Florida Is Not Affordable Anymore!

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There was an article on the front page of the St. Petersburg Times today about how the cost of being a Floridian is rising exponentially and nearing crisis. I know that's right. My home's value has risen almost 30% in just 2 years. I just got my homeowner's insurance bill and it is up $500 from last year, but apparently I may be one of the lucky ones. Employers can no longer lure potential employees with promises of a low cost of living. And the no state income tax is loooooong past it's day of offsetting lower employee wages.

Excerpt from article:

"Last week, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush acknowledged the cost squeeze has become "a significant problem."

"We now are going to be challenged because of, particularly in the coastal areas, the lack of affordable housing," Bush said in an e-mail to the Times. But he added, "We're not the only state dealing with it."

True. But Florida has accumulated some striking distinctions. Just last week, the Tampa Bay area was deemed the least affordable metro area in the nation based on the cost of housing and getting around. The study by two nonprofit think tanks said bay area residents spend an average of 57.7 percent of household expenditures on housing and transportation.

No. 2 in the survey: Miami.

Across Florida, the divide between income and the cost of living is stark. A working-class family scouting for a house in Bradenton, for example, is quickly sobered by a single statistic: The average existing home there sold for $275,100 last quarter, up a stunning 45.6 percent in one year. It's the highest jump in the country. Nearby Sarasota was the second highest."

YIKES!

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Specializes in Gastroenterology; and Primary Care.

I live in the TampaBay Area, my homeowners insurance went up $1000! My car insurance is killing me! I am only staying another 8-9 years, then my husband can retire from his job with full retirement (he will only be 45 then!).

Our kids are now 18, 17, and 16. So then theu will be well into adulthood. We are going to move to Tennessee. My home value has gone from $92,000 to $289,000 in just the past 8 years! Good for us! Our home will be paid off in 8 1/2 years..so we will take the cash and get a nice home in the country hills of TN. I will not stay in Florida!! LOW pay for California prices! I was raised here in FL & GA. Born in GA.........lived in FL most of my life. HATE it! TOO crowded.

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Specializes in Psych, Med/Surg, Home Health, Oncology.

hi

you guys are really scaring me!! my dh & i were planning on moving to florida early next year-- we were thinking about the pensacola area. my dh is retired & i was going to work a year or two more down there.

we have been reading in our financial sections of the paper about the increases in fl & now you guys are confirming it. our second retirement spot was the biloxi area--we may have to think more about that!

thanks for the update--we are looking for any & all information on the economics of the area.

mary ann

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This is becoming a big problem around the country. Companies are starting to trickle out of the Washington/Baltimore area because employees are complaining about the cost of housing.

Houses in my area, which is at least an hour commute to anywhere, have more than doubled in price the last couple of years. And the traffic...well it's horrible.

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I'm in Florida too, but on the East coast, where it has completely spiraled out of control. For example, my own house, a very small (1500 sf) 3 bed, 2 bath, 1cg, connected to one other home and with a back yard that's about 10'x20' would sell right now for about $265,000 (we bought it in 1992 for $90,000). The taxes for the new owner would be about $3500 (for me, $1500). Now, the best part is, if I were to sell my house and wanted to purchase a 4bed/2.5bath/2cg, which I pretty much need for the five of us, I probably couldn't touch a 4 bedroom house for less than $400-450k, which would likely come with a $5-6k tax bill. This may not seem so bad until you look at the fact that the same house likely sold for $250K 2 years ago. And, with the exception of the healthcare field, the salaries in the area are just not in line with that.

I apologize to anyone who lives here and loves it or can't wait until the day they can move here, but I've lived here for 14 years and hated every minute of it. I graduate in a year and a half, then in about another year I'm taking my $200,000 profit from my house and moving to NC.

Richele

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Specializes in Med-Surg.

I agree, it's totally out of control down here for homeowners. A run down fixer upper that needs a lot of work can run you $150,000.00. A lot of folks in the neighborhood are selling just to get the profits. The houses accorss the street are on a canal and close to Tampa Bay and are selling for $700,000.00 to $1 mill. I'd love to take advantage of it and sell and get some profits (my side of the street the homes are not on the water and run in $175,000.00 and up range), but then I wouldn't be able to afford to buy anywhere else.

Don't worry Mary Ann, there are places in Florida that you can still get some bang for your buck. Lot of people are buying in developing counties up north and communiting to Tampa and St. Pete.

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Specializes in ER/ICU/STICU.

Only advice I can give is do NOT move to New Jersey. You think you got it bad in Florida, but that is nothing compared to here. I'm trying to get out as fast as I can. Florida was a possibility, but not after reading these posts.

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The cost of housing has risen across the country. The problems in Florida are a result of a rise in housing cost and the impact of last summer's hurricanes, atleast here on the SW coast. There is no affordable rental housing, in the county I live in, at this time. Most of the affordable housing was destroyed by Charlie. We still have families living in FEMA trailers because of a lack of affordable housing. I am moving back up north. I can afford to rent, pay heating and live, something I can no longer do down here.

Grannynurse :balloons:

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Specializes in Cardiac Care.

We moved from the West Palm Beach area to upstate NY last month. It's amazing to me how expensive it became to live there. Seemingly overnight, new, gated housing developments were spinging up in areas that had been just full of trees the week prior. Several months before we moved, the local newspaper said tha Palm Beach county was growing ON AVERAGE of 200 people PER DAY. The median price of a single family home had skyrocketd from around $100,000 to over $390,000 in the span of a year.

I would never dissuade people from moving to Florida; parts of it are beautiful. We moved there seven years ago to escape the harsh winters of upstate NY. But, I suppose everything comes with a price. We found it increasingly difficult to get around in traffic, and the winter season only made that worse. A huge amount of people (not usually pleasant or polite) would pour into the area, making it difficult to go to the movies, or out to dinner, or to the beach, or to the mall. We had the chance to make some money on the sale of our house, we wanted to come back to a familiar area near family, and I wanted to go to nursing school in the area. But even now, if we wanted to turn around and go back to south Florida, we'd find it very difficult to afford anywhere to live.

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I moved from the Baltimore area to southern PA. My only regret is that I didn't move sooner. The housing costs in that area are outrageous. My friend in Orlando says their prices are going up, but still not as bad as Baltimore.

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[ I just got my homeowner's insurance bill and it is up $500 from last year, but apparently I may be one of the lucky ones.

I stand corrected. My DH tells me the homeowners insurance went up $700 from last year...from $1800 to $2500 and we've never had a claim. (Although I did have a tree fall on my house during Jeanne last year, but I wouldn't have reached the 2% deductable, so I didn't claim it.) I'm assuming that the homeowners insurance hikes are localized to Florida and perhaps a few other hurricane prone areas.

The newspaper article said that workers such as teachers and police officers that could afford a median priced home here just 2 years ago can no longer do so. It used to be that the janitor at city hall needed to find affordable housing. Now it's the regular staff (like planners) that can't find it as well. Apartment buildings are turning condo at a pretty fast clip also.

As for commuting in from lower priced areas, the traffic here in Tampa Bay/Pinellas county is already a nightmare. Won't having everyone commute just add to those problems?

I would move since my DH works out of the house over the internet, but school is an issue for me. Florida has the Bright Futures scholorship program for graduating high school students. It pays full tuition to a state school for something like a 3.5 high school GPA. I'm banking on that for my 3 kids. I also don't want to leave the public fulltime gifted elementary school. Also, my eldest lucked out and got into the very desirable IB program at the best IB school in the country (2nd in the world) for this coming fall. Then her sister will be guaranteed a slot also on sibling preference. So I don't feel I can even move out of this county.

I don't have an answer. All I know is that the historic low wages in Florida have no basis anymore...but they still exist. :o

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I moved from the Baltimore area to southern PA. My only regret is that I didn't move sooner. The housing costs in that area are outrageous. My friend in Orlando says their prices are going up, but still not as bad as Baltimore.

But are Baltimore wages as low as they are in Florida? And homeowner's insurance? And property taxes (which get hit with everything because there's no state income tax)? And utilities (getting hiked up to pay for hurricanes)? Even groceries seem to cost more here.

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