With non-stop population growth, Florida is the seventh-fastest growing state in the U.S., with a growth percentage of 1.12%. Florida’s population grew from 21,254,926 to 21,733,312. It is the third-largest state by population in the United States of America.

Our country’s population grew by 1.2 million from 2019 to 2020, with 41% of growth from immigration, which makes us 333,726 million people in the U.S. Of course these numbers are likely to impact many industries, including Real Estate. Let’s explore the trend throughout the Sunshine State.

The highest growth is for Jacksonville and its surroundings, as well as central Florida. Lake County and Marion County are on top of the list!

The Hot Florida Markets:

1. Lakeland- Winter Haven
2. Tampa St Petersburg-Clearwater
3. Port St Lucie
4. Jacksonville

The love for Florida is real: newcomers are on their way to a greater life, and everyone wants a piece of the Sunshine State. Specialists are betting on the West coast of Florida to become more and more appealing for the public. In fact, Tampa’s cost of living is 5% lower than the national average, whilst providing an outstanding day-to-day quality of life. The entire Tampa Bay is full of wonderful towns, from Sarasota to Clearwater.

Tampa and Miami, are both waterfront tropical cities with a heavy Hispanic influence.

Florida has some of the nicest lifestyles and the highest quality of life throughout the U.S and smaller markets like Fort Myers, Melbourne, or Naples are pleasant too and can be chosen by families for their cheaper prices and lovely suburbs. Moreover, the wave of millennials becoming buyers is now real, and they don’t necessarily want to be precisely located in Miami but want the lifestyle that South Florida offers.

Focusing on 2021, we’ve witnessed a wide gap between supply and demand, creating a red hot market in the first half of 2021. The afflux of people from California, as well as the Northeast, completely saturated the market all along the Miami- Dade coast up to West Palm Beach. And this trend has especially impacted the luxury segment of our Real Estate Market. Here is a very interesting observation, throughout the first 6 months of 2021, one in every five sales in Miami was for $1 million or more, compared with one in 13 sales a few years ago. Prices are going up, and these higher prices might point to a slower sales pace in 2022.  Specialists are expecting a potential, after many months of a steep increase

Another demographic trend across the country is the fresh divorcees buying homes for themselves, especially the women and young professionals. Which can lead to even more buyers coming up to buy properties in the coming years. To add to this demand, the international buyers are also to be looked at. The top countries buying in Florida are Canada, the UK, Germany, and France.  

For the past 5 years, the Latin American market has been slow due to the strength of the dollar. However, buyers coming from Argentina are still eager to purchase real estate in South Florida. For instance, Argentines have quietly passed Brazilians to become the most active group from Latin America buying Miami real estate. The velocity at which some Argentines are investing in Miami real estate has shocked some brokers here, especially the fact that the buyers signed the contracts without ever flying to Miami to see the building.

The ability to add to the housing supply is impeded due to the now well know supplies and labor shortage going on throughout the state. Construction is taking years to be finished, and renovations are as well. Projects are incessantly stopped because their material missing,