Man Gets Bargain Oceanfront Home, With a Big Catch

A Pittsburgh resident who has vacationed on the Massachusetts coast for years has bought an oceanfront property at a bargain price—but it could be only a matter of time until it falls into the ocean. The home that David Moot owns in Eastham, Cape Cod, is just 25 feet from a sand bluff in an area where the coastline is eroding at an estimated three to five feet per year, the Guardian reports. "Life's too short, and I just said to myself, 'Let's just see what happens,'" the 59-year-old told Bloomberg last month. "It's going to eventually fall into the ocean, and it may or may not be in my lifetime." The home was offered at $1.2 million in 2022, but Moot paid just $395,000 for it in December last year.

"With sea level rise and increased storminess and intensity of storms, we've seen an increase in erosion, which affects coastal properties quite a lot," Karen Strauss, chair of the Eastham Conservation Commission, tells the Boston Globe. She says the land between Moot's home and the bluff is eroding faster than is typical—according to town records, it was 100 feet from the house as recently as 2013. Moot says he has researched ways to slow erosion, including planting beach grass. He plans to rent the house out to cover the $8,000 a year in taxes and insurance—which does not cover erosion-related damages. He is also working with a hospice to give terminally ill people "a chance to enjoy the serene property." Photos of the home can be seen here.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says more than $100 billion in coastal properties could be lost to erosion in the next 30 years as sea levels rise—meaning there could be plenty of opportunities for other bargain-hunters with a dream of temporarily owning an oceanfront home. "The bottom line is, between 50 and 100 years from now, there are communities that will be underwater," Dylan McNamara, a professor of oceanography at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, told Bloomberg last month. "It's just a matter of time before those property values go down. How they go down, whether it's a precipitous drop off a cliff or it's a smoother unwinding, is still up in the air." (More climate change stories.)