For years, I have argued that climate change will boost real estate prices in regions of the U.S that prove to have an edge in adaptation (i.e relatively cool summers and warm winters). I published my paper back in 2009 and then several other teams started doing similar work.
My wife asked me; why don't we make a $ bet on the places that you are optimistic about. Why aren't we buying property in Washington state and Oregon? I returned to this thought today after I read this NY Times piece about a young man who has bought a rental property in Atlanta. He has never seen it but he used an online website to buy it and to hire a management company who collects rents for him and takes care of property specific problems.
This young man bought his Atlanta home through Homeunion. I went to the firm's website and I see that their geographic coverage of homes offered for sale does not include the Northwest. So, I still haven't found an investment vehicle that allows me to buy liquid assets in this relatively narrow geographic part of the country.
Each day new products are offered in the market place. Why hasn't this product been offered? Is there really insufficient demand for it?
I understand that a REIT with a narrow geographic focus (say just Oregon) would not be spatially diversified but investors can form their own portfolio and use these "Oregon REIT" shares as one of the assets. For example, a worker in Boston could achieve diversification by having a job and a house in Boston and investing 30% of her savings in an Oregon investment.
UPDATE: I have been told that CrowdStreet offers investment access to NW properties. Ideally, there would be more competition here to offer lower fees and expanded investor choice.