Growing pains in housing
A few reasons Florida’s economy is ahead of the pack, a new report finds a continuing gap in affordable housing for Floridians, the Sunshine State has four of the nation’s five fastest growing metropolitan areas, and we just scored four of the top ten best US markets for starting a business. It’s all in this week’s Florida Economy News.
Florida Economy Booming: While the US economy is predicted to cool somewhat through the year, Florida finds itself with a tight labor market leading to unemployment rates 1% lower than the national average of 3.9%. According to UCF Economic Forecasting Institute Director Sean Snaith, this positive is also the reason the state has had a hard time keeping its inflation rate at pace with the national rate of 3.2%. Historically, the price of lower inflation has been higher unemployment, which is why the now-stabilized unemployment rate is having difficulty dropping any further. “This last leg of the inflation journey to get us down to 2% has really slowed to a crawl,” Snaith told the Tampa Bay Business Journal. “We will definitely see a deceleration of growth this year.”
Can Housing Keep Up?: Florida is attracting new residents in droves, which has perpetuated the large gap in affordable housing, according to a new report from UF’s Shimberg Center for Housing Studies. Key findings included that the 5.7 million single family homes in the state comprise the largest share of the housing supply and that 125,000 new single-family homes were built in 2022. Many of the hotspots for these new homes are in smaller, rural counties like Polk County which had a whopping 9,235 new homes built. While the housing market valuations have returned to their mid-2000’s strength, rent has also skyrocketed causing over 862,465 renters to be considered low-income, “cost burdened” renters (spending more than 40% of their income on housing), with 60% of these living in Florida’s seven most populous counties.
Florida Population Booming: Data released by the US Census Bureau shows that Florida had four of the top five fastest growing metropolitan statistical areas from 2022 to 2023, which highlights the larger population trends in the Sunshine State. Tied for first were The Villages and Wildwood communities, which both had population increases of 4.7% during the year. Rounding out the top 5 were Ocala, Port St. Lucie, and Lakeland which all had growth rates over 3%, with Myrtle Beach, South Carolina being the only non-Florida area in the top five.
Florida Great for Startups: In another new study published by realty analytics company Clever Real Estate, Florida proved it’s a robust entrepreneurial market, with four of the top ten cities for business startups. Miami was ranked at number two, Orlando and Tampa at third and fourth, and Jacksonville rounded out the list at number eight. Atlanta was first. Pulling data from the US Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics, Clever ranked cities on several metrics. And while Miami was second in overall ranking, it proved to be the city with the most business applications filed in the last five years and is predicted to continue its pace as one of the leading economic centers in the US. A high quality of life and the number of business startups per capita were also noted for the other three Florida cities when compared to the US average, showing a sunny economic forecast in Florida’s future.
LMA Newsletter of 3-25-24
