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By Giulia Carbonaro in Miami, Florida
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When Eric Johnson relocated from Ohio to Florida in 2019 with his family, moving into a condo with a view of the ocean in Jensen Beach, he said it was “almost like paradise.”
The winters in Ohio were cold and son Dylan, who has ADHD and is “very active,” did not particularly enjoy spending days “bundled up” indoors, his father said. Florida was different. “The beautiful weather, the nice beaches—we had an opportunity where the housing market in Ohio was starting to go up,” Johnson told Newsweek, “while the housing market in Florida had not taken off yet,” he added. “We had the opportunity and we took it.”
The family were looking for a condo unit, exploring a section of the Florida real estate market which for years has offered Americans trying to move by the beach an affordable and reliable option. “We looked at a couple of different options there,” Johnson said. “We chose Villa del Sol [a condo complex in Jensen Beach] over some of the other ones just because the layout of it was a little different.”
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“It didn’t have the typical hotel-style units. It felt more like a home. It was a bit bigger, the bedrooms are bigger. It felt like a townhouse as opposed to a condo or a hotel,” Johnson added. Also, the family had a dog and the community allowed pets, so they bought the Villa del Sol condo unit. That was in 2017. Johnson was still doing a degree program back in Ohio, so the family waited until he was finished with that and had found employment in Florida before they moved, renting out the space during the winter months. Two years later, they were ready to move to the Sunshine State.
The timing was lucky: The family purchased their home before an influx of out-of-state newcomers started flocking to Florida, driving up prices as everyone wanted to buy a place in the sun. “I think we paid $209,000 for it,” Johnson said.
At its pandemic peak, the median sale price of a home in Florida jumped by 23.8 percent year-over-year in May 2022 to $405,900, according to Redfin data. In May 2017, the median price for townhouse-condo properties in Florida was $178,000, while for single-family existing homes it was $239,000, Florida Realtors data shows. But little did the Johnsons know, they had just walked into the real estate equivalent of a hornets’ nest.
Legislation Aftermath
In 2021, 98 people died when the 12-story Champlain Towers South condo collapsed suddenly in Surfside. In June 2025 the official investigation, due to conclude in 2026, released an update on collapse hypotheses, noting “many design and construction problems that weakened the building.” In the wake of the tragedy, Florida lawmakers passed sweeping new building safety legislation, asking condo associations to stay on top of necessary repairs and maintenance and ensuring there were enough finances to fund such work.
“The Surfside tragedy, I think it hit many people by surprise. But when it did happen, I think it was something that we all thought, this [legislation] should have been coming,” Katherine Amador, a lawyer and partner in Berger Singerman in Miami, told Newsweek.
“For many, many years, the legislation just did not have these strict requirements. And with HOA [Homeowners Associations, people were] saying basically this is gonna be somebody else’s issue. We’re just gonna kick this can [along the road]. And the recent legislation really put an end to that,” she said.
In 2023, the Johnsons’ condo building was inspected by several engineers who told them that to fix everything that needed repairing in Villa del Sol—replacing the roof, updating the electrical boxes outside the units and so on—the whole community would have to spend roughly $3.1 million; about $43,000 per unit. For the Johnsons, the cost was high but, ultimately, the decision was a no-brainer. Their son was happy, thriving in the new environment which allowed him to go swimming, boating and spend time outdoors. The community was nice.
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“At that time, we took out a second mortgage on our property to pay for it. We were debating for a while whether we should stay or move,” Johnson said. It was tempting to think about moving to another coastal community in Florida, “but then the value of every other property in the neighborhood had also gone up,” he said.
“It would have just been a wash moving from one place to another at the same price,” he said. “We had everything that we wanted, steps away from the beach. We loved our neighbors at the time. It was great, so we really didn’t wanna move.”
The Johnsons “never imagined moving out” of Florida. But as work started on their condo building, they discovered that their home was crumbling. So much damage was found in three of Villa del Sol’s buildings during a structural inspection that they were deemed unsafe to live in and many residents were evacuated in August 2024. “We had a couple of hours to pack up what we could and evacuate,” said Johnson, who is yet to return.
A spokesperson for St. Lucie County, Florida, told Newsweek in December that, at that time, county authorities had “the same stance on the structures (that they are unsafe and uninhabitable)” as when the Johnsons were evacuated in summer 2024, “as we have not heard otherwise regarding the safety of the structures from a registered design professional hired by the condo board and no repairs have taken place,” they said.
“We received permit applications on 11/16/2025 to repair the structures. Those have been approved through review and invoiced as of 12/05/2025, and once the fee is paid the permits can be issued,” the spokesperson added.
Jason Calloway, CEO of Beacon Management—the property manager which has recently taken over Villa del Sol—told Newsweek in December that construction work to get the building compliant was starting that month “and we have engineers and a contractor to ensure we have these buildings back to a habitable condition.”
Caught in Florida’s Real Estate Crossfire
There was more heartbreak for the Johnsons. At the time they were evacuated, their son was supposed to start at a new school in a matter of days. Johnson’s wife Angela was doing dialysis, and she had just been told she finally had a transplant date.
“We were actually in a pretty good spot, and then all of a sudden I’m sitting at work and then I get a phone call from one of our neighbors saying we had to evacuate immediately,” Johnson said. The family stayed at a neighbor’s, who was away, while they figured out what to do next. They found a rental 40 minutes away so that their son could continue going to the school he was meant to attend—but the cost of rental and insurance was crushing them.
Though they were evacuated from Villa del Sol, the Johnsons had to continue paying for their second mortgage—until they could not. Their credit score plummeted and they lost thousands of dollars in equity. The Johnsons’ unit was appraised for about $580,000 before they were evacuated. Now, it was listed by the tax collector for $43,000. “It just started spiraling out of control from there,” Johnson said.
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His son, who was 13 at the time and did not deal well with changes, had to change schools four times during the same school year. The whole family felt the consequences of the “traumatic experience” they lived through and had to take anxiety and depression medication “just because of everything that’s been going on with this,” Johnson said. The family moved to Georgia and “ended up having to withdraw 401(k)s just to live off of,” he added. They asked for any type of financial help available, but were told there wasn’t any. They were “just trying to live,” Johnson said, his voice breaking up. “It was such a struggle.”
Theirs is an extreme case, but the crisis the Johnsons found themselves in touched others: Florida’s condo crisis combined with a nationwide housing affordability crisis. “Historically, Florida has been a relatively affordable place to move to, especially to retire to, and we have a lot of service jobs to serve that tourism economy. So there’s always been a wage base that has needed affordable homes in Florida,” said Anne Ray, the interim director of the Shimberg Center for Housing Studies at University of Florida.
In 2020, the state faced a huge population growth, as the rise of remote work led many to relocate across the country. “In 2017, 2018 and 2019, we were actually complaining that our inventory was too low. And we found out what low inventory really was a couple of years later,” Brad O’Connor, chief economist at the Florida Realtors association, told Newsweek.
“With mortgage rates dropping and us being trapped in our homes and walling ourselves in with boxes from Amazon, the new American pastime became searching for homes online. And it really ignited a lot of demand in Florida,” he said.
“We’ve always been a population magnet for years or even decades now,” Ray said. “But we saw an increase in people moving in from the Northeast, from Illinois, from California—and that put pressure on a lot of markets.”
‘One-Size-Fits-All’ Approach
Markets which had been relatively affordable, on the outskirts of big cities like Miami and Orlando, became overheated during the pandemic, with home prices reaching beyond what many locals could afford. “Our home prices increased more than most other states,” O’Connor said.
So did property taxes and homeowners insurance premiums, as the state was navigating a crisis brought about by excessive litigation, widespread fraud and more frequent and more severe natural disasters. On top of that, HOA fees for condo owners have soared since the implementation of the condo safety legislation passed after the Surfside collapse. New rules that came into place last year led to a surge in condo units being put up for sale in Florida coastal communities—though most ended up piling up on the market, unsold. “They’re wanting us to go from zero to 60 in 15 seconds like an automobile and that’s it,” Ken Reid, who owns a condo unit in Boca Raton but is originally from New Jersey, told Newsweek, referring to the legislation’s requirement for condo associations to build up enough reserves to tackle maintenance and repair works.
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“My beef is—we’re not near the beach. We’re not in the high flood zone. And yet we got to do the same thing that they have to do near a beach or near a lake or a river. It’s just ridiculous. It’s a one-size-fits-all thing,” he said.
“I was hoping to keep my total monthly expenses down below like $2,200-$2,300 a month, and now that’s not possible,” Reid said. “I mean, the insurance alone, and I think I got a good deal, is like $2,300 a year. Utilities are not too bad, the taxes are not too bad either, compared to what you pay up North. But the HOA fee is a killer. I mean, that is a real, real killer.”
“And they also have special assessments, which are not as much as other condominiums. We’re looking at maybe paying as much as $20,000 per unit to deal with all the stuff that was deferred, that was never done,” he added.
The legislation has caused such turmoil in the condo market that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis advocated strongly for reform to give more time and flexibility for condo associations and owners to comply with the new rules, including extending the deadline for a building’s key assessment. Those reforms came into force in July. But Reid said that because his condo association had already conducted the structural integrity reserve study they were required to do, they are now “stuck” and are not “eligible” to benefit from the reform. For many Florida residents, it all became a little too much.
‘I Refused To Be Robbed’
Colleen Terry, a New Yorker who had bought a condo in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 2009, has now returned to New York. “I refused to be robbed by that state,” she told Newsweek.
Terry initially used her condo as a vacation home, renting it out in the winter months. As she was nearing retirement, she wanted to be a typical Florida snowbird, but the condo recently became financially unbearable.
“The condo fees jumped over $300 a month, to over $800 along with a $4,000 special assessment. This increase without being able to offset the cost with winter rental income was no longer affordable for me,” she said.
Terry sold the condo and purchased a villa in The Mainlands, a 55-plus community. But she quickly was priced out of this new property, too.
“The second year, my property taxes went from $1,400 to $4,000. My homeowners insurance doubled to $2,800 on an 834 square foot home. My electric bill was $175 when the home was vacant in July,” she said. “It was a struggle to keep up with the bills,” she said, so she sold the property in August 2024.
“When I tell people I was priced out of Florida, they assume it’s the cost of homeowners insurance. That was expensive, but everyone had to pay for it,” she said. “Taxes are another story. If you are a new resident, you pay four to five times more than your neighbors,” she added. “I liked Florida, but I’ll never forgive them for the unwelcoming tax bill.”
Terry is not the only former Florida resident happy to have moved out of the state. Other Newsweek readers wrote about having left Florida to return to their home states.
While Florida lawmakers are currently debating a way to slash property taxes in the state, and DeSantis is advocating for their complete elimination, Terry thinks they are “catering to their voters” only.
“But quickly Florida will run out of suckers like me who will soon see the light,” she said.
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Prices Are Falling—But Is It Enough?
Colleen Terry, a New Yorker who had bought a condo in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 2009, has now returned to New York. “I refused to be robbed by that state,” she told Newsweek. Terry initially used her condo as a vacation home, renting it out in the winter months. As she was nearing retirement, she wanted to be a typical Florida snowbird, but the condo recently became financially unbearable.
“The condo fees jumped over $300 a month, to over $800 along with a $4,000 special assessment. This increase without being able to offset the cost with winter rental income was no longer affordable for me,” she said.
Terry sold the condo and purchased a villa in a 55-plus community. But she was quickly priced out of this new property, too. “The second year, my property taxes went from $1,400 to $4,000. My homeowners insurance doubled to $2,800 on an 834 square foot home. My electric bill was $175 when the home was vacant in July,” she said. “It was a struggle to keep up with the bills,” she added, so she sold the property in August 2024.
“When I tell people I was priced out of Florida, they assume it’s the cost of homeowners insurance. That was expensive, but everyone had to pay for it,” she said. “Taxes are another story. If you are a new resident, you pay four to five times more than your neighbors,” she added. “I liked Florida, but I’ll never forgive them for the unwelcoming tax bill.”
Existing Florida homeowners have benefited from the Save Our Homes and Homestead Exemption laws, which limit the annual increase in a homestead property’s assessed value—“you are talking about individuals who are getting a 50 percent discount on their property tax,” Esteban Leonardo Santis, director of research with the Florida Policy Institute, said at a November debate attended by Newsweek.
“If you bought your home 10, 15, 20 years ago, you’ve been protected from skyrocketing changes in market values.”
“But if you’re a first-time homebuyer [in Florida] you are going to be paying higher property taxes than your neighbor,” he added. “Not everyone’s feeling the strain of property taxes the same.”
Other Newsweek readers wrote about having left Florida to return to their home states. While Florida lawmakers are currently debating a way to slash property taxes, and DeSantis is advocating for their complete elimination, Terry thinks they are “catering to their voters” only. “But quickly Florida will run out of suckers like me who will soon see the light,” she said.
Prices Are Falling—Is It Enough?
Prices spiked in Florida in 2021 and 2022. “Once we got to the situation where inflation reared its ugly head and the Fed[eral Reserve] had to raise rates, we had rates rising from—gosh—by 3 percentage points, I think, from 3 percent to around 6 percent, and actually hitting near 7 percent at some point,” O’Connor said. “The shock of the rate increases really just had an immediate impact on demand, and price growth has been stagnant since then,” he added. “Some of our markets in Florida have seen some price declines. Others are still growing, but very slowly.”
The construction boom initiated by Florida developers during the pandemic has resulted in a glut of inventory that is keeping price increases at bay, if not forcing price declines. Realtor.com experts expect median sale prices for existing homes and condos across Florida’s eight largest metropolitan areas to fall an average of 1.9 percent in 2026, much below the 2.2 percent positive gain forecast nationally. But in many markets, home prices are “stable at those higher levels,” Ray said. “Because home prices have really gone up, [Florida] might be less of an affordable market for retirement homes or for a second home. That’s becoming more of a luxury market.”
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O’Connor is optimistic about Florida’s future. While affordability is an issue, he thinks many still want to live in the state—and would still be able to in the future, maybe even soon. “Prices have actually been quite stable the last three years, and incomes are catching up,” O’Connor said. “It’s a slow process, but I think with affordability, there’s not an overnight solution, it is improving day by day.”
Nonetheless, buyers in Florida have changed their mindset, according to lawyer Amador. “I think people just need to be more cautious, more...selective,” she said. “People are aware that they are no longer just looking at a purchase price, like, ‘What is this gonna cost me to buy the unit?’ Now it’s, ‘What is it gonna cost me to maintain the unit?’ So you’re no longer...buying a unit. Now people are aware that you’re really buying a balance sheet.”
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