The question has come up several times on the thread so far, and just to add my read to it: the claim that Los Angeles housing prices are inflated seems to rest in part on the fact that they're about to get a lot more expensive to insure. The annual costs of ownership of a house --- taxes, insurance, and upkeep, probably in that order --- work against the market value of a house. I live in an extremely high-tax inner-ring suburb of Chicago, and the conventional wisdom is that our taxes knock double-digit percentages off our home market value.<p>Maybe the article is saying the same effect could hit markets around the country more broadly as insurers everywhere jack rates up in response to climate change?<p>As mismanagement and environmental issues unfold, in the narrative I play in my head to keep myself sane, insurers are kind of heroic. I know they aren't really, but: one thing you can say for them, they're some of the only players in our economy that are <i>required</i> to price externalities. Political bodies and residents can delude themselves about risks indefinitely, but an insurer that ignores them will be insolvent. You could write a state statute capping insurance rates, but, as you've seen, that just forces insurers to leave the market. <i>They don't have a choice</i>. It's kind of wonderful.