South Florida sees middle class exodus

[Herman Munster]

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/15260346.htm

The home price differences made the decision a no-brainer. In Broward, where he was renting a house from his in-laws, the median home price is more than $377,000. In southern Tennessee, about an hour from Nashville, he has 10 acres and a 4,000-square-foot home built two years ago. The price: $280,000.

''We just felt we could have a better quality of life'' by moving, he said. There are always people moving in and out of South Florida, which overall continues to grow. But in the last year -- too recent to appear on radars like federal Census data -- experts are seeing powerful anecdotal evidence of an outbound migration trend.

Indeed, 25 years after Time magazine's infamous ''Paradise Lost?'' cover story, South Florida is once again losing its allure for the middle class.

This time, it isn't high crime and cocaine cowboys driving people off. Rather, the trouble in paradise is the quality of life -- everything from grinding traffic to costly homes and gale-force increases in windstorm-insurance premiums. It's prodding growing numbers of people in their prime earning years to conclude -- correctly -- that the smartest economic decision they can make is to leave South Florida.

[never_get_over_it]

1. Happening in central Florida too

between the property tax and the home insurance (and the car insurance is kind of expensive here too) there are a kazillion houses for sale around here - becoming unaffordable.

[Ezlivin]

2. No kidding

I own 5 acres in Inglis in south Levy County. Other than the 1,000 or so fishermen and other souls, there isn't anything there. Yet I pay more in property taxes for this unimproved property than I do for my mother-in-law's home on her property in Orrville, Ohio. Orrville is like a major city compared to Inglis.

My parents live in Tampa. They've lived in the same house since 1953; a 1,200 square foot home purchased new for $7,000. They've been offered $300,000 for it.

Insane.

[DoYouEverWonder]

16. Oh my, I didn't know they allowed evil DUers in Inglis?

Do you still have that crazy mayor who wanted to drive all the devils out of town?

[Ezlivin]

20. Satan is not permitted in Inglis

And my wife and I are atheists. I love the irony!

Since I'm not living there (but rather here in the oven known as D/FW) I don't have to worry about the ex-mayor's designs on my "soul".

[SharonAnn]

3. Lots coming here from Florida in the last year. Some are "half-backs".

They moved from the North to florida, decided Florida wasn't for them and are returning half-way back to where they came from.

East Tennessee is affordable, geographically beautiful, and has four seasons (mild winter). The hot summer is no worse than South Florida and probably not as bad.

So, lots of the newcomers here are from Florida and that's a change from previous years.

[Herman Munster]

4. That east tennessee/western north carolina area

is so beautiful with the mountains and the cost of living is great.

Another great town there to move to is Asheville, North Carolina.

[LostinVA]

11. Western NC is expensive now, too, thanks to 'em

[rzemanfl]

5. Our homeowner's insurance is up by over a thousand dollars

this year. We are forced to insure things we don't have (e.g., "outbuildings" and $82,500.00 in personal property coverage for a modest two-bedroom home). When this increase hits our escrow our house payment will be more than double what it was nine years ago when we bought this place. A year ago houses in this neighborhood sold before they got the sign up, now there are a good number that have been on the market for several months. Condo construction is slowing down or halting-this is just the beginning.

[xchrom]

6. i don't wish anything bad on anyone -- but i hope they leave

the keys.

maybe i'd have a chance to live there!

[cyclezealot]

7. We moved from So Calif. to Roussillon, France.

I loved San Diego area. Great climate, great terrain, except for apporaching over-crowding. My wife has job opportunites here, since we could use a job change, and had problems with California's lousy HMO health coverage.
Anyway, Americans are insurance poor , not matter where we live.
Medical insurance. For two $180 and great coverage. Homes/rent 1/2 price of California. Our February heating bill was 23 euros. All electric home too. Satellite tv is 1/3 cost of California's. Car insurance is like 360 euros a year and homeowners is like 240 euros. Water bill is every third month and is like 90 euros for the three months.
Discussing homeowners and car insurance. I say the difference is because of national health insurance. Insurance companies don't have to worry about hospital bills. Homeowners, less crime.
Pretty good deal. Food is about the same, but it is much better quality.

[Selatius]

13. Yeah, their health care system puts ours to absolute shame

It's just so devastatingly bad when you compare the US system to others in the industrialized world.

[cyclezealot]

14. Coping with US health care companies

reason enough to be an expat. It's a question of health security.

[earth mom]

21. From your post it's obvious we are getting ripped off right left & center

here in the states. All of em are ripping us off-insurance, utilities, banks, AND the government! We are so screwed and our representatives in Congress-don't they work for THE PEOPLE?!-don't do a damn thing about it! :grr:

BTW-where is Roussillon France? Wish I could move there! :hi:

[Tesha]

23. Roussillon is ~Catalonia, on the Spanish border

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roussillon

[cyclezealot]

24. Our actual department is Pyrenees Oriental.

It is the last department ( equivilant to state , i think) before one gets to Spain. The Mediterranean is to our east. Largest town is Perpignan. We do not have to pay for garbage pick up. IT is a municipal function. Unlike back in California. Our property tax is just a little over 700 euros. Back in Calif. it was over $2000.
Yes, I do feel living in the US, you are all getting riped off. I find locals enjoy far more services than you are accustomed to. We live in a very small town and community activities and services are far more plentiful than our old town of 50,000. The town even offers a health fitness center.

[WinkyDink]

25. I've been there! "The Red Town". Beautiful region.

[cyclezealot]

28. The Socialist party is strong too

Because of all the refugees fleeing Franco's Spain, during the Spanish Civil War. Our neigboring city even has a Communist Mayor. Communism here does not mean they will dig up Stalin's corpse.

[Catbird]

8. Hurricanes are a fact of life.

If you live in a hurricane prone area, you should expect to pay insurance premiums appropriate for the risk. If insurance (among other factors) is convincing people to leave South Florida, this may be a good thing. I certainly don't want to be subsidizing coastal housing directly or indirectly.

[rzemanfl]

9. I can agree with that, but we are forced to insure things we don't

have. Would you like to pay for coverage of the jet ski that you "could" tow with your car as part of your car insurance if you didn't have a jet ski? That's the kind of crap that is going on here-we pay premiums to cover stuff we "could" have-but don't-and we have no choice but to take it or go to "market value" coverage that would have us replacing our household goods from Goodwill stores in Georgia if we got wiped out. This scam is nothing but a subsidy so that the rich folks who live on the beach can pay less to insure their palaces.

[Imagevision]

10. middle class exodus is pretty much universal in the US of A

[cyclezealot]

12. Exodus.

Exodus. How about elimination. Many can't move to exurbs because economic factors now force them to move to the cheaper inner cities, along with the rest of the flotsum.

[itzamirakul]

17. Except that in some cases, the cheaper inner cities of which you

speak, have become the desirable places to live. In New York City and its surrounding boroughs, the property was allowed to degenerate into gutted structures and photograped to look as though bombs had gone off in the areas. The landlords were cited for back taxes and in some instances, where they were still renting out the falling apart buildings, the landlords didn't even bother to repair vital building infrastructure. Drug selling, prostitution, rape, murder, etc...

But now...GENTRIFICATION HAS ARRIVED! I have NO IDEA where all of these new residents are coming from or where they are getting the money to buy or rent these apartments. My upstairs neighbors are two sisters from Long Island with a rich dad who pays the rent. To my right is a young man who just arrived from Israel. He lives with a roommate who is from some other country which I have now forgotten. There are also many refugees from the Yugoslavian conflict of the 1990s along with a few old Americans who have lived in the neighborhood all of their lives, worked in the garment district until retirement and lived in this building since the 1940s. One lady told me that when she first moved in her rent was $50 a month and she thought that was excessive!

In 1982, I paid $350.00 a month for a one bedroom apartment with a kitchen so tiny that only one person can occupy at a time. Today, that same apartment in that same building in that same Hell's Kitchen neighborhood rents for $3,500 - $5,000 per month depending on what floor it is on. The higher up, the more expensive...

The landlord also rents out unoccuppied apartments on a "hotel basis." So there are plenty of tourists coming and going as well as many new young permanent tenants. I cannot help but wonder where they get the money. Most of the new permanent tenants are arriving from other countries while most of the short-term vacationing tourists are from the USA. A few of the apartments are rented on an annual basis by some major corporations who send their reps to business meetings in the Big Apple and use these apartments for them to stay in. The Super says that the corporations pay at least $5K per month for same.

In NYC, for the first time since I moved back in 1982, people are moving into new apartment buildings built DIRECTLY on Broadway and Seventh Avenues right on Times Square. They are moving back into Harlem and renovating the lovely old brownstones there. They WANT to live where the action is. It seems that their parents moved to the suburbs but the kids want to live the high life in the midst of the action so they are moving back into the inner cities and spending major bucks to rebuild their apartments.

Very few artists live in or around Greenwich Village anymore. The entire neighborhood has been taken over by the rich and somewhat famous. Major stars have loft apartments in old factory buildings, etc in grungy neighborhoods that are now flush with expensive restaurants, etc.

So what used to be the poor inner cities is in many regions the desirable place to be. What seems to be an exodus from the burbs is in many instances a willingness to live close to the excitement of the citylife. It is the poor who are being outpriced from the inner city and left with nowhere to live.

In some cases, buildings that were once rented out as lov-income housing are being renovated into high-end luxury living...

Go figure...........

[cyclezealot]

18. Factor that very well will reverse abandoning our cities.

Our pending energy crisis and traffic congestion. The beautiful grand homes in some areas in our cities. They have great potential. Should energy become impossible to acquire the rich will outbid the poor and retrive the same communities where they once lived. Just how will they gate in large urban tracts with land patterns unlike the suburbs.

[RagingInMiami]

19. Yep

Williamsburg, Brooklyn is a perfect example.

[SoCalDem]

15. It happens everywhere.. Boom & Bust is a familiar cycle for us.

The sad part is that by the time the kiddies are grown, they cannot afford to live in the communities they grew up in.They have to move....and as their parents age, it creates all kinds of drama..

[teknomanzer]

22. I can relate...

I left Fort Lauderdale one month ago. I was working a shit job for little pay, and I couldn't affort my own apartment there. The situation was only going to get worse. The hurricanes had damaged much of the affordable housing (which was in low class areas anyway) and the housing bubble had driven home prices out of reach for anyone with modest income. In addition many apartments were being converted into condominiums. The average cost for a decent one bedroom apartment is $750. The only sector growing was low paying service industry jobs. Try to make that rent making $9.00 an hour. If you can't afford to put a roof over your own head what option do you have. I read the writing on the wall and got the f**k outta Dodge. There was no way I would be able to make ends meet there in SF. So I parted with damn near everything I owned and moved to Phoenix where I could easily get a job that pays as much as the last one I had, but the average cost for a single bedroom apartment is $550. All those wealthy bastards buying a piece of paradise no doubt will be up in arms when the discover there is nobody left the sweep the floors an scrub the toilets. There has been a serious lack of vision there.

[midnight]

26. My daughter wants us to move to Arizona.

[watercolors]

27. my sister moved from Venice, Fla

back to Mass. Her business went belly up, sold their home, moved into a modular to downsize, then was hit with the high insurance. Can't sell the modular now, she just e-mailed me they are moving back to Fl in Oct. Cost of living is high up there And husband couold not find work. He will have a job in Fl when he returns. I guess its live and learn, They are close to retirement, but don't see it happening for them, I worry!

[cyclezealot]

29. We sold a condo in the FL condo glut of the 80.s

Only took two years to sell the thing. The heat and humidity and now storms. Never looked back.