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Climate Migration and the Billionaire Bunker Boom: How Vietnamese Investors Should Read the Signal
45.8 million disaster displacements in 2024, insurers leaving California, billionaires buying bunkers. NAC's read: a legal second base beats a bunker.
Three signals now point the same way: disasters forced 45.8 million displacements in 2024, the highest on record; America's largest insurers are retreating from wildfire and hurricane zones; and tech billionaires are quietly building bunkers and collecting citizenships. NAC's read is that the right answer for Vietnamese investors is not underground. A real "second base" needs three things a bunker lacks: legal residency, an asset that pays for itself, and a geography with less climate risk than home. Panama, New Zealand and Portugal are the three routes NAC currently advises on, with entry from US$300,000.
1. Three signals, one direction
The first signal is the number. According to IDMC's 2025 Global Report on Internal Displacement, disasters triggered 45.8 million displacements in 2024, the highest since records began in 2008 and more than double the average of the previous decade. Weather-related events, many intensified by climate change, accounted for 99.5 per cent of them, and the United States alone was nearly a quarter. This is no longer a 2050 projection. The books are closed on it.
The second signal is the insurance market. In the first half of 2023, State Farm, Allstate and AIG stopped writing new homeowner policies in California; by March 2024 State Farm had non-renewed 30,000 home policies in the state. In Florida, more than 30 carriers went bankrupt or left between 2020 and 2023, and average premiums now run US$6,000 to US$8,500 a year. When the people whose job is pricing risk walk away, property values in those places cannot stay still forever.
The third signal is what the best-informed people are doing with their own money. Mark Zuckerberg's Koʻolau Ranch on Kauai is reported to include a roughly 5,000-square-foot underground shelter with its own power supply. He calls it "just a little shelter, like a basement". In early 2026 his family added a US$170 million compound on Miami's Indian Creek Island, an enclave already nicknamed the "Billionaire Bunker". Below the billionaire tier, an industry has formed: Vivos xPoint in South Dakota holds 575 bunkers and lease prices have risen from US$25,000 to around US$55,000; Survival Condo turned a Kansas Atlas missile silo into units from US$1.5 million to US$4.5 million; and Aerie, a US$300 million project announced for 2026, sells 625 memberships in an underground club.
2. The real problem for Vietnamese investors
For Vietnamese families, climate is not a distant topic. The Mekong Delta is subsiding and turning saline, coastal cities take stronger storms each year, and most of a wealthy family's assets still sit in one country, one currency and one legal system. The risk is not the apocalypse. The risk is concentration.
The bunker boom matters because it shows what the ultra-wealthy are buying: options. But the product they buy solves the wrong problem for almost everyone else. A shelter grants no residency, produces no income, educates no children, and is useful in exactly the scenario everyone hopes never arrives. What a Vietnamese investor actually needs is a second place where the family can live legally, where assets sit under a protective rule of law, and where, while waiting for a bad scenario that may never come, the asset keeps paying for itself.
3. NAC's take: a second base needs three things
NAC scores a "second base" on three criteria — residency status, the asset's cash flow, and geography — not on the thickness of its concrete. The three routes below are programmes NAC advises on directly; asset figures come from NAC's own listing records, programme figures from the 2026 NAC brochure set.
| Route | Entry threshold | Time to residency | Asset NAC advises on | Yield · IRR · payback | Tax · passport |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Panama — residency by investment (FNV) | Real estate from US$300,000, held at least 5 years | Residency card in 45–90 days | Pullman Panama City — Accor-branded residence, freehold, from US$320,000, US$2,200/m², NAC Score 79 | 7.1% · 12.0% · 7.4 years (cash-on-cash 8.9%) | 0% tax on foreign income · 147 visa-free destinations · eligible to apply for citizenship after 5 years |
| New Zealand — Active Investor Plus (Growth) | NZ$5 million (~US$3 million), held 3 years | Only 21 days of presence over 3 years | Queenstown Ski & Lake Resort — US$520,000, US$5,800/m² (resort structure, not freehold) | 5.2% · 11.2% · 10.2 years | No capital gains tax · passport ranked 6th, 183 visa-free destinations · citizenship after 5 years of residence |
| Portugal — Golden Visa | Investment funds from €500,000 (residential property no longer qualifies since Oct 2023) | AIMA processing 12–18 months, fully remote | Via licensed funds — NAC lists no Portuguese property | Fund-dependent | Schengen · NAC's file shows a 5-year path to citizenship, but the nationality law is being amended — confirm at filing time |
Read the table against the three criteria. On geography, Panama sits outside the Atlantic hurricane belt, New Zealand is the classic destination of the very founders now digging bunkers, and Portugal is the mildest doorway into the EU. On cash flow, only Panama lets the second base pay for itself from year one: a 7.1 per cent yield on an Accor-branded residence, with payback in 7.4 years, is a combination NAC has not found on any other residency route in its portfolio. On residency, Panama is again the fastest, with a card in 45–90 days, while New Zealand trades speed for a far stronger passport and Portugal trades it for freedom of movement across Schengen.
4. The requirements, honestly
None of these routes is "pay and receive". Panama requires the capital to originate abroad and the investment to be held for a full five years; the Pullman residence operates on a hotel model, so its yield depends on occupancy and the operator, not on a fixed coupon. New Zealand asks for at least NZ$5 million of real capital, roughly ten times the Panama threshold, and the Queenstown resort asset is not freehold. Portugal processes files in 12–18 months, and its biggest reward, EU citizenship, is the subject of a live legislative revision, so NAC advises against building a financial plan around the five-year mark until the new framework is clear. In all three cases, tax obligations in Vietnam still have to be assessed separately.
5. Frequently asked questions
Do I have to give up Vietnamese citizenship? No. All three are residency programmes; even a later step up to citizenship raises a separate legal question about dual nationality that needs case-specific advice.
Why does NAC not recommend a bunker? Because a bunker works in exactly one scenario, while a second residency and a yielding asset work in every scenario, including the one where nothing happens at all.
How much is enough to start? For Panama, from US$300,000 in real estate. It is the lowest threshold of the three routes, and the only one with income from day one.
Next step
If you are weighing a second base, for the climate, for your children, or simply because you would rather not keep everything in one place, book a free consultation with NAC. We will walk through every number in the table above against your family's actual file: Book a consultation. You can preview the Pullman Panama City file on NAC's Property Hub first.
Sources
- IDMC — 2025 Global Report on Internal Displacement (GRID 2025)
- UN News — Number of internally displaced breaks new record
- CNBC — Insurers such as State Farm and Allstate are leaving fire- and flood-prone areas
- The Conversation — Why insurance companies are pulling out of California and Florida
- Fortune — Zuckerberg joins Miami's "Billionaire Bunker"
- Domus — Luxury bunkers are becoming the super-rich's new architectural trend
- CNN Style — Luxury doomsday bunkers
