Field Notes
Dispatches on climate risk and real estate.
What's Holding Up the Bond
There is a line on your property tax bill for voter-approved debt. It is a bond payment, collected parcel by parcel, with no reserve behind it and no revenue stream underneath it — just assessed value and the people still willing to pay on it. Which makes the credit question a question about the ground.
A “Stable” Insurance Market — Stable for Whom?
The insurers that stepped away from the fires are edging back, and the industry's grade just improved to stable. My read: that stability was purchased from homeowners — one premium hike and one non-renewal at a time.
The Tax That Makes It Expensive to Leave
You can sell a rental for less than you paid for it and still owe tens of thousands in tax. Not through any exotic provision — through the ordinary operation of depreciation. It's the cost most often left out of the decision to leave.
You Can Move Your Money to Higher Ground Without Paying Tax on the Way
Like-kind doesn't mean like-located. The code lets you exchange a rental in a fire corridor for one anywhere else in the country, and defer the tax — capital gain and depreciation recapture both. Meeting the conditions is the hard part.
You Wouldn't Put It All in One Stock. Most of Us Put It All in One Climate.
Concentration is the one risk financial advisors are trained to take seriously. Yet most households hold the majority of their net worth in a single property, on a single street, inside a single climate — and call it prudence.
Qualified Opportunity Zone Funds Require Ten Years. Spend Them on Higher Ground.
The tax break comes with a condition most people overlook: you commit to specific locations for at least ten years. And the exemption only has value if the investment actually appreciates.
Beyond the Coast: The Climate Risks Inland Buyers Overlook
Most people picture climate risk as a coastline — hurricanes and rising seas. So they buy inland and feel safe. But the risks growing fastest are landlocked, and they reprice a home the same way the water does.
Don't Let a Forever Home Put You Forever at Risk
Buying a house can be one of the most emotional financial decisions any of us make — harmless with room in the budget, dangerous when the feeling has you stretching to buy and to own a home you mean to keep forever. A story from the Berkeley hills about what emotion can hide.
The Higher-Ground Premium
Climate risk gets all the attention for what it destroys. But the same repricing that marks down the dangerous places bids up the safe ones — and that higher ground is already commanding a premium.
The Costs a Listing Won't Show You
Price, beds, square footage — a listing tells you the cost to buy. The costs that decide whether it's actually a good deal are the ones it leaves out.
Your Insurance Quote Is a Climate Forecast
When a place gets riskier, prices are the last thing to move. Insurance is the first — carriers reprice every year, and they're paid to be right about risk. Here's how to read a quote like the forecast it is.
Buy for the Long Hold: How to Spot a Climate-Resilient Market
Cap rate tells you about today. For a ten-year hold, the market's climate trajectory tells you whether today's numbers will still hold up. Here's how to read it.