Retirement in Florida is slipping out of reach for the middle class
New patterns of migration are helping reshape the state’s reputation as a paradise for retirees of all incomes to one that primarily caters to the wealthy, says The Wall Street Journal. The decades-old promise of an affordable sun-drenched sanctuary is fading in the face of high home prices, insurance premiums, property taxes, and other costs.
Wealthy people make up an increasing share of the people at or near retirement age who are arriving in Florida from other states, as many working-class and middle-class older people who feel priced out are moving elsewhere, the WSJ says.
The cost of owning even a modest condo has risen because of laws to increase condo safety and finances in the wake of the 2021 building collapse in Surfside, Fla.
Mobile-home parks that once provided an inexpensive option are becoming pricier, as large companies buy them. Residents typically own only the home, not the land under it, for which they pay lot rent. Many mobile-home communities have gone from mom-and-pop operations to corporate ownership, resulting in regular rent increases.
(Readers of this blog may recall media coverage in recent years as institutional investors, led by private equity firms and real estate investment trusts, have been buying up mobile-home parks across the country.)
Meanwhile, real estate developers are focusing much of their new construction in Florida on the high end of the market, says the WSJ.
Although older people continue to arrive in greater numbers than those who leave, that net migration has varied by income bracket over the past decade.
In 2023, it increased 5 percent from a decade earlier for households with inflation-adjusted incomes of at least $125,000 and headed by someone 65 or older, according to a WSJ analysis of census data.
At the same time, the flow of similar households with inflation-adjusted incomes of $75,000 or less shrank 44 percent.
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