities people are moving to.

- The thing that North Carolina and South Carolina have going on for them is that they're good at building housing.

So I think that's why we continue to see these Carolina cities popping up on our top migration lists.

- [Maiya] But as we saw with Hurricane Helene, North Carolina is not immune to climate change.

In fact, flood risk maps show the vulnerability of Western North Carolina, but very few that were in the path of Helene had flood insurance.

- Only about 7% of the homeowners in the path of the hurricane had flood insurance.

When you get over to North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, it was probably less than 1%.

- And part of the problem is that people think they'll be bailed out.

- Of course, it's good to help people who are devastated after a major event, but if the process of continually doing post-disaster funding discourages anyone from recognizing how risky their home is, that's an unintended consequence that is very, very negative.

- It's great that places like the Carolinas are building housing rapidly.

There is a major housing deficit in many US cities, but if those homes are built in risky places and are left uninsured, well, that doesn't really help anyone.

Right now, insurers are leaving entire states, pushing insurance prices up even for homes that are in less risky areas.

There are places where we really shouldn't be building new housing, but there is also a lot we can do to adapt to the changing climate.

And there's some innovation in that space.

We spoke to the former CEO of Metro Mile, now the CEO of a new company called Stand Insurance.

His new venture takes the location of each home into account and suggests very specific modifications that can be done to reduce the likelihood of the home being destroyed in a weather event.

- By helping the homeowner reduce the risk, the insurer is able to save money by not having to pay out as many claims, then being able to reduce the cost of insurance to the homeowner themselves.

And so insurance can actually play this really important role and serve as a mechanism to then drive investment in adaptation that we desperately need across the world.

- And they can do this by using improved risk models.

- We're modeling things down to an individual species of trees, and then based on the volume of that and its interaction with specific types of materials, we're trying to figure out what the actual likelihood of a structural fire is.

This wouldn't be possible 10 plus years ago.

- It doesn't look like this trend of moving to risky Sunbelt states is going to reverse anytime soon.

And on one hand, this realization that people are moving towards the riskiest areas in our country is surprising to me, as a host for a show about climate science, when I read articles and scientific papers on this topic, I often say to myself, "What are we doing?"

But on the other hand, with all of the factors that go into one's decision to move and where, like wanting more space, job opportunities, and proximity to family to name a few, I can see why this is a thing.

As stated earlier, I myself live in a city in the Sunbelt that's vulnerable to many climate hazards.

And ironically, I couldn't imagine myself living anywhere else.

So this, much like many other climate related issues, is complex.

And startups like Stand Insurance and risk models that incentivize more durable housing are a vital part of the solution and an important step in keeping people safe.

So I'm curious, do you know the climate risk for where you live?

What steps have you taken to protect your home?

And what would be a tipping point that will cause you to make the big decision to move?

(upbeat music)