"Texas and Florida are now buyers’ markets. Here’s why it could be time to move to the South"
Lived in Texas for 30 years before moving out two years ago. It took living somewhere else to realize that summer is actually enjoyed by most of the rest of the world, rather than feared.
I enjoyed summer in texas when i was a kid in the 80s and 90s
It was still hot as hell and I should have worn way more sunscreen
Climate change is real...
I remember SO many lightning bugs back then. Just thousands and thousands.
There were zillions more birds in the sky too
The lightning bugs were soo fun as a kid
Urban bubble effect.
My husband and I are moving to upstate New York by the end of the summer! WOOTS! (tying up loose ends, this is the soonest we could GTFO.)
I grew up there and now live in Dallas. Can’t wait to leave
Lived in Texas for a while. I get why some people would want to snow bird there during the winters, but simply cannot understand those people who said they lived the summer there. It's awful from June-mid September. It's awful in March-May with the crazy rain, hail, and tornadoes.
Most people aren’t privileged enough to have two different homes in two different states my guy.
Lived there from 2001-2003 and I vividly recall a day in August that was like 106, with 70% humidity
just miserable to be outside
That’s not remotely an outlier. It’s not “normal,” but it’s nothing crazy.
Unless you live in socal weather is usually rather variable. Wait until you find out its zero degrees and windy in chicago a few months of the year
Chicago summers are pretty gross too, all that humidity. And you never see the sun all winter it’s just gray or the white sky of doom.
More like a couple of weeks... Chicago gets like 1 subzero stretch and 1 big snowfall stretch per year thanks to global warming.
Winter in Chicago is nothing anymore. You can plan a vacation or two during the winter and miss a big portion of it. October - December is my favorite time of year in the north anyway. Anyone who would rather miss fall and Christmas in the north by spending it in Florida is insane in my mind. January and February are another story, but you can easily miss a third of it by planning trips around that part of year instead of summer.
Meh a few years ago we got hit with what felt like over a dozen polar vortexes with temps to -30. Then the daily hail and thunderstorms moat of the summer. Weather truly is weather
I will take freezing temps over 100+(f) temps any day
Summer in Houston is pretty bad outside, but you stay indoors or go to swimming pools, go out at night. The winter is shorts weather, though, which is great. I do wish I could leave to Minnesota or something in the summer. But, our winters are pretty easy and it's not in the cards to pick up and move.
Never seen a tornado or tornado damage in the Houston area but it's a big state so I can't say it's not a problem. I wasn't aware of that though.
Have you been living under a rock? https://www.foxweather.com/weather-news/thunderstorm-damage-houston-texas
I had heard about the storm but I wasn't aware of the tornados that's crazy. I lived in Houston from 90-2015 and was never once concerned about a tornado. Just hurricanes (constantly). Thanks for bringing that to my attention.
If heat doesn’t get you the waters will. My relative moved to Texas few years ago, they don’t mind the heat but their home and areas around it has been flooded thrice. And it never flooded there before..
You are right, the natural disasters and climate change in texas are very impactful. Hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, drought, and HEAT are killers. I worked in construction in Houston and i swear we had multiple homeowners in the 'bear creek' and 'bayou' areas of Houston that were flooded three times in five years! They had to completely put their lives back together every eighteen months. A lot of them had to spend huge money after the third flood in order to maintain their insurance. Insurance companies were requiring homeowners to somehow lift their slab foundation house up four feet. Nightmares.
Turns out, nothing crushes home prices quite like being uninsurable...?
That’s only Florida. Texas insurance is fairly competitive.
Only Florida for now. Insurance companies will be pulling out of more markets. Places with wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes, flooding. Large swaths of the country.
True this. NYTimes' The Daily podcast had a report out of mid Iowa last week of a swath of good homeowners cancelled by insurance just because of a derecho. Pockets of the country that I wouldn't think of as ground-zero as getting hit with insurance pulling out...and insurer of last resort charging arm and a leg.
Large multi-national insurance carriers like Zurich and AON will be the only ones around to insure these risks because marketing machines like State Farm spend over half of their revenue on marketing rather than claims.
A lot of claims professionals are retiring or getting out of the industry entirely due to workload and shit pay (for most).
State farm and the like actually reinsure many of their policies via larger reinsurance companies. Just like mortgage companies who sell mortgages off to large banks, which in turn securitize the mortgages. They all get a cut.
Thus proving it’s not climate change, or water levels rising, or any of that. Not denying those things are happening and will continue to happen, because that much is true.
Insurers simply don’t want to cover as much risk at such high valuations. Too high, too fast, too much.
It's all snowballing... pun unintended but immediately recognized + leaving it. ⛄️
*edit to add: Flood risk/re-evaluations are a real consideration at least in some parts of Florida + definitely in the Gulf South over the last 10-15 years 😬
Risk of total loss is going up at the same time as rebuild cost is going up. So actuary tables are being pushed up from both ends.
Yeah global warming is a very reddit take its increased labor and material cost, home prices and insurance fraud
Yep, and the fraud rate is historically rampant in Florida. Have you ever heard the expression that "Florida is a sunny state for shady people?"
Yeah its the fraud capitol
Insurance companies were warning of this happening due to climate change over 20 years ago. Then, this point wasn’t expected until at least mid century. Nobody who has honestly followed this stuff the last few decades is surprised in the least.
Thus proving it’s not climate change, or water levels rising, or any of that.
Huh? I don't follow. These extreme and damaging storms are becoming more common because of global warming, and insurance companies are pulling out because of this. The risk is becoming worse, to the point where insuring these people isn't profitable anymore. Otherwise you'd have smaller insurance companies swooping in to take those profits.
Houston as an example:
Dericho'd
Unless real estate valuations come down. 20% is probably a good number to see for insurers to become more comfortable with the risk. Doesn’t mean they’ll lower their premiums, just that they won’t be as sheepish about offering coverage at all.
Just my guess. It’s not typical for residential real estate to climb 50% in 3 short years. Most often, a decade or more is needed to see that kind of appreciation. Any market. Some, even slower than that.
It won't be uninsurable, because Texas let's the free market handle insurance prices, unlike the very anti free market Florida. Trouble is when it crosses 5% of the home value per year, that's gonna be defacto uninsurable because nobody can afford it.
I know Farmers pulled out of California…..
Large parts of Texas are also hurricane zones
Property taxes have entered the chat.
Right. It's thoroughly hilarious that they're terming an uninsurable, soon-to-be hellscape as a "buyer's market" - yeah, that's what happens when it's inconvenient and eventually dangerous to live somewhere.
Idk where this article is referring to specifically in TX as it’s behind a paywall but I can say from my experience all the desirable places in the major cities are very much not getting “crushed” price wise lol. Interest rates have cooled off slightly but prices are still sky high from where they were pre 2020.
Texas increased supply. Simple economic concept.
1600 percent surge pricing today for power. Why is there not solar everywhere?
That’s just for people who opt for variable priced energy. If you use city power or fixed rate, you don’t get that kind of surge pricing.
The biggest Surprised Pikachu Face in the world is people who select variable-priced energy finding out that the price can vary upwards, not just downwards.
Just don't do it. The savings are not worth the mental energy of timing your life around electricity markets.
I tried it for a couple months when I lived in an apartment. My energy usage was so low that IF I had been perfect with timing, I maybe would have saved $5 a month. There was a lot more downside if I didn't.
Mostly because the systems required to run off-grid and not just supplement are very expensive and large.
If the texas gov wanted it they could do it though. Keep the grid, subsidize all the panels on all the houses, then charge pennies just to keep the grid lines maintained. Talking like $1 a month per household. Throw it into a disaster fund. Now every household is a power generator.
Its self maintaining too, to the effect that if you make “incoming” power more expensive after a certain KwH, every home owner will be sure to replace panels when they deteriorate in 10+ years.
Texas is the leading producer of renewable energy in the United States. In 2022, Texas produced more than a quarter of the country's wind-sourced electricity, and in 2023, Texas generated 119,836 GWh of wind energy, more than any other state. Texas is also the second-largest producer of solar power, behind California. In 2022, renewable resources provided about one-fourth of Texas's net electricity generation.
Edit: this is another simple fact easily searchable on google instead of just spouting bs
As a Texan who has worked in energy-adjacent fields, our success in harnessing renewables has really come despite the best efforts of our government. There are plenty of more moderate GOP members who recognize that we need renewable energy to bolster our energy capacity, but unfortunately many of our elected officials are trying their hardest to kneecap renewables.
Edit: Not sure why this is getting downvoted, the source I linked cites specific pieces of legislation which are intended to stifle the growth of renewables and artificially prop up fossil fuels
The is quite surprising in a good way. Now they need to invest in infrastructure. The grid still seems to go down and lead to deaths every few years.
Oh, we do. It’s called ALL OF THE ABOVE! Wind, solar, hydro, nuclear and fossil. Wind and solar will NEVER be the base source of energy and that’s something y’all will not acknowledge. Sometimes it’s cloudy and calm winds for several days as we have seen in California. Those sources will always be auxiliary. The grid needs a reliable base load of 55% and fossil, nuclear and hydro provide that. But you idiots have a jihad on fossil, you’re scared to death of nuclear and you just tore down a major hydroelectric dam out west to save tribal fish.
I pay fix price
Some adults today will be the last owners of much of Florida's real estate. The only question is which ones for which real estate.
I paid only $2600 on a 2600sqft house in texas for insurance with full roof replacement coverage. Shop around
Ok... thats not where i live tho.
This guy just straight up insulted you lol
Patiently waiting for the giant price collapse in Florida when nobody can finance a hoom because it's impossible to get insurance. The only people allowed to buy a hoom would be all-cash buyers who can accept the risk of no insurance.
What happens to existing mortgages in this case? Must require the insurance at all times
The mortgage company forces insurance on the borrower, which increases the cost even more because they don't care about costs just coverage.
Depending on amount owed, might bit be that much. The forced insurance only covers the portion of remaining loan balance. Though it means the homeowner is paying for insurance either way but the forced insurance does not protect them at all.
Mortgages just get sold on to new companies. They will always exist. And yes they can kick a million people out of houses as seen after 2008.
Existing hoomowners would be forced to sell because the banks would call the outstanding mortgage balances due in full because of no insurance. This will drive the prices down.
It's hilarious.... To me...That Florida depreciating due to global warming would be seen as a opportunity by the lower class
To get into upside down hoas 1970s condos that need to be torn down?
I mean...it's what is going to happen in the next 30-40 years. Rich people will move up to the great lakes region, pricing out the poor people, who will have to move to the coasts for the scraps.
Next up: slow demise of Florida! At 11: the Erie Canal collapses due to Great Lakes depletion!
Stay tuned!
Vermont is the next big market IMO.
On top of increasingly powerful hurricanes capable of rapid unpredictable intensification.
I know it wasn’t technically the Atlantic hurricane season, but Otis hitting Mexico as a cat 5 (and then remaining a cat 5 after landfall) after being a TS not even 24 hrs before is nightmare fuel.
With how hot the gulf has been last year and this year is horrifying.
It definitely keeps me up at night during storm season. We used to not really worry much about a cat 1 or 2, we’d sleep through them, but those days are over. We have to be ready to evacuate even for the small storms now.
My brother is in the keys and they had only had storm surge 2 days after Ian passed them. A major hurricane in his area and his first floor will be underwater. Just a matter of time, and he likely won’t have to wait too long.
I’m further inland (Orlando area) and we had cat 1 sustained winds with Ian, even with the large stretch of land it travelled after ft myers.
We went through Andrew, where my parents had to rebuild. Their windstorm insurance at the time was phenomenal. Now, it is so expensive, even with the early adoption of the Andrew building codes on their home during rebuild, that they e gone uninsured. It just makes me anxious as hell.
Seriously, everyone should be holding their breath regarding the next big hurricane to hit a population center on the gulf coast. The next hurricane andrew, or even a harvey with just a little more sticking power, could show retroactively what a house of cards the situation is.
Hell, imagine an actual big one hitting DC. It'll probably happen sooner or later, the way things are going.
Major hurricanes have hit NYS and even Canada. Not many, but it has happened in the past.
I can’t imagine a major hurricane hitting greater NYC area nowadays.
People talk about Sandy still, and that was an absolute nothingburger. A cat 5 hitting the NYC-DC region would be catacylsmic
And it’s likely to happen with the warming seas.
We had a preview in 2003. Hurricane Isabel. People were freaking out across the East Coast due to it being a Category 5 with a very wide possible landfall range. It was weakened by wind shear and landed in North Carolina as a Category 2. But even then, it was the costliest natural disaster in Virginia State history. I grew up in Maryland, and that was my one hurricane scare.
Its due to appreciating home cost, material cost and labor costs and insurance fraud, not herbal warming
FL is at the at the leading edge of climate change, many aspects of FL real estate will have to be reevaluated. But even with cat5+ storms & coastal flooding, former interior/new coastal land will still be exceedingly valuable. Home values will adjust to compensate for the soaring insurance prices.
The wealthy will begin to leave as municipal services begin to fail. Can’t drive your Ferrari through big potholes or 2ft of water. Can’t fly your plane or sail your yacht in a hurricane either.
This will open for poor/‘rugged’ people to move in. Who knows, maybe if relations continue to warm with Cuba. Immigration might one day happen, and Florida will have even more Hispanic influence.
Possibly, Disney and Orlando will take the place of Miami as the state’s tax base shrinks and coastal cities begin to break down.
Also, FL ground water is already beginning to get tainted with saltwater so that will massively affect where people, plants, and animals are able to live. This will also have affects on the foundation of any large buildings as they are mostly built on sand.
I think Florida is going to be extremely interesting case study over the next 50 years.
I don't believe big buildings are built on sand. The go down to the limestone bedrock for those. Smaller houses, yes, just slab on grade foundations however.
Most of the coastal homes have pylons down into the limestone.
There’s a photo of the Vilano house in st Augustine before it was demolished after Ian and Nicole because a good 10ft of the pylons were exposed due to beach erosion.
That's a wild ride of $1.2M to $175K. The pitch is that once you build a sea wall, you could build your dream home. I'm sure no one wants to insure that.
You are absolutely correct, limestone bedrock is very strong. But it’s a carbonate rock. Meaning acid rain, water, and salt are extremely erosive* to it. As both hurricanes and sea levels increase all three of those elements will find their way into the pylons. It is only a matter of time.
This is, of course, assuming the dilapidated condominiums don’t bury everyone alive first.
Yup, acidic water will melt that limestone in a short while.
Not a good future for Florida, for sure.
The wealthy will begin to leave as municipal services begin to fail. Can’t drive your Ferrari through big potholes or 2ft of water. Can’t fly your plane or sail your yacht in a hurricane either.
I disagree. The wealthy can afford to set up their own exclusive communities that have desalination plants and private runways with food and supplies flown in because there's nothing else for miles, after all the poors have been forced to flee.
They can also afford to rebuild after each Cat 4 or 5 or 6. Might even be cheaper than remodeling every 5 years because the house is starting to 'look old'
Yes I'm thinking The first televised version of hunger games
You are not wrong
My last 4 sales have all been foreign buyers. Cash. 14 day no contingency.
They give no fucks so I don't think a crash will ever happen.
Agree. The NYTimes' The Daily podcast had a story about homeowners policies being cancelled out of the blue in mid Iowa just because of a derecho. And last resort new insurer running a 100THOUsand dollar deductible on one guy who got cancelled.
I wonder if paying down ones mortgage as fast as doable is going to become more of a thing in the coming years, (inspite of the golden handcuff 3% rate) merely to discouple ones home from the mortgage bank/HO full insurance mandate. Not saying go bare (no insurance) once the house is paid off, but simply shedding that ball and chain of required coverage at any cost. And I'm not just talking Texas, Caly and Florida: insurance coverage could go wild in middle America in the coming years too...per the NYTimes' reporting. Wild new world out there.
I'm glad I wasn't stupid for selling my dad's townhouse in s fla. I didn't want it and saw upcoming issues. With a $12 min wage, 1 bedroom apartments at 2k+,and my cookie cutter 60s childhood home going for 600k (went at auction for 190k in '16) florida does not seem sustainable
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Florida is not a buyers market right now
As someone who's been looking for a home in soflo for 4 years, I really want to know what this article is smoking.
We're side-eying neighboring states to buy now. This is crazy down here.
Right. I’m in Jacksonville.
Just went and checked Zillow. Prices are just as astronomical as they have been for the last few years.
That’s why they aren’t selling, and active listings are increasing.
North side checking in, same.
Probably written by a real estate agent - one of the many parasitic creatures that inhabit this state
Same in Texas. My brother is looking for a house in Dallas and prices have not dropped at all. It's still a very active market with multiple offers on most properties.
Neither is Texas lmao
I’ve seen a bunch of these articles. My take is that if you live in a major city (SoFL, Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa) it’s tough. But if you want a beachfront condo with a $1k+ per month HOA in a part of the state that is not a major job hub, you can snag a deal.
The hell they are in Florida .There's double supply since COVID but every home that was $200k is still $380k with barely any real price cuts.
Looking anywhere around WPB area you see 500k+ for houses that were 300k
Even the country club houses are that force you to join the gold clubs at 40-60k a year and 700hoa are insanely priced, these things were going for high 100s low 200s a few years ago.
Looking anywhere around WPB area you see 500k+ for houses that were 300k
WPB is cooked. Word finally got out that it was a nice place to live while still being in South Florida. It's a damn metropolis now compared to before precovid.
Inventory in Florida does in fact sit for a lot longer now, often weeks or even months, but there's reasons for that. Notably the stupidly high property taxes, mafia-style HOA fees, and of course home insurance... in a state prone to flooding, hurricanes, and all the other nasty bits of an ever-warming planet.
Don’t forget the insanely high prices
Nowhere near time to buy. Time for a painful bleed out in markets. Wait. Will take a few years.
Agreed. If one must buy, simply can not wait, be very aggressive with offers. I’m going by a 15-20% initial offer. I’ll get repeated lack of interest.
Wall Street's way of telling native, low-income Texans and Floridians it's time to start packing, because private equity has no intention of letting the property prices ever become affordable again.
Actually, it's the opposite. Private Equity gets the most up to date information and will be the first to sell. The term "Buyers market" is how you get the financially uneducated to accept their role as bag-holders. Prices double, then fall 4% and suddenly it's a "buyers' market".
Also, the vast majority of investors are small time 1-10 property holders. Not wall street.
Florida is more expensive than ever. I live there and can’t afford anything.
It’s not for us… we are the servants… we need to know our place
Meh, valar dohaeris. We wouldn't have a society otherwise. But how am I to serve if I can't live here on a working-class wage in the first place :P
how about we don't
Judging by all the New Yorkers and New Jerseyians around me I think it's been "time to move to the South" for approximately 30 years now.
No it’s not.
Isn’t Florida home insurance industry gunna go bust
Best of luck affording your homeowners insurance.
"No fortune.com, I would not take the road through Texas or Florida unless I had no other choice."
Listen to Gandalf fam.
Lol, no you move there first.
This false dichotomy cracks me up. If your business is transactions you always want to incentivize at least one half of the transaction. Ideally both.
But last time, guess when it switched to a "buyers market"? Right after the peak of the market, when it was absolutely the worst time to buy.
They're looking for falling knife catchers to buy right after peak prices. Wall street isn't a huge player but they'll dump inventory first, because they pay Redfin for live data, not the 4 week rolling average we get.
If buyers just went on a strike for a couple of years as prices revert to mean, realtors would starve and wall street would no longer have people to offload to. Hence buyers market.
Here is an example of a new build outside of Austin that has been listed since September 2022, dropped from $1.375M to $950K a month ago and still on the market.
That's a 30% drop.
Plenty more around the city as well
How to put this nicely: nothing in Spicewood was ever worth that much.
Central Austin is holding its value, but all the surrounding communities that experienced the post-Covid bubble are retreating back to sane prices. Same as every real estate bubble in Austin the that 40 years.
Just kinda sucks to be anyone who bought or built during the bubble.
This is where up and down is measured in previous month or quarter is really misleading to us all . How about just compare prices to last time it was affordable. I’ll start , 2020.
Home owners insurance is a huge issue in those two states.
Yeah, but then you gotta LIVE in the south. And if you move to South Carolina, get ready to pay HOA fees monthly for the privilege of having your freedoms determined by a small group of your neighbors. And then there’s the roads they pretend to know how to pave. Careful what you wish for, and do your homework.
Home insurance in Florida is probably more than the mortgage if you can even get it.
That’s a grossly fear-mongering perspective. Just bought a $590k house (3/2) in coastal Palm Beach County, annual insurance is $4,500. Nowhere near what the annual mortgage is.
Not a buyers market. Closer to “balanced”, except sellers are higher than ever on price, and buyers don’t know how to negotiate.
Please don’t come to Texas
raising insurance prices to force people out of their homes so hedge funds can scoop them up? Sounds like a pretty good scam.
I work outside. No thanks
Nice ad. Emphasize the positive, ignore all of the pitfalls.
Fortune doesn't even pretend they are producing journalism anymore.
Brah its a buyers market because people are leaving.
In FL the housing market and insurance prices are a shit show.
Could it have anything to do with the energy grid /huge property tax burden for no services and insurance woes in those states, respectively?
I live in Florida…. It’s not a buyers market… it’s not even close.
Y'all need to stop talking about stuff you know nothing about. Why don't you try getting some property insurance in Florida before you open your big mouth.
I’m planning to buy in Jacksonville in a year or so depending on the market. Relatively low hurricane risk and lots of beautiful property in the center.
Buyer’s market… because who wants to live there now?
Maybe in terms of housing prices in isolation but insurance costs, energy prices / power grid issues etc. are kind of big problems.
You either melt in summer down south or freeze in winter up north
or live comfortably out west
Temperature comfortable, not financially comfortable.
I always see these huge mansions on instagram for cheap. Then you find out it’s in the middle of nowhere in Texas. Texas is way too hot. I don’t know anyone who wants to live in Texas.
As for Florida, whenever you hear weird stories, people assume it must be in Florida. It’s hot and humid and you always hear about hurricane. No one wants to insure anyone in Florida. The only people that like Florida are people from Florida.
Oh yeah! Move here just in time to play our favorite summer time game: How many days in a row of 100°+ can we string together!!
Last year we started playing in May! And seeing as how it was 104° yesterday, it looks like we’ve started in May again this year!! Don’t miss out on the “fun” y’all!
I moved out of Texas 3 years ago and never been happier. Hell no, I ain't moving to Texas and Florida.
Where’d you go
Whoever the fuck wrote this must have Florida confused with Indiana or some other equally useless state in the middle of nowhere.
It’s never time to move to the south
Florida? You mean the state where people are going bankrupt because property insurance is so astronomically high that most providers have completely abandoned the state and won't write policies there anymore? By the way, hurricane forecast this year is the highest named storms in recorded history. Have fun!
Move to a state that's self-destructing? What could possibly go wrong?
I didn’t see them mention California in this article?
No thank you
Get in on it now and own some pre waterfront property.
Insurance in Texas is also going up. Between hail, floods and fire in various parts of the state, it’s looking like premiums are going sky high.
What point of capitalism is it when the only place you can afford to by is the shittiest places. Why would anybody want to move to the south
The media's over here trying to create some new bag holders in Florida lol.
It ain't a buyer's market until there's blood in these here mean skreets.
Read my lips: we're just getting started.
Hold the line and don't buy.
Gee I wonder why
Florida! Can't get home insurance, and half the state will be under water in 50 years. Sounds like a real good long term investment.
Went TX --> CO and having seasons is pretty damn nice. Going down memorial Day weekend and I'm being told it'll be 100 when I'm there. It's not even August...........
No thanks, I prefer not to drown in humidity and insurance premiums.
I would say more another above the avg price in Dallas is pretty fair, but if it’s in hot pockets like Preston hollow or Highland areas you get multiple bids. North Dallas is heating up for the last 5 years due to the high school ratings.
I prefer sub 105 degree summers so i cant move back to texas :(