California Eventually Could Lose Up to 75% of Its Beaches

When you think of the California coastline, certain images come to mind: surfers, sunshine, sea breezes, and beautiful beachfront homes.

Part of that picture may be in peril, however,

Realtor.com reported that without intervention, 24% to 75% of the state’s beaches could disappear seasonally or permanently by 2100 as seas rise, according to models cited in California’s newly released Fifth Climate Change Assessment.

The assessment warns that “highly developed areas of Southern California [face] especially severe losses.”

Realtor.com noted that among those losses is the listing for 6519 E. Seaside Walk in Long Beach. The 4,880-square-foot home has four bedrooms, six bathrooms, panoramic ocean and bay views, a wine cellar, sauna, and elevator, the website said.

Beach Gave Way

The property hit the market in late August for $4.95 million, but then the beach in front of it gave way.

Realtor.com reported that weeks after powerful surf battered the Long Beach Peninsula, 13 residences were red-tagged as unsafe, including Seaside Walk. By mid-October, it said, the home’s asking price had fallen to $2.9 million—a $2.05 million price cut.

Now, the listing opens with a very different sales pitch: “Property has been RED TAGGED and is LAND VALUE.”

The address may be an extreme example of a problem California now expects to confront on a much larger scale.

What are beaches? Realtor.com noted that they are sediment in motion: Waves and currents pick up and deposit sand, continually erasing and redrawing the shoreline.

Realtor.com said that Andy Carter, the listing agent for Seaside Walk, has worked in Southern California real estate for more than 20 years and is a third-generation Long Beach resident. Carter says erosion of beaches worsened gradually for years. What happened this fall is different.

“The entire front of the house is basically slowly cracking off and falling into the Pacific,” Carter said.

Tropical Storm Rachel

Damage began with Hurricane Marie in September, worsened with Hurricane Polo, and continued in October as Tropical Storm Rachel sent another southerly swell toward the coast. Realtor.com said that each round of surf carried away more sand, narrowing the beach that normally absorbs some of the waves’ energy before it reaches the homes behind it.

Realtor.com called it a heartbreaking example of a process that is playing out en masse in coastal markets across the country.

“Erosion can often be seen as a terrible thing for buyers and homeowners, but it’s a critical part of maintaining a healthy coastal ecosystem,” Bryan McCormack, a coastal processes specialist with WHOI Sea Grant and Cape Cod Cooperative Extension, told Realtor.com in July.

U.S. Geological Survey exposure data reveals how much existing property intersects modeled shoreline-change hazards—the areas where the shoreline is projected to move inland as rising seas and erosion reshape the coast.

It said that at 1 meter, or about 3.3 feet, of sea-level rise, roughly $6.6 billion in combined land and improvement parcel value falls within those zones. At 3 meters, or about 9.8 feet, the figure grows to nearly $24.7 billion, Realtor.com noted.

But those dollar figures use a 2020 reference year and parcel values—not current market prices. Since then, values have skyrocketed, Realtor.com said.

“Home sale prices have risen about 39% on average in these counties since 2020, so the actual value of exposed property is likely higher than the 2020-based assessments,” explains Hannah Jones, Senior Economist at Realtor.com.

Jones cautions against simply applying those gains to the USGS total, Realtor.com said.

California Coastal Communities

“Prop 13 caps assessment growth at 2% a year until a sale, so long-held coastal parcels can be assessed well below market,” she says. “The net effect is hard to read from county-level data, because at-risk properties could see flat or falling values while the county median rises.”

Realtor.com noted the surrounding markets have nevertheless become far more expensive.

It said that Orange County’s median sale price rose 61% from about $783,000 in 2020 to $1.26 million in the first seven months of 2026. San Diego County rose 53%, Los Angeles County 41%, and Santa Barbara County 83%.

The luxury end has moved even higher, Realtor.com said.

Homes at the 95th percentile now begin around $4.3 million in Orange County, $4.1 million in Los Angeles County, $3.2 million in San Diego County, and $5.3 million in Santa Barbara County.

Across the state’s 15 coastal counties, six now have median sale prices above $1 million, and 10 have luxury thresholds above $3 million, Realtor.com said.