For decades, the Sunshine State has been seen as, well, sunny and bright. Florida has no income tax, and many metros had a cost of living that allowed for the working class, like teachers, nurses, and hospitality workers, to build a comfortable, middle-class lifestyle.
But times are changing.
“This wealth migration has been the primary factor driving up prices, with prices continuing to climb due to strong demand, even when mortgage rates started to hit over 5% in 2022 and as rates have remained elevated to over 6.5% to date,” Cororaton told Fortune.
So as wealth comes in, other income groups are getting pushed out. Now the people who staff the restaurants, hospitals, and classrooms are leaving, and the middle class is dissolving.
“What we’re seeing isn’t just a housing shift: It’s a reshaping of who can realistically afford to live in these markets,” Tara Benson, a Douglas Elliman real estate agent who works both in Florida and New York City, told Fortune. “When buyers coming in have significantly more purchasing power than local residents, it doesn’t just push prices up. It pushes entire income groups out.”
In Miami-Dade, the median annual single-family prices spiked 10.1% in 2020, surged 23% in 2021—an all-time high pace—and rose another 11.1% in 2022, Cororaton said. Meanwhile, the share of million-dollar homes in Miami-Dade surged from 8% in 2019 to 28% in Q1 2026. In Palm Beach County, nearly one-third of homes are valued at least $1 million, according to data from Cororaton.
Another factor middle-income Floridians can’t compete with is cash.
About 39% of Miami home purchases and 48% of West Palm Beach purchases were all-cash in recent years, Javaherian said. And for luxury homes, the shares are even higher: 82% of Miami condo sales above $1 million in 2025, Cororaton added.
“Many buyers here are operating on liquidity, not debt,” she said.
That type of competition is a huge handicap for local, financed buyers. Michael Merrill, who leads The Exclusive Group at Douglas Elliman across Miami Beach, Palm Beach, Boca Raton, and Vero Beach, said cash offers now routinely close deals at just a 5% to 10% premium over financed bids.
“The certainty of a clean, fast deal often wins over financed offers,” Merrill said. “That dynamic continues to put local buyers at a disadvantage.”
To be sure, all-cash offers aren’t just coming from out-of-state buyers. David Druey, Florida regional president at Centennial Bank, told Fortune some are coming from within.
“There are plenty of in-state Florida buyers making cash offers as well,” he said. This includes existing homeowners trading up on appreciated equity, which compounds the pressure on first-time and middle-income buyers.
“Above 5x price-to-income, strain becomes obvious,” Javaherian said.
“That becomes the tipping point for many buyers,” he said. “It’s less about middle-class households being pushed out of the market entirely, and more about whether a specific home is financially feasible once insurance is factored in.”
Benson said the squeeze is tightest for households earning $75,000 to $125,000 because they make too much to qualify for subsidies but not enough to afford the full monthly housing cost.
“However, this is increasingly becoming a broader middle-class issue rather than being confined to a narrow income range,” she said.
The result of high home prices, insurance, and competition from wealthy transplants is that Floridians are moving elsewhere. Druey calls it “South Florida fatigue.”
Working families and retirees are feeling the overall pressure of living in South Florida, so they’re getting out.
“We’re seeing people sell and move to more affordable areas within the state, like from Fort Lauderdale up to Stuart, or Fort Myers to Lakeland,” he said. “Others are even considering moving back to places they lived 15 to 20 years ago, where costs are lower.”
To be sure, that means other housing markets could become more squeezed as more people ditch Florida.
“In that sense, the issue isn’t being solved,” Benson said. “It’s being redistributed.
The migration data points to a structural problem for Florida.
In the Miami metro area, about 10,000 retail trade workers left in 2024 alone, Cororaton said. Retail and hospitality—the industries Florida’s tourism and service economy depends on—are losing workers fastest.
Nearly half of Floridians surveyed in a November 2025 Florida Atlantic University poll said they have considered leaving the state because of the cost of living. Ninety percent said they were concerned about inflation; 80% about housing.
