Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Lifestyle

The Week’s Hottest Real Estate Listings, Ranked by Climate Risk

Including apartments owned by Rihanna and Pete Davidson featured in Architectural Digest and the New York Post

Pete Davidson, Rihanna.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Ever check out a real estate listing on The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Dwell, Spaces, or Architectural Digest and wonder how that sleek home will fare in a few decades? I have you covered.

In partnership with Habitable, a climate real estate platform I founded, Heatmap is adding a simple climate risk score to put listings featured around the web every week in the context of climate risk. Using a model developed by a team of Berkeley data scientists at Climate Check, Habitable scores each property for heat, flood, drought, and fire risk on a scale of 1-10. One represents the lowest risk and 10 is the highest. Our rating for each hazard is based on climate change projections through 2050. (You can check your own home’s climate risk here.)

I’ve applied the Habitable Index to some notable real estate finds this week, including apartments owned by Pete Davidson and Rihanna. Read on for our list of most habitable to least habitable listings.

1. Modern, temperate bachelor pad in Michigan

Michigan home Studi-O-Snap/Signature Sotheby’s International Realty

Nice modern home in the exclusive Oxford Michigan neighborhood north of Detroit on the Detroit river. No risk for any floods, drought, or fire. The faint heat risk is likely kept in check by the tree canopies.. On 21 acres. Listed for $1,399,000 and featured at Dwell.




2. Williamsburg Loft that is not about to lose its cool

Williamsburg loftCompass

A 2 BR renovated loft in a former shoe polish factory, now the Esquire Building, has panoramic views across the Manhattan skyline to the Empire State Building. The pad is astonishingly climate resilient and rare for Brooklyn, no flood risk and only a high heat risk typical for New York City but the brick walls will keep inside temperatures cool. Listed at $4,650,000 by The Creatives Agent for Compass New York. Featured on the popular Instagram account The Creatives Agent:




3. Massive estate with minimal risk

Four ChimneysKurfiss Sotheby’s International Real Estate

Four Chimneys and 44 blissful climate-proof acres, this estate has minimal risk for floods, fires or drought and even the heat risk is moderate for the region. Listed at $14,500,000 and featured on WSJ.




4. Rihanna’s new L.A. apartment leaves her high and dry.

The CenturyRobert A.M. Stern Architects

Rihanna bought a 40th floor apartment in Century City (upstairs from where she now lives) for $21 million negotiating $8 million off asking price. It’s a high price to pay for high drought risk but I’m sure they can find a friendly helicopter to drop off water. Featured at Architectural Digest and the New York Post.




5. Location! Views. No water anywhere.

Palm Springs shack. 29 Palms Realty

This curious 300 sq. ft shack on five desert acres outside of Palm Springs has no water, power, or heating and has a 10/10 risk for drought. The price was cut by $10k to $55,000 cash. The price might be low, but so is the upside. Featured in The Spaces.




6. Does the King of Staten Island know how to swim?

Staten Island condo.Zillow.

Pete Davidson dropped $200k off the asking price of his Staten Island Condo. For $1.1 m, the comedian will be leaving the place high and dry — since the building has severe flood risk and decent risk for drought. Featured in the New York Post.




7. Remodeled trailer with stunning climate risk.

Malibu trailer.Compass.

The Wall Street Journal story wrote about most expensive trailer park in America where buyers pay stratospheric prices for tiny homes on a secluded Malibu California surfing beach. The renovated mobile home that just went for sale for $3,995,000 is amazingly uninhabitable long term, maxing out with severe risk scores for flood, drought, and fire.


You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Spotlight

The Moss Landing Battery Backlash Has Spread Nationwide

New York City may very well be the epicenter of this particular fight.

Moss Landing.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images, Library of Congress

It’s official: the Moss Landing battery fire has galvanized a gigantic pipeline of opposition to energy storage systems across the country.

As I’ve chronicled extensively throughout this year, Moss Landing was a technological outlier that used outdated battery technology. But the January incident played into existing fears and anxieties across the U.S. about the dangers of large battery fires generally, latent from years of e-scooters and cellphones ablaze from faulty lithium-ion tech. Concerned residents fighting projects in their backyards have successfully seized upon the fact that there’s no known way to quickly extinguish big fires at energy storage sites, and are winning particularly in wildfire-prone areas.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Hotspots

The Race to Qualify for Renewable Tax Credits Is on in Wisconsin

And more on the biggest conflicts around renewable energy projects in Kentucky, Ohio, and Maryland.

The United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. St. Croix County, Wisconsin - Solar opponents in this county see themselves as the front line in the fight over Trump’s “Big Beautiful” law and its repeal of Inflation Reduction Act tax credits.

  • Xcel’s Ten Mile Creek solar project doesn’t appear to have begun construction yet, and like many facilities it must begin that process by about this time next year or it will lose out on the renewable energy tax credits cut short by the new law. Ten Mile Creek has essentially become a proxy for the larger fight to build before time runs out to get these credits.
  • Xcel told county regulators last month that it hoped to file an application to the Wisconsin Public Services Commission by the end of this year. But critics of the project are now telling their allies they anticipate action sooner in order to make the new deadline for the tax credit — and are campaigning for the county to intervene if that occurs.
  • “Be on the lookout for Xcel to accelerate the PSC submittal,” Ryan Sherley, a member of the St. Croix Board of Supervisors, wrote on Facebook. “St. Croix County needs to legally intervene in the process to ensure the PSC properly hears the citizens and does not rush this along in order to obtain tax credits.”

2. Barren County, Kentucky - How much wood could a Wood Duck solar farm chuck if it didn’t get approved in the first place? We may be about to find out.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Q&A

All the Renewables Restrictions Fit to Print

Talking local development moratoria with Heatmap’s own Charlie Clynes.

The Q&A subject.
Heatmap Illustration

This week’s conversation is special: I chatted with Charlie Clynes, Heatmap Pro®’s very own in-house researcher. Charlie just released a herculean project tracking all of the nation’s county-level moratoria and restrictive ordinances attacking renewable energy. The conclusion? Essentially a fifth of the country is now either closed off to solar and wind entirely or much harder to build. I decided to chat with him about the work so you could hear about why it’s an important report you should most definitely read.

The following chat was lightly edited for clarity. Let’s dive in.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow