Florida, Texas residents flee due to soaring insurance costs, surging home prices

Florida and Texas — two of the most sought-after destinations for Americans fed up with high taxes and strict lockdown measures during the COVID pandemic — are now facing their own exodus over the soaring cost of living in both states, according to reports.

Skyrocketing insurance premiums, rising property taxes and surging real estate prices have prompted some residents of Florida and Texas to throw their hands up in despair and leave for cheaper locales in the Midwest, Business Insider reported.

Last year alone, more than 91,000 New Yorkers relocated to Florida while nearly 31,000 moved to Texas, according to Census figures.

Florida, which is susceptible to natural disasters such as hurricanes and other destructive storms, has the nation’s highest average home insurance premium.

This year, homeowners in the Sunshine State pay on average $6,000 a year for home insurance, or 42% more compared to 2022, according to the Insurance Information Institute.

Soaring property prices in Dallas have made the city increasingly unaffordable, according to the latest figures. VisitDallas

By comparison, the nationwide average annual home insurance premium is $1,700 — an 11% increase from 2022.

Robert Kantor, a resident of Broward County, told Newsweek that his homeowner’s insurance doubled to more than $7,000 last year “with taxes at over $3,500.”

“That’s over $10,000 just to stay in my home,” he said. Kantor, who bought the property in 1988 for $150,000, said the home is now valued at more than $600,000.

Vincent Tropea, a resident of Boca Raton who is currently retired, told Newsweek that he “can no longer afford home insurance coverage in Florida and cannot afford to be self-insured either.”

After 30 years living in the state, Tropea said it may be time to look elsewhere.

“My next move is to see if I can afford to move to a different state,” he said.

The cost of home insurance for Texans is also among the highest in the nation.

Florida has the nation’s highest homeowners insurance premiums. The image above shows the skyline of downtown Miami. CRISTOBAL HERRERA-ULASHKEVICH/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Last year, homeowners insurance rose an average of 10.8%, according to the Texas Department of Insurance.

The influx of people who have moved to Texas from states such as California have contributed to soaring housing costs — which has made home affordability, one of the Lone Star State’s advantages, out of reach for an increasing number of locals.

Over the last decade, home prices in and around the metropolitan areas of Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston have become less affordable relative to income than Chicago, a recent analysis by the National Association of Realtors and the US Census Bureau found.

The analysis, the results of which were published by Dallas Morning News, found that the cities’ “affordability ratio” that measures income levels relative to home prices is nearing that of New York City.

In Dallas-Fort Worth, the media home price has more than doubled, while incomes have risen 45%, according to data published by the Dallas Morning News.

A decade ago, more than 80% of homes that were listed for sale in Dallas-Fort Worth could be bought at less than $300,000.

In 2022, just over 20% of listed homes could be bought at less than $300,000, according to figures released by the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University.

That means more than three out of four homes that are available to be bought in the Dallas-Fort Worth area require a sum of at least $300,000.

Texas, which has no personal income tax, nonetheless has some of the nation’s highest property tax rates. Christopher Sadowski

The number of former Californians who became Texans dropped slightly last year, but some of that slack was picked up by Arizona and Florida, which saw their tallies of ex-Californians grow, according to state-to-state migration figures released last month.

The flow of Californians to Texas has marked the largest state-to-state movement in the US for the past two years, but it decreased from more than 107,000 people in 2021 to more than 102,000 residents in 2022, as real estate in Texas’ largest cities has grown more expensive.

In Florida, meanwhile, the number of former Californians went from more than 37,000 people in 2021 to more than 50,000 people in 2022, and in Arizona, it went from more than 69,000 people to 74,000 people during that same time period.

A byproduct of rising home values is soaring property tax rates, particularly in Texas, which has no state personal income tax.