Last year, a notable wave of newcomers traded out-of-state driver’s licenses for licenses with an owner in the Sunshine State because of tropical rescue temptations, a fiscal desert or a specific political ethic.
More than 583,200 more people recently signed up for the state’s Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles database in 2022 after returning non-Florida licenses. That’s 28% more than the average of the last six years and 36,200 more than the migration caused until the 2021 pandemic.
His quick passage to a peninsula full of plant paradise, man-made tumult, a manic real estate market that became murky, and a coup de grace from the devastating Hurricane Ian.
And whether your stay is long-term or a joke, demographers said getting a driver’s license meant at least some solution for a permanent stay in Florida. U. S. Census Bureau data rose last year in Florida, which led the country for the first time since 1957 with 1. 9 percent growth.
“It still comes from the Northeast, and then from some of the other big states like Illinois and California, where the numbers have increased a lot compared to before the pandemic,” said Stefan Rayer, director of the population program in the Office of Economics and Economics at the University of Florida. Business investigation, about who moves to Florida. “It’s a little bit of a different dynamic. “
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People from foreign countries who obtained Florida licenses were the largest category in the state last year with 115,465, a 42% increase over the six-year average. However, that jump followed a sharp decline at the height of the pandemic when countries around the world were paralyzed, Rayer said.
The data doesn’t list the countries those other people moved from, but it does list U. S. states. UU. de which other people left.
Among states, New Yorkers led the way for the most people who gave up their licenses with 61,205, a 35 percent increase over the six-year average from 2016 to 2021. New Jersey ended the moment with 30,837, up 28 percent from the past six-year average. California ranked third. While Golden State’s number is less than 28,957, it is 57% above average.
Palm Beach County had numbers, with New Yorkers leading the list of driver’s license commitments with 8,059, up 38 percent from the six-year average. For the rest of the states, New Jersey came in right now with 3,960, up 27 percent. up from average, and California in third place with 1,943, up 58% from average.
Sandford Burian, a New York resident, moved with his wife to Palm Beach County after the pandemic. They rented for months before moving into a new home on Palm Beach Gardens’ Avenir network in October.
Burian, who can paint remotely, doesn’t miss his 90-minute drive into town from Long Island and was pleasantly surprised by the diversity of his new neighborhood.
“I think it would be much simpler, more homogeneous,” he said. Say, “You know what our taxes are like. ” And it’s a long journey from California to Florida.
Newcomers who cite Florida’s low-tax environment lend credence to the hypothesis that a 2017 congressional tax reform could also be something on immigration. That legislation, which ended people’s ability to deduct the state source of income taxes from their federal returns, was passed by the GOP. majority on Capitol Hill and signed into law by then-President Donald Trump.
Burian said groceries are more expensive in Florida and he finds it harder to find smart cuts of meat at reasonable prices. But he doesn’t regret moving south and knows he’s lucky to be able to work remotely when there’s new pressures to return to the office. .
In September, the nonprofit Partnership for New York City conducted a survey that found that 49% of Manhattan workplace staff were at their desks on an average workday. That was up from 38% in April. However, only 9% of staff reported being on the job site five days a week.
Separately, Elon Musk wants Twitter and Tesla painters to paint full-time in person, and Disney CEO Bob Iger said in early January that the company’s painters will have to return to the workplace four days a week starting March 1.
Peter Haslag, an assistant professor of finance at Vanderbilt University who studies demographic trends, said he doubts big cities will return one hundred percent to their pre-pandemic state, even with stricter return-to-work mandates.
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“I think more than what we’ve noticed happening is a primary population shift,” Haslag said of pandemic-driven migration.
Workers are willing to take lower-paying jobs to stay in their favorite cities or pick up where they left off, he said. moved riskier adjustment in 10, 20 and 30 years.
Instead, he believes urban spaces that have lost other people will want to rethink their urban centers and how buildings are used to fill the void left by workers. This may mean simply filling them with more amenities, such as shops, restaurants, and art houses to attract other people to cities.
At the same time, pandemic migration is unlikely to make a dent in the history of other giant movements of other people who were more concentrated in express areas. It’s not the gold rush of the 1850s, or the blacks fleeing north in the early 1900s a racist South, or a desperate movement in the 1930s to California from the Dust Bowl.
“During the pandemic, other people didn’t move into a single area,” Haslag said. “There was widespread dispersion across the country. “
The six most sensible Florida counties that gained the most people last year in driver’s license knowledge were Miami-Dade (59,113), Broward (40,212), Hillsborough (38,330), Palm Beach (37,637), Orange (37,146) and Lee (30,713). ).
While New York and New Jersey topped the list of other people moving to counties in southeast Florida, Illinois Lee County’s main immigration state on the southwest coast. In Leon’s Panhandle County, which includes the state capital of Tallahassee, Georgia, the state with relocators
While some cities across the country are considering how to repurpose their unused urban space, West Palm Beach is in a structural spasm to build Class A buildings for Wall Street corporations that take root in the city.
Business movements vary depending on the available workspace, said Blair Brandt, a genuine real estate investor and developer with nearly a dozen new home projects in the popular South of Southern Boulevard community, called SoSo, in West Palm Beach.
Related Cos. ‘s newly built 360 Rosemary opened in November 2021 and is already filled with corporations like Goldman Sachs and hedge fund Elliot Management. Related opened the new One Flagler tower downtown and has several others in the plan development phase.
Businesses and their workers will shrink as new offices open, strengthening the real estate market, real estate agents said. “There’s no science to know precisely when corporations will arrive, but I think it’s a two- to three-year process. “Brandt said.
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But an increase in West Palm Beach’s population is already evident in UF’s most recent study, which showed the city gained 2,566 new citizens in the two years to April 1, 2022, the maximum of all cities in Palm Beach County.
Countywide, another 25,961 people were added in the same two-year period, adding Boca Raton with 2,120, Westlake (2,075), Palm Beach Gardens (1,493) and Boynton Beach (1,368).
Realtors said the above-average wave of newcomers over the past two years has slowed in recent months due to a stagnant housing market. Number of other people on the move.
Echo Fine Properties president Jeff Lichtenstein calls it a “pause. “He said some new owners who have moved to Palm Beach County from out of state are willing to change, but that doesn’t mean leaving South Florida.
“Some other people bought in a hurry and must move locally from where they bought,” Lichtenstein said. “Even other people who don’t like this position have a hard time moving because they get used to the weather and taxes are just a thing. “
A report released this month by the nonprofit Tax Foundation based on data from the Census Bureau, U-Haul and United Van Lines found that states with no private source of income taxes earned the most people between July 2021 and July 2022. These come with Florida, Texas, South Dakota, Tennessee and Nevada.
The states that lost the most people, including California, Hawaii, New York and Oregon, have double-digit tax rates.
Brandt said he can only think of 3 families from a bunch of friends and business contacts who returned to the northern states after arriving in Florida during the pandemic. Two were of the hard New York or bust type and one had no family.
“People were pleasantly surprised when they arrived here during COVID,” Brandt said. “They liked it here and couldn’t, it wasn’t on the table before. “
Chris Persaud of the Palm Beach Post contributed to this story.
Kimberly Miller is a veteran reporter for the Palm Beach Post, a member of Florida’s USA Today network. It covers real estate and how expansion affects the South Florida environment. Subscribe to The Dirt newsletter for a weekly real estate roundup. Tips, send them to kmiller@pbpost. com. Help our local journalism, subscribe today.
The 10 smartest states whose other people moved in 2022 with reciprocal driver’s license data from the Florida Department of Highways and Motor Vehicle Safety.