Economic challenges are pressuring home sales across the country but 99% of the top 100 markets still sizzled in May, with South Florida climbing the list of most overvalued regions in the nation. Seven areas in Florida made it into the top 25 most overvalued markets, with Fort Myers ranking the highest statewide and sixth place nationally. Homebuyers there paid 60% more in May than they would in a normal market. Lakeland, Tampa, Bradenton-Sarasota, Melbourne, Daytona Beach and Orlando were also in the top 25. Hurricane Irma made landfall on the southwestern coast of Florida in September 2017, damaging million-dollar homes in beachfront communities from Marco Island to Naples. About 40 miles inland, near Immokalee in Southern Florida’s agriculture belt, the storm devastated tomato fields and citrus orchards, leaving many temporarily without work and income. The hurricane also devastated the stock of aging and weathered manufactured homes in Immokalee — locals call them “trailers” — where many of the Latin American immigrant workers who pick and process the fruits and vegetables live.
As pandemic restrictions ease and remote work becomes a permanent fixture, Americans continue to seek homes in communities with more relaxed lifestyles — particularly in Florida and the Northeast, home to the country’s most competitive markets for renters, according to a new analysis of real estate data. The rental trend has been fueled in part by stubbornly high house prices and rising mortgage rates, which are pushing would-be buyers into an already overheated rental market. Inflation is making thousands of Florida houses and condos ineligible for coverage by Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the state-owned “insurer of last resort.” Owners of Citizens-insured homes with replacement values in the $500,000 to $600,000 range just a couple years ago have been receiving notices of non-renewal, forcing them to seek far-more expensive coverage in the unregulated surplus lines market.