In the first century B.C., the Roman poet Horace wrote, “Reason and sense remove anxiety/Not villas that look out upon the sea.” Two thousand years later — reasonable or not — people are still paying top dollar for waterfront homes, attracted by hypnotic waves, briny top notes and deep-blue horizons.

Even with the effects of climate change turning coastal properties into cause for anxiety, rather than an antidote, there remains a strong demand. At least that’s the consensus of five real estate brokers interviewed for this special “What You Get” column devoted to beach houses.

“The stock market’s doing well; there is more discretionary income for people who want to realize the dream of a tropical getaway,” said Jeffrey Burns, an agent at Premier Sotheby’s International Realty on Captiva Island, a sliver of land off the Florida Gulf Coast.

“We don’t see people being paranoid about buying,” said Mark Fisher, the manager of Coldwell Banker Schmidt Realty’s office in Glen Arbor, Mich., which is wedged between a great lake and two smaller ones, and where some homeowners have watched rising water levels submerge their beaches bit by bit.