Like millions of other people this week, Hien Pham marveled at the online video of the two-story, pea-green beach house as it collapsed into a rising sea, left to bob in the agitated surf like a giant cork. This particular giant cork, formerly located at 24265 Ocean Drive, was Mr. Pham’s. He had purchased the four-bedroom place in November 2020 for $275,000. “It’s definitely a feeling that you can’t explain,” said Mr. Pham, 30, a Knoxville, Tenn., real estate agent, in a phone interview. “Just to see something that once was there, and it’s not there anymore.” The feeling, he added, “is pretty empty.”

Beach houses on the Outer Banks being swallowed by the sea. (2022, May 17). Business World, p. S1/3.