Florida Real Estate: Tax Cuts, Surfside, Record Sale

Florida's real estate market is pulling in several directions at once, with ballot-box politics, a painful anniversary and a record coastal sale all landing in the same week. The picture that emerges is of a sector running hot at the top end while cooling sharply in parts of the state, and bracing for policy decisions that could reshape who pays what.

Tax cuts that could backfire on renters

Proposed property tax cuts on November's ballot are drawing warnings from housing experts. If voters approve them, some renters could end up worse off rather than better. To offset the lost revenue, local governments might raise rates on non-homesteaded properties, a category that can include rental homes, according to Ken Johnson, chair of real estate and professor of finance at the University of Mississippi and founder of Florida Atlantic University's Real Estate Initiative. The result could be another squeeze on affordability for tenants already stretched.

Surfside's painful fifth anniversary

Wednesday marks five years since the collapse of Champlain Towers South, one of the deadliest structural failures in US history. The twelve-storey beachfront building fell in seconds in the middle of the night. Many developers saw rebuilding on the site as too sensitive. In 2021, a state court ordered the receiver to sell the land to help fund a $1 billion settlement for victims' families. The only bidder, Damac, paid $120 million for the roughly 1.8 acres. Condos are now listed at the site, and not one has sold.

Where the Florida real estate market is heating up

Activity elsewhere tells a brisker story. The St. Joe Company's 110,000-acre Watersound development in the Panhandle, among the nation's fastest-growing planned communities, has drawn more than twenty major builders, including DR Horton. The latest to sign up is PulteGroup, the country's third-largest home builder. South Florida is moving too: Miami-Dade home sales rose year on year for a ninth straight month in May, with total transactions up 7.9 per cent, single-family sales up 10.5 per cent and condo sales up 5.4 per cent.

Cooling prices and a record sale

Not every corner is climbing. Among 77 major metro markets recording year-on-year price falls, Florida featured heavily, with Punta Gorda down 7.9 per cent, Cape Coral down 6.1 per cent and Naples down 4.4 per cent. The luxury tier, however, stayed defiant. A waterfront mansion in Boca Raton changed hands for $75 million, the most expensive home sale in the United States in May.

Deals reshaping the city centres

City centres are seeing change as well. In St Petersburg, a Naples developer bought a hurricane-damaged office tower that once housed the Tampa Bay Times, along with an adjacent historic building, for a combined $32.5 million. The plan is to demolish the tower, preserve the older structure and add a high-rise condominium. Keith Gelder, president of Stock Development, said "everyone is looking forward to the next chapter".

Affordable housing in focus

Affordability is drawing official attention, too. Orange County has launched a programme called Building Affordable Orange, a five-part training series developed with the Florida Housing Coalition to help non-profit and faith-based groups deliver affordable housing projects. Elsewhere, the former campus of the now-defunct Spirit Airlines in Dania Beach heads to auction on 22 July, with its four buildings spanning more than 615,000 square feet.

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