Florida Housing Costs Out of Control in Palm Beach County?
Beach, sun and opportunity have long drawn people from across the United States to Palm Beach County’s posh neighborhoods and low-slung homes alike. But for the first time in years, the steady growth has taken a dip - thanks to soaring insurance rates and property taxes, experts say.
After averaging 26,300 newcomers a year between 2000 and 2005, the county’s population increased by only 9,057 between 2005 and 2006, according to census data released Thursday. And 829 people left this Florida housing market for other parts of the state and the country, bucking a trend long fueled by golf-playing retirees and middle-class families escaping congestion farther south.
Until 2005, Palm Beach County ranked fifth in population growth among Florida’s 67 counties this decade. It dropped to 12th place between 2005 and 2006.
The numbers of outwardly bound residents are more dramatic in Broward County, which lost 18,459 people between 2005 and 2006.
Palm Beach still saw moderate growth last year, spurred mostly by births and the 7,669 newly arrived immigrants who are adding to the area’s rich international character. Still, business leaders and demographers worry that soaring living costs have placed Palm Beach County and the overall South Florida housing market beyond the grasp of average families.
Most pointed to the combined burden of high property taxes and insurance rates.
“We have major problems with people being able to afford homes in Palm Beach County, but it’s not because of the housing market. The crisis is in our taxes and insurance,” William Cozart, chief executive officer of the Realtors Association of Palm Beach County, based in Lake Worth. ”
Buyers actually have wonderful choices, but they soon realize their [Florida mortgage] payments are not as high as their property taxes and insurance. It’s devastating and worsens the economy. It makes it difficult for businesses to recruit people to live here.”
Fleeing the steely winters of New York City, Barry and Linda Horowitz, both 62, moved to South Florida 22 years ago. They figured they’d retire here after setting up a successful apparel-design company that sells uniforms to prisons and other institutions. But today, their combined yearly payments for medical insurance, property tax and property insurance total more than $27,000.
The pair put their 3-bedroom Boca Raton home on the market two months ago. They have their sights on Atlanta, the new mecca of affordability for those fleeing South Florida’s exorbitant costs.
“Here we are trying to bring Scripps to this county and create jobs. Yet people are leaving. If I were in the governor’s seat, I’d be very concerned,” Horowitz said.
Sociology professor Arthur Evans at Florida Atlantic University said South Florida continues to attract blacks, but many of those coming were “black professionals, educated blacks from the Caribbean, who are members of the middle class and upper class.”
Low-income minorities are often hardest hit by the soaring Palm Beach housing costs.
The 400-member Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Palm Beach County has fielded many calls in the past year from Hispanic renters dumbfounded by the spike in their rents.
“Landlords are squeezed by the high insurance and property taxes, and people at the end of the totem pole are getting hurt,” said Pedro Guilarte, chamber president. “You have families doubling up in one house to make ends meet.”
Between 2000 and 2006, a gain of two newcomers from within the U.S. was matched by one immigrant. In the 1990s, for every five people that Palm Beach County’s population gained as a result of newcomers from elsewhere in the United States, the county population increased by two immigrants.
Clearly, the area remains attractive to newly arrived immigrants and deep-pocketed U.S. Florida mortgage loan borrowers who find in Palm Beach County a home and playground.
“Broward and Palm Beach counties have become magnets for the yuppie elderly,” Evans said. “We still have people coming here. They are people with disposable income.”
Or those who dream of accumulating disposable income.
Striving newcomers from countries such as Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico and Venezuela form the bulk of the county’s growth and have transformed neighborhoods into bilingual mosaics.
“Palm Beach County is the most friendly county to live in,” said Jose Cerrato, president of the Honduran Organization of Palm Beach County. “Plus, there’s the climate.”
SOURCE: The Palm Beach Post
