Somehow, the Most Expensive House For Sale Is in Florida

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Today’s Must Reads

• Florida home insurance is hard to find.
• Alabama IVF services are maligned.
• Ketamine-curious? Bear this in mind.
• The Yale Model is in a bind.

Florida McMansions Will Meet Their Maker

There’s perhaps no greater metaphor for the climate crisis than this $295 million compound in Naples, Florida:

The nine-acre property, Gordon Pointe, is the most expensive house for sale in the US right now. There are three McMansions clustered on the site — one primary home and two extensive guest houses — and a 231-foot basin for your yacht. The listing says there are six bedrooms and (unbelievably) 22 baths. But for all the pretty powder rooms and pristine beaches, the listing fails to mention the bevy of climate risks associated with beachfront property.

Gordon Pointe is located in the Port Royal neighborhood, which, ironically, was named after a famous 17th-century Jamaican city — a city that was literally swallowed into the sea minutes after an earthquake struck the town in 1692. The moniker could be prescient: properties in Port Royal have a roughly 26% chance of being severely affected by flooding over the next 30 years. And residents have already gotten a taste of what’s to come. In 2022, Hurricane Ian turned Naples into a war zone . Yet less than two years later, the real estate landscape in Southwest Florida is “flourishing .”

“Florida’s business model, of course, is built on real estate,” Jonathan Levin writes (free read). But its home insurance market is a complete mess. Private property insurance has grown scarcer and more expensive , and Republican lawmakers are starting to worry about the adverse effects climate change might have on the state. “If residents leave and newcomers are deterred because of the high cost of property insurance, then the entire economic and fiscal edifice will collapse,” Jonathan explains.

Enter: Citizens Property Insurance, Florida’s relatively cheap government-baked insurance provider. The state senate recently okayed a bill to expand the pool of homes that are eligible for the insurance, a move that will encourage ill-advised investments by homeowners.

“As recently as 2022, there was strong support for shrinking Citizens,” John writes. The attempt by desperate lawmakers to expand Citizens’ footprint “will deepen the moral hazard problem, and the reluctance among private insurers to participate in the market.”

Average residents in the Sunshine State pay $6,000 a year on home insurance, more than triple the national rate. But it’s not just a Florida problem: “With wildfire smoke traveling hundreds of miles and rain bombs dropping on supposed havens like Vermont, no housing market will ever be completely free of the effects of climate change,” Mark Gongloff warns . Even so, the most valuable “dream homes ” in the US should be firmly on land, not mere inches away from the ocean. Let’s hope the people touring the $295 million compound know that.

Bonus Homebuyer Reading: When your home appliance reaches the end of its life, replace it with the most energy efficient model you can afford. — Lara Williams

Telltale Chart

The only things I knew about ketamine before reading this Lisa Jarvis column was that it helps people with severe depression and that some individuals — ahem, Elon Musk — use it recreationally . But I didn’t know that it came in so many forms, many of them unproven. Some people pop lozenges of ketamine like they’re Luden’s! And others are getting ketamine microdoses delivered to their doorstep. Law enforcement seizures of the drug more than tripled between 2017 and 2022, evidence that ketamine is ripe for abuse — a reality hammered home by the death of beloved Friends star Matthew Perry. “Currently, the only version of ketamine approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat depression is Johnson & Johnson’s nasal spray Spravato, or esketamine,” Lisa writes. “But we don’t have much data on the effects of chronic use of the drug in many of the forms people are using.”

Further Reading

Free read: Navalny gave his life to Russia’s cause . Listen to his message. — Bloomberg’s editorial board

Surely Reddit has some advantages in appealing to retail investors on Reddit. — Matt Levine

Online betting is exploding in America — and it appears that Apple wants in . — Dave Lee

Wrestling is cashing in on the evolving tastes of younger generations. — Adam Minter

Taiwan needs a strategy for the possibility of another Trump administration. — Karishma Vaswani

Bidenomics is actually a pretty easy sell , if you present it broadly enough. — Claudia Sahm

Tucker Carlson is wrong about most things, but he raises good questions about US cities. — Justin Fox

Was Navalny killed with a nerve agent? Inside the complicated history of poison. — Howard Chua-Eoan

Two humble metals — nickel and copper — will determine the future of energy. — David Fickling

Swati Dhingra is looking increasingly prescient in the face of the UK recession. — Marcus Ashworth

The total “de- Hamasification ” of Gaza will only lead to more chaos. — Bobby Ghosh

Notes: Please send empty soy sauce bottles and feedback to Jessica Karl at [email protected] .

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.