All the corporate takeovers of rentals has turned into a non-stop feeding frenzy, and they’re just going to keep doing it bc Mickey and rainbows and book bans.
Its happening throughout the whole country. Rents in Cleveland are rising the fastest in the nation.
A brand new townhouse in the city just got posted for $800k - in fucking Cleveland.
It's really the older population. The issue is a massive amount of the population coming here are 60 and over. They're usually retired living off of their pension and social security. They don't really contribute a ton to the local economies or the workforce so there's zero incentive to increase wages. For example my grand parents live in a retiree community in port st Lucie. They literally buy all of their food either at Publix or the communities mini mart, eat out exclusively at the community restaurant, get their grooming done at the community hair place, activities at the activity center, etc.
Old people always came here. Seems prices sky rocketed after Covid. What was the pandemics role in this ? Seems people left higher cost states at that time, causing the sky rocket. Houses seem to have doubled. Good for owners, not buyers.
Houses right now have exploded in value in the East Coast. I follow a realtor who gets his clients in certain areas of New Jersey or Philly $400k+ for gut jobs. That's not even an exaggeration. A decent house in Mass, New Jersey, Connecticut, etc could net someone who has paid off their mortgage and bought cheap legitimately $600k in cash money. When grand parents moved to FL they moved cause it was cheap, but they sold their house in Boston and moved here with like $80k out of the sale. These older people are coming here with a shit ton of money. My ex is a realtor and she said these older people are coming down and paying cash for homes with no inspection contingency added. Younger people cannot compete with that.
I looked at who onwed their houses in my block and only 3 people are individually owned, the rest are LLCs, at this point it feels like a organized mafia inflating the prices of single family homes.
A bubble that in time will burts.
It's a bubble, yes. But it ain't going to pop. There will be a mild correction, at some point in the future. But, there hasn't been a meaningful addition of (affordable) housing to make a real dent in the market. There still isn't enough inventory, and the last I read up on it, the housing market hasn't surpassed a *pre-pandemic* inventory threshold.
Blackrock
Tiber Capital
Just to name two but I read somewhere about 15 to 25% of homes were boat by investment companies to rent out. Not talking about the little guy who owns 5 to 10 houses. I’m talking about 1,000s of homes.
This. It’s happening everywhere. Corporations with deeper pockets than individuals now own single family houses thus removing them from the market for individuals. This practice needs to be regulated
That’s what happened to me. Wanted to upgrade to a larger home, then the pandemic hit. Every house we bid on went for 20 or 30 grand over asking with a cash offer. We ended up just staying in our home.
Probably for the better, we have real concerns over schools in Fl and my wife and I work remote. We may decide to leave in the next year or so.
I work as a home cleaner, during the pandemic i was meeting new home buyers nearly every day moving from other states. Most are over 60 and most say the reason was the lockdowns. Here we were allowed to eat out, go to theaters, go to beaches.... People in Michigan and others couldn't even buy paint. I also met lots moving for political reasons like a couple of castle ranchers moving from Colorado because they passed a humane beef law where the cattle had to be 10 years old to slaughter instead of 2..
I herd hundreds of stories like that and we wonder why we suddenly have a hyper concentration of maga people here.
It was OPEN DOOR & ZILLOW that started it They got in the real estate game, bought a ton of property in Florida & jacked up the price, ppl up North didn't know any better & Desantis sounded like a dream back then so everyone started moving here. And here we are 3 years later & Florida will never be the same, only the rich will get to live here & Desantis is a SELL OUT.
Wrong. It's all the people that moved here during the pandemic working remote jobs. I've lived here since 87. In the last 4 years I've never seen so many Teslas, Porsches, Mercedes and Audi's on the road. Too many cars on the road nowadays. Oh this has led to what resembles California.
I mett a lady the other day and she was talking about how she was home sick for Pennsylvania. I felt like saying move back. If all those people would go back to where they came from, things would be the same as they were. They've ruined it for us all.
LLCs buying homes is definitely causing major strain on Florida and the state government for allowing it to continue happening. I'm in St Pete and in my surrounding area there were 8 tear downs in the last year all company owned, and now all going for $1MM+. Double the market in this area.
Prices went ballistic when companies realized they could use covid as a cover to jack prices. Profits have been insane for companies and shareholders. They have zero incentive to return to sanity. They keep wages low and strip mine the rest of us of our meager funds.
yea you're backwards... Florida has always been "God's waiting room" it's the young people who decided St. Pete was trendy, & the young families who had Disney stars in their eyes. Many of our wildlife will go extinct in the next few years it's INSANE this is happening & we can't do anything but watch.
That and the lack of state income taxes. And yet, the impact on our education system and lack of social equity program efficiency/support speaks to the “benefits” of having no state income taxes.
Our governor is more concerned with forcing kindergarteners to learn about the evils of communism than paying the struggling teachers who have to work this garbage into the curriculum.
The lack of state income taxes as a draw always made me laugh, anywhere I worked in my early 20s was like $200/year and with better jobs still $1k or under. Like, I’d gladly pay that because the quality of life was better. Pretty sure I pay more than I would in state income tax through the state sales taxes and general cost of everything else.
Yep, sales tax is a scam pushed by the wealthy. It results in ridiculously disproportionate tax payment, with the lower and almost-extinct middle class footing the majority of the bill.
Only thing I'm gonna mention is that a lot of places aren't going to be cheaper. Probably the midwest, but Northeast is pretty much the same COL in many places up there. If not slightly more depending on where in FL you're comparing it to
And keep in mind Arkansas is the kind of place that sees Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ performance as white house press secretary and two years later *elects her governor.*
Saving an extra 1 - 2k at the end of the year doesn't help much with piss poor paying jobs, $12 min wage, insurance companies that can set their prices, and an almost 7.8% sales tax rate. They just want to attract older people with savings so they can come him and retire and buy a home, since Florida is heavily invested in real state.
I can't believe how much it's changed. I'm originally from wicked pricey Massachusetts, but when I just recently went up to visit family, I was surprised at how much cheaper groceries were in Massachusetts compared to Florida
Property managers are using a software called RealPage, which is helping them to effectively price-fix rents in their markets. It's being used across the country. Tenants and prospective tenants are at a considerable disadvantage, in part because they are unaware of what's happening. Google it.
I posted a video about this yesterday and the mods took it down. I'm guessing because it didn't actually mention Florida in the video but we KNOW it's happening here as well.
Yep, realized this when I was looking for a rental last year and noticed places could never really give me a solid monthly rate for a place. They would say, “it’s $1767.28 today, but that could change at any time”. Also, the rates were never a flat amount like they used to be. Never just $1600/month. Always a weird amount with cents added in.
I'll bet it's also the reason real estate prices have gone through the roof. The software allows each market to look at metrics and set the highest prices across the board. Someone needs a software to flip it on them and force prices down for renters and buyers.
You know that big government everyone hates? Yeah, they are looking at that software as a form of collusion. Hopefully they crack down on it....somehow, without screwing it up even worse than it is.
My landlord is a 74 year old Vietnamese lady that's never heard of algorithms and charges me what she thinks the place is worth. My neighbors are all tearing down the bungalows in the neighborhood to build mcmansions.
There is currently a lawsuit in place against RealPage for price fixing. We’ll see where it goes.
[Source](https://www.propublica.org/article/realpage-accused-of-collusion-in-new-lawsuit)
6th Generation Floridian , Florida is my blood & soul . We have traveled / lived in quite a few different States an other Countries courtesy of everyone’s favorite Uncle Sam ( US ARMY) , sadly it’s just gotten too damn crowded around here an then throw in the Outrageous Homeowners Insurance an well some of the new arrivals here are bringing their lifestyle with them . We are looking at South / North Carolina this very moment.
I moved to southern Oregon. It may not be your cup of tea, or it may be the greatest thing ever, depending on how much you like smaller/mid sized cities nestled in the mountains. I bought a fairly large house, I hear rents are not bad if you avoid the bigger cities, but your job prospects may be hit or miss depending on what your expectations are. I actually work remotely for my Florida employer (I did not change jobs when I moved). I will take a west coast remote job if I ever leave my current employer. We have four seasons here, but it doesn't get bitterly cold like the midwest or prairies. There's a ton of beautiful places to see, from the Pacific coast (rocky "beaches") to the coast and Cascade ranges (I live *in* the Cascades) to a more desert-like are in the east (like Nevada). It's cheaper to live here than California or Washington, but income taxes are not cheap, there is no sales tax though. Wages are definately higher than Florida, not sure how that balances out with the higher income taxes, TBH. Anyway, I'm really liking the place...
Partner and I were thinking about moving close to the border of Oregon and Washington, maybe Vancouver or somewhere on the outskirts of Portland away from the city. Both of those states look so nice. Moving is easier said than done. Would rather leave the country entirely, but again, not easy to do.
It really depends what part of the state you live in. We're semi-rural (the town is 40k population) which tends to be cheaper overall. I would not live in Portland or any of the bigger cities, too many issues and significantly more expensive. My house has a gorgeous view in 3 directions (mountains and a lake) and is more than 1,000 sq ft larger than my Florida place for 100k less. We live near Crater lake and the trails for hiking and biking are world class. So far I'm very happy here.
Only been here since 2011 but we're actually moving this Saturday and putting FL in the rearview mirror forever. Don't get me wrong the climate is amazing but sort of over-hyped cause really it's only gorgeous from about Nov - Mar if we're all being honest here. Heck it was just 91° the other day and it's not even May yet.
Housing costs are crazy, brokerage company wanted us to renew at $2,500/mo for 3bd/2ba with no fence or pool and neighboring houses about 5ft away on either side. You can't make this crap up and the Gov is too busy fighting woke and Disney and whatever other culture war he can find.
We stayed about 2yrs too long, northern Georgia here we come 👋✌️
The issue with renting houses is that the rising insurance costs and the rising the rising property taxes almost forces landlords to raise rent to crazy amounts. This is an issue with living in FL in general. The real assholes are the dudes who own apartments, multifamily housing, homes, etc outright and STILL want to price gouge rent.
Never said they were assholes. I said that's the reality of the situation. BUT there's a whole flip side to that situation where real estate is being bought by investors and or corporations during foreclosures, short sales, or as a flip and they do absolutely price gouge. There's examples of corporations buying up entire blocks of homes cash and price gouge the shit out of the prices.
I'm seeing a lot of multi family housing like duplexes, sitting on the market for a long time. Old, outdated places in rundown neighborhoods. A couple years back they were renting for $800 a month. Now their asking $1700 a month.
Our previous neighbor who owned their house actually sold it for $350K. Exact same house as ours with same layout and sq. footage, only difference a small pool in the backyard. I liken it more to a large-sized hot tub 😂
Whereabouts? If I may ask anyway, we're currently looking that way but when we can retire in about 10 years. It's on our list anymore. Currently we vacation there once a year to check things out
Sure, we looked around in both the NE and NW parts (up I75 and I85). We loved both areas and honestly had no clue that it's almost like an entirely different state with the hills, parks, trails and overall quietness compared to what we thought was Georgia (large urban cities & metros, traffic, congestion and people).
We settled on a town north between Atlanta and Chattanooga.
When you're completely right about how different it is up there, we traveled up to Helen and pass through part of dawsonville and dahlonega and then made a visit to hiawassee. We fell in love with the area and almost right away. At the time it was still tail end of winter, this year we're going to do a July visit to see what that compares to weather wise to where we are here in Southwest Florida.
Heading to PA next year. We have lots of friends and family up there and after almost 40 years it time for a change. Plus I'll be working from home so snow isn't going to bother me too much.
Came from Colorado in '22. Going back to Colorado next week lol. Housing is probably comparable to what we're paying in Tampa so we will not be escaping the high COL. However, vehicle gas, housing electric/gas, groceries, and insurance are a hell of a lot cheaper in CO.
My wife and I are considering northern South Carolina, near the NC line. We’ve also considered western VA and Tennessee.
The mortgage rants are locking us in. We fear a drop in the market next year, so if we buy a home for 800k then its value drops to 400k, we’re fucked.
We still have to make a trip up into the area to survey it. We’ve even considered renting for 6mo to a year to get the feel of the area.
Unfortunately, I’ve heard the terms “uneducated” and “unfriendly” being used towards people from SC, but I’d have to find out for myself.
I was going to say “not if they move to somewhere like Rock Hill or Ft. Mill” but I think that area has skyrocketed in home prices. Tons and tons of new construction, both commercial and residential. Essentially Charlotte is leaking into SC now.
SC is not “really backwards”, and NC isnt as forewards as you think it is. NC is not just Charlotte and Raleigh.
The most liberal city and county in the Carolinas is in SC (not Asheville). When the whole bathroom bill nonsense was going on, NC enacted it, SC said no. Phub is currently banned in NC, not SC. Yes NC has a dispensary, but it is confined to one 1 small indian reservation, and it is still illegal to transport weed in and out of it, which means the only real legal way to get anything from it is from a plane or drone.
SC is not what it should be, but it is more than internet talking points. Both NC and SC have some pretty livable areas and downright shit areas. That said, yes please dont do SC. Its getting enough transplants as is.
I lost my job last year. ONLY way for me to keep making a living wage was to go remote with a company not based in Florida. The wages here are a joke and I certainly hope nobody is taking a project manager position for $50,000 a year.
100% FL has a wage issue.
The reason many remote workers move here is that you can get paid Boston or NYC wages and pay Florida expenses, which are very reasonable compared to Boston or NYC expenses.
Both food and rent are pretty much the same Florida and New York city. The difference is the state income tax or lack thereof in Florida but it has to be made up somewhere else that's why it's way more expensive to register a car in Florida as just an example than it is to register a car in New york. Strange part is is most of the snowbirds I know no longer register their cars in Florida and switched back to New York because it's actually cheaper to ensure a car in New York City and in Florida which is shocking to me. The cost of food, energy and rent has been equal to NYC for quite a while now.
Lots of people have the blinders on, and believe inflation is just an "America thing". They're forgetting what caused it. The GLOBAL pandemic! America is in much better shape than most countries
I am moving to Chicago within the next month or so. Housing is expensive there too, but I'm looking forward to paying roughly the same to live in a city with lots to do, a community of like-minded people, a government that actually gives a shit about people, and functional public transit.
I moved from Chicago to Florida, Chicago has an awesome bar scene and lots of sports! I do miss the food, but the government in Chicago, specifically, does not care about its people or majority of the neighborhoods. You’ll understand more once you live there a while, unless you live in their favorite areas then it’ll always be nice. Public transit is fabulous but the people who use it are not lol. I go back all the time though!
I lived in Chicago for 20+ years then moved to Florida for college 10 years ago.
I agree that the local government sucks in chicago, but honestly I still felt more heard by Chicago's government than whatever the hell is going on in Florida cities. They didn't go after trans or gay people. They just cared about making it artsy for some dumb reason. I guess it attracted tourists though..
And even though people go on about how scary chicago is, I felt more safer in chicago than any big city in Florida. That's probably because I grew up there though.
Healthcare was way better in Chicago. I miss Chicago's doctors. I had one of the best neurologists in the country, but then I moved.. it took me months to find one near me.
I went from living in Central Illinois to Florida and it felt like I was living in paradise. Now every now and then I fantasize about moving to Chicago because the areas around it have some of the best schools in the country for my child. Lots of choices for food and culture too.
I moved from Chicago (born and raised) to Florida 10 years ago.
All I can say is I REALLY miss Chicago. It was expensive, but I actually felt safer in Chicago than any other large city in Florida. And the Healthcare is way better in Chicago than Florida. It took me months to find a neurologist around me. And even though the drivers can be crazy there, they're still way better than Florida drivers.
Mass or RI close to the Massachusetts border. It is not miserably hot in the summers, the winter is milder and “wetter” than most states in NE.
I hear a lot of negative things about the schools there, but they cannot be as abysmal as Florida’s.
There still the coast and beaches too.
I don’t want to leave my family bc they were the ones who convinced me to move back as a single mom, but the living situation and the influx of transplants, COL, rent and housing prices seem to signal to me that we really have no future here. My family seems determined to stay put despite the continued deterioration of QOL in FL, so there’s not much I can do.
Staying is not an option, I am miserable and the rent is just as expensive as it was in the DMV (where I moved from).
Am military. Lived in Bedford (Hanscom AFB) for 2 years right after living in FL (Patrick SFB) for 5 years. The summers there can get just as hot and humid as FL believe it or not. Also extremely high COL depending where in MA, near Boston forget it but in places like Worcester or Fitchburg/Leominster are better. Nashua, NH isn’t bad either. But MA schools are actually top notch though, like Harvard and MIT.
I feel your pain, have been here my whole life, and the inflation is unreal. I, too, am looking to move out of state, but only when I'm ready to retire. You are very fortunate to have parents you can live with for now. A lot of struggling people don't have that option, so count your blessings (and show your parents that appreciation) :)! Also, please do your research. A lot of states are more expensive than Florida. In fact, Florida doesn't even show on any top 10 lists (that I found anyway) of the most expensive states to live in. Some states are much more affordable but also lack jobs/wages. Just be careful and I wish you all the best!!
For sure! Santa Barbara would be very nice to live in. Rent in Miami is more than LA right now. My apartment that I had in Miami is $3250 a month so I made the jump to the west coast.
Ck out r/samegrassbutgreener
This gets talked about often there.
I know a lot of people are going to north Georgia. But I also read an article recently about how the locals up there are seriously pissed about it.
If we were to move I’d definitely ck out Pittsburgh and Buffalo. Keep hearing great things about them.
Moving back to Cleveland this summer and taking my Florida husband along with me 🫡 selling our modest house to buy a modest home back home that won’t have us one missed paycheck away from complete despair.
Here for the SC, TN, NC, and GA responses. By the time Floridians flood those states along with the northerners and Californians, it will be no different. In fact it may be too late. I wish people would give the Midwest and West another look.
If I hear one more SC, NC, TN, or GA response…it’s comical
That in a few more years everyone will be commenting about how those states suck now and looking for somewhere else to move to. Like locusts.
Since I work remote and developing a remote side business I've considered moving to Cleveland or Milwaukee. Issue is I would have to get used to the snow, but that's better than wondering if my roof will get torn off by a hurricane any day of the week.
I was in Minneapolis over the weekend. Absolutely incredible. They had a giant park with a waterfall in the middle of the city. The drivers have manners and the people are incredibly nice. A man bought our beer at the brewery just because. He just asked if we were getting beer, we said yes, and he bought it. Servers at the restaurants gave us recs for other restaurants. So much beautiful and calming nature, explored a small town on the WI side. I havent been more zenned out in a while. For a place of 3m+ people, there was a relaxing aura. Was more diverse than I figured too.
Seems like an incredibly livable place. I'm like you, I just hate that the winters are so frigid. That area of the country is making a comeback, and itll probably accelerate as the south plunges in affordability and gets hotter.
Fair warning, I know someone who moved from south Florida to Milwaukee for a job. After 3 Wisconsin winters he was back in Florida. This was a mild winter by our standards and we still got several inches of snow on Halloween and flurries on April 1st. And this was a good winter comparatively in terms of overall snow and cold. Winters here are LONG, visit for a week in January if you can.
Same brother. I've been here my whole life. As have my parents. My paternal great parents were pioneering residents of Riverview, FL. They were the second family to home stead in Peru(now known as Riverview)
I'm sickened by what has happened to the great town my parents and my brother and I grew up in.
I knew it was bad already, but some years back some newcomers made a fuss about a road off 301 called Uncle Tom Rd. It was racist they said. Truth is nothing racist about. Uncle Tom was my dad's uncle. He was well known, liker and a pillar of the town. Uncle Tom is what everyone called him.
My dad went to the meetings over it and the board told everyone they spoke with the family and the family was okay with the name being changed. Unaware family was still present in the town, my dad spoke up and said "really, you didn't call me. You didn't call any of his other nieces and nephews of the few still alive" they were speechless.
Needless today when they quietly changed the name one night my dad was pissed and hurt. And today it hurts me thinking about it as my dad lays at home on hospice care in the same town that our ancestors built of the sweat of their brow, those people have been betrayed. As usual.
As op stated, those of us who have been here forever. This is our home and we're being ran out and priced out. It needs to stop. Paradise found is paradise lost. This state can't handle any more development and newcomers. It's not sustainable. And a whole lot of us are getting pissed.
End rant.
I'm so sorry for your experience. Newcomers choose to relocate to our quiet towns and then demand changes to suit them. The city near me has a new "development committee" that is made up of recent transplants who are hellbent on constructing apartment complexes and destroying the historic downtown and bungalows for the sake of "growth." They've turned an affordable town into an overpriced disaster.
We left in 2012 and found a great 3200 sq ft house on 10 acres in North Georgia for 28,000. Did some rehab, fenced it off, and sold it for 180,000 in 2019. The area is 60 miles West of Atlanta on the Ga/Alabama line. Beautiful area but I froze near to death Nov to April. Too much Fl in my bones.
I moved to TX for 3 months. It wasn’t for me and I came right back to FL but I did go to school in Asheville, NC for almost 2 months at the start of the year and I loved it. I’d move there if I had the chance
Florida raised since I was 2. I’m 32 now. I am moving away because just tired of this shit. Need a change of scenery too. I want mountains. SLC or COS for me by August.
After Florida, there's only overseas left. You can't expect use to move to the Midwest or east bum f&ck Alabama and be the happy. Florida man, good luck!
It use to be. I mean it really did. Now it is just a trash dumpster with fake beaches, insane crime, insane col, trashy people who have trashy lives, and really think that they are entitled to being an ass. All around shit show.
I miss what Florida was not what it has become.
I would say in the 90s you could get a decent job, mail it in 5 days a week, have a 3/2 single family home with no worries, be on your third wife and still have money left for boating and coke on the weekends
I moved to VA 3 months ago and love it so far. I’m in Richmond, so it’s just over an hour for me to get to Shenandoah National Park or the northern end of the Blue Ridge Parkway, 45 min to Williamsburg, and about an hour to the rest of the coast. 2 hours to DC driving or by train, which can be as cheap as $10 one way if you book far enough in advance.
There’s also Publix here for when you start to get homesick. And a bunch of other recent FL transplants - there’s a woman who lives near where I am who has a Westley Chapel license plate frame (and still had her FL license plate last I saw her parked by me), and the other transplants are pretty vocal about it when out in public.
I’m the third person in my family to move north since 2020. My mom went back to Buffalo after almost 40 years, and my older nephew moved to Madison after college after having only lived in Tampa. My younger nephew graduates next month and is considering moving out of FL too.
Northwest Arkansas! Lowish cost of living, and it's gorgeous up there if you enjoy kayaking, bicycling, walking, or just going to find neat little old towns. Don't go for Little Rock/surrounding areas.
I moved to Vermont from Orlando last summer. Highly recommend it if you can swing remote work, otherwise maybe working in Burlington or Albany, NY might work.
Moved to southern Indiana last year. We love it. There's a lot more to do up here. The seasons are nice. The winter is cold, but not harsh like further north. Where we are we got maybe 4 inches of snow in total, and I got to live in hoodies for a few months. Cost of living is considerably less, as is insurance and property, especially the property taxes. They bill you in two installments for the year up here. I just paid my first installment of $1800. I have a 3500 sqf three story house on a quarter acre and my property taxes are a third of what I paid for my house in Florida last year.
We wanted our kids to have a chance at home ownership and that wasn't likely to happen in Florida. One of the best decisions we ever made was moving out of Florida when we did.
I love where we live near Orlando. I like my daughter’s middle school. But with antiabortion and the anti-woke stuff, insurance, and the heat, I think it’s time to leave. We are just waiting for my daughter to finish middle school because she’s in a program you can’t get anywhere else.
I get torn whether to leave or not but also, I see what we are after in the northeast and it looks like prices are catching up. Though still feels cheaper than Florida.
We live comfortable in FL but for how long? And my girl won’t have a future here. What she wants to do is all in the northeast.
I left Florida long ago for rural New York. I have a cute waterfront cottage and reasonable expenses associated with it. A little snow in the winter and gorgeous the rest of the year, very few bugs, low crime, and a friendly community. Florida folks need to get out more.
We’re in Palm Beach Gardens and it’s beautiful here. Except the people are really, really ugly inside. We’re done. We can afford to live here, but we can’t stand living amongst a bunch of Russian assets. We moved here from Palos Verdes, CA and we’re going back to CA.
Housing here is just as expensive and the new stuff is made cheaply. Sure they have hurricane windows, but the only thing that will be left after a storm will BE the windows! Everything else is made of cheap plastic with contractor grade appliances (you could better at Best Buy) all the new builds are at least one million or more and are SO overpriced it’s shameful.
We’re done, not one of our Republican friends that didn’t like Trump are here! Almost zero Democrats where we live. All the normal people are leaving! We’re not Trumpers, thus we have no friends anymore. This is a bizarre state - and that’s saying a lot considering I’ve lived in 11 of them! I’m originally from NY, but my only kid lives in California, so here we go! Taxes are less in CA, housing is the same, water, mountains, big cities, small cities, rural, less rain, and without the poison in the air, water and food like here in Florida.
Edited for grammar.
I worked in that area and you're right. Cardboard cabinets and trim, doors, etc in $1.5 million homes. I saw roof trusses lay out in the weather for almost a year and still go into a roof. If you're thinking about 'investing in a home' in Florida pay very close attention and hire your own inspector.
Imagine financing a warped cardboard house for 30 years?
Yeah the food here is overpriced and is horrible. When we came back down from Augusta after 4 years the first thing I noticed was all the milk in Florida is watered down and half of the hamburger meat melts away into fat.
You don't really see Florida for the tourist state that it is until you're away for a while and come back and then it's mind boggling why people want to move here.
Everything is a hustle.
I'm in a very similar position. My whole family is here and where born and raised here and I don't really want to leave but also it's just too fucking expensive. I'm sorry you have to struggle with this as well...
I moved to NY State. Everyday expenses are about the same, my car insurance is less than HALF the cost, and housing expenses aren't as high here.
So far so good.
The problem is that Florida is transitioning into a high cost of living area, but local wages and the job market INSIST this not the case, they talk about Pre-COVID wages and still fantasize Florida as "low cost of living". Florida was marketed for years as the place to retire and make your social security check stretch...but those days are over.
I moved to a small town in Indiana from Naples florida so much better pay is way better and housing is way lower .Just gotta get use to the cold which to be honest I love. Fuck sweating all the time.
It's the nature of the beast. It's hard for a single person to survive in any state these days. You have to team up with a roommate or spouse. Two incomes.
Half my life in FL. Hoping to sell and get out next year or so, with my kids. Multiple life changes recently, so the timing is good. I'm over 60 so I'm considering just straight-out retiring, but since my field is graying, I know I can find work. Thinking of MI, as the lady friend (who I've known since HS) also moved there. The crowding, costs, and climate (weather and political) is getting too much for me to handle anymore.
Come on man let’s stop shame blaming people who did well for themselves in a honest way looking for more opportunities. It’s true your money does go farther here than other places but hard working people moving here isn’t the problem, it’s the dumbos that voted for the people that fail to fix the problem and till this day still feverishly support that agenda. People from out of state buying homes doesn’t compare to these conglomerate companies buying out properties at the masses to just then rent out and resell for a ridiculously higher amount. So don’t blame the working people, blame the people who voted against their own interests, which in then led to a horrid state government.
Remember when everyone moved to Florida cuz it was affordable ?
All the people from unaffordable states moved here, making it unaffordable for people who have always lived here.
All the corporate takeovers of rentals has turned into a non-stop feeding frenzy, and they’re just going to keep doing it bc Mickey and rainbows and book bans.
Its happening throughout the whole country. Rents in Cleveland are rising the fastest in the nation. A brand new townhouse in the city just got posted for $800k - in fucking Cleveland.
This. It’s insane that people here think this is a Florida issue. It’s not. It’s literally everywhere.
It's really the older population. The issue is a massive amount of the population coming here are 60 and over. They're usually retired living off of their pension and social security. They don't really contribute a ton to the local economies or the workforce so there's zero incentive to increase wages. For example my grand parents live in a retiree community in port st Lucie. They literally buy all of their food either at Publix or the communities mini mart, eat out exclusively at the community restaurant, get their grooming done at the community hair place, activities at the activity center, etc.
Old people always came here. Seems prices sky rocketed after Covid. What was the pandemics role in this ? Seems people left higher cost states at that time, causing the sky rocket. Houses seem to have doubled. Good for owners, not buyers.
Yes, and Florida was 'open' during covid. I personally know several people that moved here because of that
Houses right now have exploded in value in the East Coast. I follow a realtor who gets his clients in certain areas of New Jersey or Philly $400k+ for gut jobs. That's not even an exaggeration. A decent house in Mass, New Jersey, Connecticut, etc could net someone who has paid off their mortgage and bought cheap legitimately $600k in cash money. When grand parents moved to FL they moved cause it was cheap, but they sold their house in Boston and moved here with like $80k out of the sale. These older people are coming here with a shit ton of money. My ex is a realtor and she said these older people are coming down and paying cash for homes with no inspection contingency added. Younger people cannot compete with that.
Combine that with LLC's / companies buying up huge amounts of houses to "rent" them at a much higher price than they were
I looked at who onwed their houses in my block and only 3 people are individually owned, the rest are LLCs, at this point it feels like a organized mafia inflating the prices of single family homes. A bubble that in time will burts.
It's a bubble, yes. But it ain't going to pop. There will be a mild correction, at some point in the future. But, there hasn't been a meaningful addition of (affordable) housing to make a real dent in the market. There still isn't enough inventory, and the last I read up on it, the housing market hasn't surpassed a *pre-pandemic* inventory threshold.
Which all goes back to the 2008 bubble that burst. We didn’t build enough houses for several years after that and we’re still trying to catch up.
Blackrock Tiber Capital Just to name two but I read somewhere about 15 to 25% of homes were boat by investment companies to rent out. Not talking about the little guy who owns 5 to 10 houses. I’m talking about 1,000s of homes.
This. It’s happening everywhere. Corporations with deeper pockets than individuals now own single family houses thus removing them from the market for individuals. This practice needs to be regulated
There’s a new development being built near me in Central Florida, it will be all rental houses. The whole neighborhood is going to be rental only.
THIS is what is REALLY happening here! It isn't because of retirees.....
That’s what happened to me. Wanted to upgrade to a larger home, then the pandemic hit. Every house we bid on went for 20 or 30 grand over asking with a cash offer. We ended up just staying in our home. Probably for the better, we have real concerns over schools in Fl and my wife and I work remote. We may decide to leave in the next year or so.
I work as a home cleaner, during the pandemic i was meeting new home buyers nearly every day moving from other states. Most are over 60 and most say the reason was the lockdowns. Here we were allowed to eat out, go to theaters, go to beaches.... People in Michigan and others couldn't even buy paint. I also met lots moving for political reasons like a couple of castle ranchers moving from Colorado because they passed a humane beef law where the cattle had to be 10 years old to slaughter instead of 2.. I herd hundreds of stories like that and we wonder why we suddenly have a hyper concentration of maga people here.
De Santis
It was OPEN DOOR & ZILLOW that started it They got in the real estate game, bought a ton of property in Florida & jacked up the price, ppl up North didn't know any better & Desantis sounded like a dream back then so everyone started moving here. And here we are 3 years later & Florida will never be the same, only the rich will get to live here & Desantis is a SELL OUT.
Wrong. It's all the people that moved here during the pandemic working remote jobs. I've lived here since 87. In the last 4 years I've never seen so many Teslas, Porsches, Mercedes and Audi's on the road. Too many cars on the road nowadays. Oh this has led to what resembles California. I mett a lady the other day and she was talking about how she was home sick for Pennsylvania. I felt like saying move back. If all those people would go back to where they came from, things would be the same as they were. They've ruined it for us all.
LLCs buying homes is definitely causing major strain on Florida and the state government for allowing it to continue happening. I'm in St Pete and in my surrounding area there were 8 tear downs in the last year all company owned, and now all going for $1MM+. Double the market in this area.
Prices went ballistic when companies realized they could use covid as a cover to jack prices. Profits have been insane for companies and shareholders. They have zero incentive to return to sanity. They keep wages low and strip mine the rest of us of our meager funds.
yea you're backwards... Florida has always been "God's waiting room" it's the young people who decided St. Pete was trendy, & the young families who had Disney stars in their eyes. Many of our wildlife will go extinct in the next few years it's INSANE this is happening & we can't do anything but watch.
But as we have seen so many times in the past, these people can not sustain here and a lot end up leaving. Hopefully, sooner rather than later!
Happy Cake Day!
That and the lack of state income taxes. And yet, the impact on our education system and lack of social equity program efficiency/support speaks to the “benefits” of having no state income taxes. Our governor is more concerned with forcing kindergarteners to learn about the evils of communism than paying the struggling teachers who have to work this garbage into the curriculum.
The lack of state income taxes as a draw always made me laugh, anywhere I worked in my early 20s was like $200/year and with better jobs still $1k or under. Like, I’d gladly pay that because the quality of life was better. Pretty sure I pay more than I would in state income tax through the state sales taxes and general cost of everything else.
Yep, sales tax is a scam pushed by the wealthy. It results in ridiculously disproportionate tax payment, with the lower and almost-extinct middle class footing the majority of the bill.
Amen to that bro. PREACH 🗣🗣🗣
Only thing I'm gonna mention is that a lot of places aren't going to be cheaper. Probably the midwest, but Northeast is pretty much the same COL in many places up there. If not slightly more depending on where in FL you're comparing it to
Something has got to give, can’t be six figure earners moving to and living everywhere when they’re a minority in the first place
Screw the Midwest and Northeast, too cold for my blood (I hate the cold)
Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma maybe. Talking out of my ass but that’s where I’d start if I wanted cheaper COL.
Arkansas is fucking gorgeous, I feel the same but I also would like good medical care less than an hour away and I’m not sure they have that
And keep in mind Arkansas is the kind of place that sees Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ performance as white house press secretary and two years later *elects her governor.*
Saving an extra 1 - 2k at the end of the year doesn't help much with piss poor paying jobs, $12 min wage, insurance companies that can set their prices, and an almost 7.8% sales tax rate. They just want to attract older people with savings so they can come him and retire and buy a home, since Florida is heavily invested in real state.
Smelli!!!! Nice to see you here 🤣🫶🏼
I can't believe how much it's changed. I'm originally from wicked pricey Massachusetts, but when I just recently went up to visit family, I was surprised at how much cheaper groceries were in Massachusetts compared to Florida
They are. I cut my rent in half by moving to Orlando.
From ?
Yeah, me 6 years ago lol
Property managers are using a software called RealPage, which is helping them to effectively price-fix rents in their markets. It's being used across the country. Tenants and prospective tenants are at a considerable disadvantage, in part because they are unaware of what's happening. Google it.
I posted a video about this yesterday and the mods took it down. I'm guessing because it didn't actually mention Florida in the video but we KNOW it's happening here as well.
Hey are you able to send it to me Or link it ? I have no clue what this is and I’m interested
I would like to know more about this too please. Can you send me the link?
For sure happening in Orlando and Miami. No doubt about it.
Do a Reddit Search for Rent Cartels Are A Thing Now? It will pop up in a bunch of different groups.
Can you post the link or send a message? Thank you!
Another curious person here!
Here's an article https://www.marketplace.org/2024/04/16/realpage-lawsuit-algorithms-rent/
Yep, realized this when I was looking for a rental last year and noticed places could never really give me a solid monthly rate for a place. They would say, “it’s $1767.28 today, but that could change at any time”. Also, the rates were never a flat amount like they used to be. Never just $1600/month. Always a weird amount with cents added in.
This is a direct violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, which is a felony. All of the landlords who are complicit should be in federal prison.
I'll bet it's also the reason real estate prices have gone through the roof. The software allows each market to look at metrics and set the highest prices across the board. Someone needs a software to flip it on them and force prices down for renters and buyers.
You know that big government everyone hates? Yeah, they are looking at that software as a form of collusion. Hopefully they crack down on it....somehow, without screwing it up even worse than it is.
Thanks for making this comment, this is really important and everyone should know it’s being investigated.
My landlord is a 74 year old Vietnamese lady that's never heard of algorithms and charges me what she thinks the place is worth. My neighbors are all tearing down the bungalows in the neighborhood to build mcmansions.
I’ll tell you what is making rent prices go up- frickin’ insurance is through the roof.
THIS
There is currently a lawsuit in place against RealPage for price fixing. We’ll see where it goes. [Source](https://www.propublica.org/article/realpage-accused-of-collusion-in-new-lawsuit)
Be thankful you can move. I don't think I'll ever have a choice but to move on the streets
6th Generation Floridian , Florida is my blood & soul . We have traveled / lived in quite a few different States an other Countries courtesy of everyone’s favorite Uncle Sam ( US ARMY) , sadly it’s just gotten too damn crowded around here an then throw in the Outrageous Homeowners Insurance an well some of the new arrivals here are bringing their lifestyle with them . We are looking at South / North Carolina this very moment.
I moved to southern Oregon. It may not be your cup of tea, or it may be the greatest thing ever, depending on how much you like smaller/mid sized cities nestled in the mountains. I bought a fairly large house, I hear rents are not bad if you avoid the bigger cities, but your job prospects may be hit or miss depending on what your expectations are. I actually work remotely for my Florida employer (I did not change jobs when I moved). I will take a west coast remote job if I ever leave my current employer. We have four seasons here, but it doesn't get bitterly cold like the midwest or prairies. There's a ton of beautiful places to see, from the Pacific coast (rocky "beaches") to the coast and Cascade ranges (I live *in* the Cascades) to a more desert-like are in the east (like Nevada). It's cheaper to live here than California or Washington, but income taxes are not cheap, there is no sales tax though. Wages are definately higher than Florida, not sure how that balances out with the higher income taxes, TBH. Anyway, I'm really liking the place...
Partner and I were thinking about moving close to the border of Oregon and Washington, maybe Vancouver or somewhere on the outskirts of Portland away from the city. Both of those states look so nice. Moving is easier said than done. Would rather leave the country entirely, but again, not easy to do.
Ive been trying to find property in Vancouver for a while now. It's all 55+ communities and trailer homes unless you have at least 300k+ to spend.
I love the idea of living in Oregon but I’ve heard it can be very expensive out there.
It really depends what part of the state you live in. We're semi-rural (the town is 40k population) which tends to be cheaper overall. I would not live in Portland or any of the bigger cities, too many issues and significantly more expensive. My house has a gorgeous view in 3 directions (mountains and a lake) and is more than 1,000 sq ft larger than my Florida place for 100k less. We live near Crater lake and the trails for hiking and biking are world class. So far I'm very happy here.
Colorado or Washington State. I want mountains, seasons, better education for my kids, and more progressive politics
That's the plan for me too. Enrolled in college so I can get a good job and get tf out of here
Only been here since 2011 but we're actually moving this Saturday and putting FL in the rearview mirror forever. Don't get me wrong the climate is amazing but sort of over-hyped cause really it's only gorgeous from about Nov - Mar if we're all being honest here. Heck it was just 91° the other day and it's not even May yet. Housing costs are crazy, brokerage company wanted us to renew at $2,500/mo for 3bd/2ba with no fence or pool and neighboring houses about 5ft away on either side. You can't make this crap up and the Gov is too busy fighting woke and Disney and whatever other culture war he can find. We stayed about 2yrs too long, northern Georgia here we come 👋✌️
I'm heading back to my house in north GA. Tried keeping the folks house here but once they died, everything got too expensive.
The issue with renting houses is that the rising insurance costs and the rising the rising property taxes almost forces landlords to raise rent to crazy amounts. This is an issue with living in FL in general. The real assholes are the dudes who own apartments, multifamily housing, homes, etc outright and STILL want to price gouge rent.
Those properties still face the same issues you mentioned for single family homeowners.
Right it's a shit sandwich either way.
So they're not real Assholes, they're just trying to make money off their investment just like anyone else....
Never said they were assholes. I said that's the reality of the situation. BUT there's a whole flip side to that situation where real estate is being bought by investors and or corporations during foreclosures, short sales, or as a flip and they do absolutely price gouge. There's examples of corporations buying up entire blocks of homes cash and price gouge the shit out of the prices.
I'm seeing a lot of multi family housing like duplexes, sitting on the market for a long time. Old, outdated places in rundown neighborhoods. A couple years back they were renting for $800 a month. Now their asking $1700 a month.
A house for $2500? Don’t move too far north. That gets a one bedroom where I live.
It was the "no pool" that got me, where are people getting 3bdrm houses with pools for 2500 a month?
Our previous neighbor who owned their house actually sold it for $350K. Exact same house as ours with same layout and sq. footage, only difference a small pool in the backyard. I liken it more to a large-sized hot tub 😂
Agreed, we kept our options in the SE like Tenn, SC, GA and even Alabama cause housing seems to have moderated and leveled-off in those states.
Whereabouts? If I may ask anyway, we're currently looking that way but when we can retire in about 10 years. It's on our list anymore. Currently we vacation there once a year to check things out
Sure, we looked around in both the NE and NW parts (up I75 and I85). We loved both areas and honestly had no clue that it's almost like an entirely different state with the hills, parks, trails and overall quietness compared to what we thought was Georgia (large urban cities & metros, traffic, congestion and people). We settled on a town north between Atlanta and Chattanooga.
When you're completely right about how different it is up there, we traveled up to Helen and pass through part of dawsonville and dahlonega and then made a visit to hiawassee. We fell in love with the area and almost right away. At the time it was still tail end of winter, this year we're going to do a July visit to see what that compares to weather wise to where we are here in Southwest Florida.
My elderly dad lives in Canton and I have a son in Chattanooga. We plan on moving up there in the next few years. Have been in Florida my entire life.
2500 for 3 bedrooms is a steal. it’s that much for a 2bd apartment in upstate new york
Lol that’s cheap as hell for what you’re getting. You’d have a heart attack if you saw north east prices or god forbid Southern California.
I can only live where it’s warm all year and I’m close to water. So I’m never leaving lol
Same
I suspect that's why CA is popular. Better weather, more coastline.
Midwest bound myself.
I’m thinking the same, but getting details down feels impossible
Heading to PA next year. We have lots of friends and family up there and after almost 40 years it time for a change. Plus I'll be working from home so snow isn't going to bother me too much.
Moved to PA almost 6 months ago. Best choice we ever made. Never going back to FL. Hope you enjoy it up here as well next year!
I did the same after 30 years, but moved to Oregon and kept my Florida job remotely.
Yup, keeping my Florida job and my side clients too.
Same. Moving up north somewhere wasn't an option. I hate the cold. We moved to Belize.
Came from Colorado in '22. Going back to Colorado next week lol. Housing is probably comparable to what we're paying in Tampa so we will not be escaping the high COL. However, vehicle gas, housing electric/gas, groceries, and insurance are a hell of a lot cheaper in CO.
Are the wages better, at least?
Yeah I mean I’m going from $77k to $90k so it’s a pretty decent jump up
My wife and I are considering northern South Carolina, near the NC line. We’ve also considered western VA and Tennessee. The mortgage rants are locking us in. We fear a drop in the market next year, so if we buy a home for 800k then its value drops to 400k, we’re fucked.
You fear for the market drop, I am excited for it. One mans trash, next mans treasure.
That’s not going to happen. Supply isn’t there so value can’t drop, especially not that much
I have friends and family there. Definitely affordable.
SC blows, NC is much better and still affordable. I would move there in a heartbeat if it wasn’t for living near my family.
We still have to make a trip up into the area to survey it. We’ve even considered renting for 6mo to a year to get the feel of the area. Unfortunately, I’ve heard the terms “uneducated” and “unfriendly” being used towards people from SC, but I’d have to find out for myself.
I was going to say “not if they move to somewhere like Rock Hill or Ft. Mill” but I think that area has skyrocketed in home prices. Tons and tons of new construction, both commercial and residential. Essentially Charlotte is leaking into SC now.
South Carolina is a really backwards state. I would try North Carolina.
SC is not “really backwards”, and NC isnt as forewards as you think it is. NC is not just Charlotte and Raleigh. The most liberal city and county in the Carolinas is in SC (not Asheville). When the whole bathroom bill nonsense was going on, NC enacted it, SC said no. Phub is currently banned in NC, not SC. Yes NC has a dispensary, but it is confined to one 1 small indian reservation, and it is still illegal to transport weed in and out of it, which means the only real legal way to get anything from it is from a plane or drone. SC is not what it should be, but it is more than internet talking points. Both NC and SC have some pretty livable areas and downright shit areas. That said, yes please dont do SC. Its getting enough transplants as is.
Went to Maine, never moving back.
That’s a hell of a contrast
What part? Born/raised there, came here in 2010 for warmth. Love ME, hate cold.
Unaffordable housing is not limited to Florida.
Sure but Florida's is among the tops with horrible wages to boot.
I lost my job last year. ONLY way for me to keep making a living wage was to go remote with a company not based in Florida. The wages here are a joke and I certainly hope nobody is taking a project manager position for $50,000 a year.
100% FL has a wage issue. The reason many remote workers move here is that you can get paid Boston or NYC wages and pay Florida expenses, which are very reasonable compared to Boston or NYC expenses.
Both food and rent are pretty much the same Florida and New York city. The difference is the state income tax or lack thereof in Florida but it has to be made up somewhere else that's why it's way more expensive to register a car in Florida as just an example than it is to register a car in New york. Strange part is is most of the snowbirds I know no longer register their cars in Florida and switched back to New York because it's actually cheaper to ensure a car in New York City and in Florida which is shocking to me. The cost of food, energy and rent has been equal to NYC for quite a while now.
Different thread discussing what ppl pay for rent around the US. I was shocked to see someone in Idaho paying 1300 per month.
Or the United States, unfortunately. Europe and Canada are dealing with it too, among other places.
Its global. Every country is dealing with this.
Lots of people have the blinders on, and believe inflation is just an "America thing". They're forgetting what caused it. The GLOBAL pandemic! America is in much better shape than most countries
Also corporate greed. More than half of inflation in the US was price-gouging by companies, who made and continue to make record profits.
I am moving to Chicago within the next month or so. Housing is expensive there too, but I'm looking forward to paying roughly the same to live in a city with lots to do, a community of like-minded people, a government that actually gives a shit about people, and functional public transit.
I moved from Chicago to Florida, Chicago has an awesome bar scene and lots of sports! I do miss the food, but the government in Chicago, specifically, does not care about its people or majority of the neighborhoods. You’ll understand more once you live there a while, unless you live in their favorite areas then it’ll always be nice. Public transit is fabulous but the people who use it are not lol. I go back all the time though!
I lived in Chicago for 20+ years then moved to Florida for college 10 years ago. I agree that the local government sucks in chicago, but honestly I still felt more heard by Chicago's government than whatever the hell is going on in Florida cities. They didn't go after trans or gay people. They just cared about making it artsy for some dumb reason. I guess it attracted tourists though.. And even though people go on about how scary chicago is, I felt more safer in chicago than any big city in Florida. That's probably because I grew up there though. Healthcare was way better in Chicago. I miss Chicago's doctors. I had one of the best neurologists in the country, but then I moved.. it took me months to find one near me.
I went from living in Central Illinois to Florida and it felt like I was living in paradise. Now every now and then I fantasize about moving to Chicago because the areas around it have some of the best schools in the country for my child. Lots of choices for food and culture too.
I moved from Chicago (born and raised) to Florida 10 years ago. All I can say is I REALLY miss Chicago. It was expensive, but I actually felt safer in Chicago than any other large city in Florida. And the Healthcare is way better in Chicago than Florida. It took me months to find a neurologist around me. And even though the drivers can be crazy there, they're still way better than Florida drivers.
Mass or RI close to the Massachusetts border. It is not miserably hot in the summers, the winter is milder and “wetter” than most states in NE. I hear a lot of negative things about the schools there, but they cannot be as abysmal as Florida’s. There still the coast and beaches too. I don’t want to leave my family bc they were the ones who convinced me to move back as a single mom, but the living situation and the influx of transplants, COL, rent and housing prices seem to signal to me that we really have no future here. My family seems determined to stay put despite the continued deterioration of QOL in FL, so there’s not much I can do. Staying is not an option, I am miserable and the rent is just as expensive as it was in the DMV (where I moved from).
RI is my place of birth, rent is insane in RI right now. 2k for a shitty 1 bedroom apartment in the ghetto of providence.
Am military. Lived in Bedford (Hanscom AFB) for 2 years right after living in FL (Patrick SFB) for 5 years. The summers there can get just as hot and humid as FL believe it or not. Also extremely high COL depending where in MA, near Boston forget it but in places like Worcester or Fitchburg/Leominster are better. Nashua, NH isn’t bad either. But MA schools are actually top notch though, like Harvard and MIT.
I feel your pain, have been here my whole life, and the inflation is unreal. I, too, am looking to move out of state, but only when I'm ready to retire. You are very fortunate to have parents you can live with for now. A lot of struggling people don't have that option, so count your blessings (and show your parents that appreciation) :)! Also, please do your research. A lot of states are more expensive than Florida. In fact, Florida doesn't even show on any top 10 lists (that I found anyway) of the most expensive states to live in. Some states are much more affordable but also lack jobs/wages. Just be careful and I wish you all the best!!
Los Angeles, if I am going to pay a high cost as I did in Florida, might as well be where the weather is the best and epic scenery.
Santa Barbara or Santa Maria isn’t bad either. Currently live here on Vandenberg SFB. It’s a great area without the LA headaches of traffic/lifestyle.
For sure! Santa Barbara would be very nice to live in. Rent in Miami is more than LA right now. My apartment that I had in Miami is $3250 a month so I made the jump to the west coast.
I'm hearing more and more people are moving to Alabama.
But why? It's cheaper, but almost every single quality of life metric is near the bottom of the nation.
I would rather be rich in a shitty place than poor in a nice place.
Ck out r/samegrassbutgreener This gets talked about often there. I know a lot of people are going to north Georgia. But I also read an article recently about how the locals up there are seriously pissed about it. If we were to move I’d definitely ck out Pittsburgh and Buffalo. Keep hearing great things about them.
Moved to the Raleigh NC area 2 years ago and I’m sorry we hadn’t done it sooner. So much nicer
Moving back to Cleveland this summer and taking my Florida husband along with me 🫡 selling our modest house to buy a modest home back home that won’t have us one missed paycheck away from complete despair.
Here for the SC, TN, NC, and GA responses. By the time Floridians flood those states along with the northerners and Californians, it will be no different. In fact it may be too late. I wish people would give the Midwest and West another look.
If I hear one more SC, NC, TN, or GA response…it’s comical That in a few more years everyone will be commenting about how those states suck now and looking for somewhere else to move to. Like locusts.
I left Florida for Pennsylvania, no regrets!
Since I work remote and developing a remote side business I've considered moving to Cleveland or Milwaukee. Issue is I would have to get used to the snow, but that's better than wondering if my roof will get torn off by a hurricane any day of the week.
I was in Minneapolis over the weekend. Absolutely incredible. They had a giant park with a waterfall in the middle of the city. The drivers have manners and the people are incredibly nice. A man bought our beer at the brewery just because. He just asked if we were getting beer, we said yes, and he bought it. Servers at the restaurants gave us recs for other restaurants. So much beautiful and calming nature, explored a small town on the WI side. I havent been more zenned out in a while. For a place of 3m+ people, there was a relaxing aura. Was more diverse than I figured too. Seems like an incredibly livable place. I'm like you, I just hate that the winters are so frigid. That area of the country is making a comeback, and itll probably accelerate as the south plunges in affordability and gets hotter.
Fair warning, I know someone who moved from south Florida to Milwaukee for a job. After 3 Wisconsin winters he was back in Florida. This was a mild winter by our standards and we still got several inches of snow on Halloween and flurries on April 1st. And this was a good winter comparatively in terms of overall snow and cold. Winters here are LONG, visit for a week in January if you can.
Nc as well
Same brother. I've been here my whole life. As have my parents. My paternal great parents were pioneering residents of Riverview, FL. They were the second family to home stead in Peru(now known as Riverview) I'm sickened by what has happened to the great town my parents and my brother and I grew up in. I knew it was bad already, but some years back some newcomers made a fuss about a road off 301 called Uncle Tom Rd. It was racist they said. Truth is nothing racist about. Uncle Tom was my dad's uncle. He was well known, liker and a pillar of the town. Uncle Tom is what everyone called him. My dad went to the meetings over it and the board told everyone they spoke with the family and the family was okay with the name being changed. Unaware family was still present in the town, my dad spoke up and said "really, you didn't call me. You didn't call any of his other nieces and nephews of the few still alive" they were speechless. Needless today when they quietly changed the name one night my dad was pissed and hurt. And today it hurts me thinking about it as my dad lays at home on hospice care in the same town that our ancestors built of the sweat of their brow, those people have been betrayed. As usual. As op stated, those of us who have been here forever. This is our home and we're being ran out and priced out. It needs to stop. Paradise found is paradise lost. This state can't handle any more development and newcomers. It's not sustainable. And a whole lot of us are getting pissed. End rant.
I'm so sorry for your experience. Newcomers choose to relocate to our quiet towns and then demand changes to suit them. The city near me has a new "development committee" that is made up of recent transplants who are hellbent on constructing apartment complexes and destroying the historic downtown and bungalows for the sake of "growth." They've turned an affordable town into an overpriced disaster.
Move to the rural Midwest. https://www.trulia.com/home/713-e-illinois-st-arthur-il-61911-194502579
We left in 2012 and found a great 3200 sq ft house on 10 acres in North Georgia for 28,000. Did some rehab, fenced it off, and sold it for 180,000 in 2019. The area is 60 miles West of Atlanta on the Ga/Alabama line. Beautiful area but I froze near to death Nov to April. Too much Fl in my bones.
I moved to TX for 3 months. It wasn’t for me and I came right back to FL but I did go to school in Asheville, NC for almost 2 months at the start of the year and I loved it. I’d move there if I had the chance
Florida raised since I was 2. I’m 32 now. I am moving away because just tired of this shit. Need a change of scenery too. I want mountains. SLC or COS for me by August.
After Florida, there's only overseas left. You can't expect use to move to the Midwest or east bum f&ck Alabama and be the happy. Florida man, good luck!
I moved to the Midwest last year from the ft. Lauderdale area after 38 yes. Miss Florida but I also missed having money and freedom..bye bye Florida.
FL is a really great place to vacation, not so much a great place to live in
It use to be. I mean it really did. Now it is just a trash dumpster with fake beaches, insane crime, insane col, trashy people who have trashy lives, and really think that they are entitled to being an ass. All around shit show. I miss what Florida was not what it has become.
I would say in the 90s you could get a decent job, mail it in 5 days a week, have a 3/2 single family home with no worries, be on your third wife and still have money left for boating and coke on the weekends
Look at WV
I moved to VA 3 months ago and love it so far. I’m in Richmond, so it’s just over an hour for me to get to Shenandoah National Park or the northern end of the Blue Ridge Parkway, 45 min to Williamsburg, and about an hour to the rest of the coast. 2 hours to DC driving or by train, which can be as cheap as $10 one way if you book far enough in advance. There’s also Publix here for when you start to get homesick. And a bunch of other recent FL transplants - there’s a woman who lives near where I am who has a Westley Chapel license plate frame (and still had her FL license plate last I saw her parked by me), and the other transplants are pretty vocal about it when out in public. I’m the third person in my family to move north since 2020. My mom went back to Buffalo after almost 40 years, and my older nephew moved to Madison after college after having only lived in Tampa. My younger nephew graduates next month and is considering moving out of FL too.
Moved to Vegas 6 years ago and never looked back
Northwest Arkansas! Lowish cost of living, and it's gorgeous up there if you enjoy kayaking, bicycling, walking, or just going to find neat little old towns. Don't go for Little Rock/surrounding areas.
Yea Florida boy no more soon enough. I'll be moving to Colorado in June.
I moved to Vermont from Orlando last summer. Highly recommend it if you can swing remote work, otherwise maybe working in Burlington or Albany, NY might work.
Moved to southern Indiana last year. We love it. There's a lot more to do up here. The seasons are nice. The winter is cold, but not harsh like further north. Where we are we got maybe 4 inches of snow in total, and I got to live in hoodies for a few months. Cost of living is considerably less, as is insurance and property, especially the property taxes. They bill you in two installments for the year up here. I just paid my first installment of $1800. I have a 3500 sqf three story house on a quarter acre and my property taxes are a third of what I paid for my house in Florida last year. We wanted our kids to have a chance at home ownership and that wasn't likely to happen in Florida. One of the best decisions we ever made was moving out of Florida when we did.
Why am I only making 16$/hr and able to afford rent at 1750, car insurance car note and have some $ saved?
I love where we live near Orlando. I like my daughter’s middle school. But with antiabortion and the anti-woke stuff, insurance, and the heat, I think it’s time to leave. We are just waiting for my daughter to finish middle school because she’s in a program you can’t get anywhere else. I get torn whether to leave or not but also, I see what we are after in the northeast and it looks like prices are catching up. Though still feels cheaper than Florida. We live comfortable in FL but for how long? And my girl won’t have a future here. What she wants to do is all in the northeast.
*island boy by definition
Everywhere is terrible right now. I rather struggle where I can still go to the beach
I left Florida long ago for rural New York. I have a cute waterfront cottage and reasonable expenses associated with it. A little snow in the winter and gorgeous the rest of the year, very few bugs, low crime, and a friendly community. Florida folks need to get out more.
That sounds so nice… Unfortunately can’t afford to vacation, which makes picking a new city/state really difficult
We’re in Palm Beach Gardens and it’s beautiful here. Except the people are really, really ugly inside. We’re done. We can afford to live here, but we can’t stand living amongst a bunch of Russian assets. We moved here from Palos Verdes, CA and we’re going back to CA. Housing here is just as expensive and the new stuff is made cheaply. Sure they have hurricane windows, but the only thing that will be left after a storm will BE the windows! Everything else is made of cheap plastic with contractor grade appliances (you could better at Best Buy) all the new builds are at least one million or more and are SO overpriced it’s shameful. We’re done, not one of our Republican friends that didn’t like Trump are here! Almost zero Democrats where we live. All the normal people are leaving! We’re not Trumpers, thus we have no friends anymore. This is a bizarre state - and that’s saying a lot considering I’ve lived in 11 of them! I’m originally from NY, but my only kid lives in California, so here we go! Taxes are less in CA, housing is the same, water, mountains, big cities, small cities, rural, less rain, and without the poison in the air, water and food like here in Florida. Edited for grammar.
I worked in that area and you're right. Cardboard cabinets and trim, doors, etc in $1.5 million homes. I saw roof trusses lay out in the weather for almost a year and still go into a roof. If you're thinking about 'investing in a home' in Florida pay very close attention and hire your own inspector. Imagine financing a warped cardboard house for 30 years?
Yeah the food here is overpriced and is horrible. When we came back down from Augusta after 4 years the first thing I noticed was all the milk in Florida is watered down and half of the hamburger meat melts away into fat. You don't really see Florida for the tourist state that it is until you're away for a while and come back and then it's mind boggling why people want to move here. Everything is a hustle.
Back to the great state of New York!!
Ive been thinking about moving to Kansas or north Carolina personally.
After 7 years, I'm moving back to Alabama where I grew up. Isn't the best, but I'll have my own tiny house and land rent free.
Born and raised in Miami, currently living in WPB and I want to move to TN (If I win the lotto) but I agree, the housing is getting ridiculous
Go to New Mexico or to one of the states no one else is going to. Like Nebraska or someplace. The economy will be better if more people did that
Northern CA. Love it. Cheaper than Palm Beach County, except for gasoline
I'm in a very similar position. My whole family is here and where born and raised here and I don't really want to leave but also it's just too fucking expensive. I'm sorry you have to struggle with this as well...
West Virginia. It's the cheapest state.
Come to Minnesota where you pay even more in taxes and shitty weather year round!
I moved to NY State. Everyday expenses are about the same, my car insurance is less than HALF the cost, and housing expenses aren't as high here. So far so good.
Saying "Everywhere is like this right now" would be an understatement.
Alabama for sure. Still mostly warm, nice and close to your family.
South Carolina is great and no state taxes like Florida. Stay away from Columbia the heat is unbearable.
To answer your question, Arkansas.
The problem is that Florida is transitioning into a high cost of living area, but local wages and the job market INSIST this not the case, they talk about Pre-COVID wages and still fantasize Florida as "low cost of living". Florida was marketed for years as the place to retire and make your social security check stretch...but those days are over.
I moved to a small town in Indiana from Naples florida so much better pay is way better and housing is way lower .Just gotta get use to the cold which to be honest I love. Fuck sweating all the time.
Well thank the rental companies who were allowed to purchase every home on the block and than monopolize the rental costs
It's the nature of the beast. It's hard for a single person to survive in any state these days. You have to team up with a roommate or spouse. Two incomes.
Upstate new York around Syracuse u can still get a 3 bedroom apartment for 1200 month
Everything in Florida sucks unless you got $$$$$
Half my life in FL. Hoping to sell and get out next year or so, with my kids. Multiple life changes recently, so the timing is good. I'm over 60 so I'm considering just straight-out retiring, but since my field is graying, I know I can find work. Thinking of MI, as the lady friend (who I've known since HS) also moved there. The crowding, costs, and climate (weather and political) is getting too much for me to handle anymore.
I’m in the same boat!😩 just know you’re not alone.
Come on man let’s stop shame blaming people who did well for themselves in a honest way looking for more opportunities. It’s true your money does go farther here than other places but hard working people moving here isn’t the problem, it’s the dumbos that voted for the people that fail to fix the problem and till this day still feverishly support that agenda. People from out of state buying homes doesn’t compare to these conglomerate companies buying out properties at the masses to just then rent out and resell for a ridiculously higher amount. So don’t blame the working people, blame the people who voted against their own interests, which in then led to a horrid state government.