From One Florida Home Loan to the Next: Residents in the Keys Look Elsewhere

For some, it’s a time to refinance Florida home loans. For others, it’s a time to track down new ones altogether.

Due to spiraling living costs, lingering trauma from past evacuations and fear that one day million-dollar homes could be reduced to rubble, countless people are fleeing from the Florida Keys before hurricane season returns.

While most of the state welcomes those migrating south for a Florida home loan, the number of people living in the low-lying 110-mile (180-km) island chain at the southern tip of the peninsula is slowly dwindling. In the last two years, residents have been ordered to evacuate six times up a narrow, mangrove-fringed 126-mile (200-km) road, the Overseas Highway, linking the Florida Keys to the mainland

“We’re seeing adjustment disorders, post-traumatic stress,” said Betsy Langan, assistant director of Womankind Inc., a health services provider. “Because of the hurricanes, people are exhibiting sleeplessness, difficulties in concentration and are feeling hopeless and overwhelmed.”

On top of that, the following issues are at play:

• Property values have soared beyond the reach of most working families
• Home insurance rates are sky-rocketing
• And salaries can’t keep pace

“You pay $400,000 for a trailer that’s going to be junk soon. It’s incredible,” said Jose Cuevas, a moving company manager who commutes to work in Sugarloaf Key from Miami each day - a 300-mile (490-km) round trip.

Florida home prices in the area

Home prices in the entire Florida Keys average $846,000, and in Key West, the main city, $935,000, according to Coldwell Banker Schmitt Real Estate.

The head-turning price of Florida real estate, along with limited land for development, is putting a squeeze on renters as apartments and mom-and-pop motels are converted into condominiums and sold off as second and third homes to wealthy retirees.

Keys homeowners are also socked with Florida’s highest insurance premiums. Citizens Property Insurance, the state-run insurer of last resort, proposed a base windstorm rate of $20.91 per $1,000 of insured home value for this year.

Leaving the Keys; Finding new Florida home loans

The population of Monroe County - the entire Florida Keys - dropped 2.16 percent to 76,329 in the year to July 2005. In the last five years, the county’s population has shrunk 4.1 percent at a time when most areas in Florida are growing rapidly, according to a U.S. Census report in March.

“These are people who’ve lived here 20 to 25 years,” said John Strong, owner of Pak Mail, a packing and crating franchise. “They’re going to Arizona, North Carolina and Central America, seeking no hurricanes.”

The problem is acute for teachers, nurses and police officers. They can’t afford the homeowners insurance in the area and are seeking a Florida home loan elsewhere in the state. A recent Monroe County School District poll found that 7 percent of families with school-aged children planned to leave when the school year ends in May.

“We can’t get nurses, we can’t get doctors,” said John Dolan-Heitlinger, an advocate for affordable housing for working professionals.

On Big Pine Key, resident Pam Henry said she is struggling to pay $16,000 a year in property taxes and home insurance, and is moving to central Florida. She hopes to find a more reasonable, safer Florida home loan in that area.