This morning’s story in The Washington Post on a slow-rolling climate disaster has this as the subtitle:
Maryland’s iconic Smith Island faces one of the nation’s most dire forecasts for rising seas, but real estate is booming
In the story we learn that the “booming” real estate market means that
More homes have sold on Smith Island in the last three years than in the previous 11 combined, according to sales data.
…
Woutila and Pueschel lived in the Baltimore suburbs for years, but she always dreamed of living on a sailboat and he of owning waterfront property. As they scouted real estate listings, they hit upon a marshy plot in the middle of the Chesapeake: Smith Island.
Waterfront homes run roughly from $100,000 to $200,000 — far less than most spots on the mainland — so it was one of the few places that fit the couple’s budget. In comparison, a two-bedroom condo on the water in Annapolis recently sold for $530,000 and a small home near a dock in Shady Side, Md., went for $360,000.
Framing is everything: a journalist’s “real estate boom” is a thinking person’s exodus.