I’m a Florida Native: 3 Financial Reasons I Won’t Retire Here

Boardwalk to Beach in Florida_iStock-172255014

With its warm weather and lack of state income taxes, Florida is often hailed as a great place to retire. In fact, Florida is by far the top state in the country in terms of the net number of retirees who moved in, according to SmartAsset.

Yet not everyone is eager to retire in Florida. There are some potential downsides to consider too, and not everyone’s dream retirement looks the same.

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For Mandy Cline, a senior account manager at 919 Marketing, retiring in Florida is not in the cards. While she’s only 42 and retirement is a long way off, she said she has “zero interest” in returning to Florida to retire, despite growing up there.

She left the state after graduating college in 2003 and has since lived in Raleigh, North Carolina, and now Atlanta, and she has no plans to move back to Florida, due to a mix of financial and lifestyle reasons.

On the financial front, here are three of her top reasons she doesn’t want to retire in Florida.

High Housing Costs

While you can still find some good deals in some parts of Florida, the state overall has been experiencing rising housing costs, and certain areas have gotten particularly pricey. Miami, for example, ranks as the third most expensive place to live in the country, according to U.S. News & World Report.

In Miami, housing prices have jumped by 8.3% since last year, per Redfin. Other cities have also had big jumps, like West Palm Beach soaring by 20% and Tampa increasing by 8.2%.

For Cline, despite owning property in South Florida that she inherited, that does not solve her problem of facing high housing costs.

“The property I own is not somewhere I would retire to, and it would cost too much to buy something else,” she said.

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Rising Home Insurance Rates

Not only is the price of real estate high in some parts of Florida, but rising insurance rates have also made Cline want to avoid retiring in Florida.

Florida has by far the highest home insurance rates in the country, due in part to factors like insurers leaving the state or becoming insolvent. In 2023, the average annual home insurance cost in Florida was $10,996, whereas the state with the second-highest home insurance costs, Louisiana, had only an average cost of $6,354, according to Insurify.

These costs do not seem to be letting up anytime soon, with Insurify projecting a 7% increase in 2024.

It’s even gotten to the point where Cline doesn’t want to keep the property she owns there. “I am looking to sell as soon as possible, because I want nothing to do with the home insurance costs,” she said.

Climate-Related Risks

Connected to rising home insurance rates is how climate change is making living in Florida more expensive and possibly putting some investments in physical assets at risk.

“I lived through Hurricane Andrew. I have seen how insurance costs have risen since I was younger, and it’s only going to get worse with climate change,” Cline said. “I also worry about flooding and what that can do to home costs and car insurance costs.”

With issues like hurricanes and flooding continuing to affect Florida, it can be hard for some to justify retiring there in the future.

“I think it’s only going to get worse. I wouldn’t want to invest in anything in Florida,” Cline said.

Finding Alternatives

With Florida out of the picture for Cline’s retirement, she’s thinking of eventually finding a place that better suits her lifestyle preferences. “I am someone who really enjoys the outdoors and hates humidity,” she said.

Instead, she has her eyes on a drier climate like Colorado. Yet it’s hard to find a place that checks all the boxes. There are always some risks and downsides.

For example, if retiring in Colorado, Cline said she would “have to worry about fires out there.”

Still, home insurance costs are way less in Colorado. Insurify projects 2024 average annual home insurance rates there to be $4,367, whereas Florida’s rate projections are nearly three times higher.

For financial reasons like that, combined with other factors such as housing costs and climate risks, Cline does not want to retire in her native state.

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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: I’m a Florida Native: 3 Financial Reasons I Won’t Retire Here