Do you really want to move to Florida?
 

Interesting read, and I'm sure each state will have it's own list of cons.

https://www.axios.com/local/tampa-ba...ration-regrets

I haven't live in any other state so can't compare, but can definitely say that insurance (house and car) is expensive, and getting more so each year.

We're fortunate that my wife and I have good jobs so do have a comfortable lifestyle, but when we retire, we will have to re-think about staying in Florida.

Re: Do you really want to move to Florida?
 

We have always seen Brits with rose-tinted spectacles trying to move to Florida, and obviously there are significant barriers that make that impractical for most of them, at least as anything other than "snowbird" visitors, but USCs can just relocate there anytime they feel like it, and apparently some of them do so without even basic research as to what life would be like if they moved there.

I suspect that one of the ugly truths that often hits people who move to zero income states such as Florida or Texas, is that they think they'll be that much better off just because they're not paying income tax, when the reality that the state, city, and county governments still need revenue, they just raise it in different ways, such as sales tax and/ or property tax.

Re: Do you really want to move to Florida?
 

I lived in the Tampa Bay area for 25 years. 10 of those in a condo on the Gulf with a boat. I loved it. Taking the boat out after work for a sunset cruise was a great way to melt away work stress. Spectacular sunsets with dolphins and rays for company was magical. All year warm weather affordable boating is something you can do in Florida unlike the UK or probably any other state. My condo was stupid cheap when i bought it (ditto the other homes i had in the Tampa area). After covid things went haywire. I sold because of increased frequency of hurricane evacuations and wanting to be closer to kids in California. Many of those condos were second homes to wealthy snowbirds who have somewhere else to live if their condo gets smashed by a storm. Mine was my only home and i didn't want to deal with the risk any more. But here in CA I'm not really settled and i do miss that condo and boat and I can't afford to buy a house here anyway so one day i might have to move again. Of all the places I've lived in different countries and states my Florida home on the Gulf was my favorite so far.

Re: Do you really want to move to Florida?
 

Indeed. Alaska is the only state with neither an income tax nor a sales tax, on the basis that the state has taxes and royalty from resource development instead, but even then the municipalities and boroughs have their own taxes, usually property tax, though some have sales taxes.

Re: Do you really want to move to Florida?
 

I had an British Aunt who owned a condo in Satasota as an investment. She and her husband planned to use it for extended winter holidays when they retired and rent it out for the rest of the year. She regretted it because the taxes were complicated and expenses took a lot of the rental money. Then her husband died and she sold it as soon as she could which was in the mid-1990s so she missed the worst of the Florida real estate crash.

I know a gay guy who works for Disney in set design and he's looking to move and tells me that Disney is getting lots of applications for transfers out of Florida. I would avoid Florida for many of the same reasons my friend wants to move.

Re: Do you really want to move to Florida?
 

Not sure how the guy's sexual orientation is relevant to the anecdote . . .

Re: Do you really want to move to Florida?
 

He feels that the Florida government is hostile to his sexual orientation and that's the reason for him thinking of leaving.

Re: Do you really want to move to Florida?
 

I wondered the same thing but being gay in Florida must be very intimidating so I understand why you mentioned it. The ban on abortion after 6 weeks was also recently upheld by Florida’s Supreme Court

Re: Do you really want to move to Florida?
 

[QUOTE=nunnun;13247597She regretted it because the taxes were complicated and expenses took a lot of the rental money.[/QUOTE]

Taxes on real estate in Florida are not complicated. They are based on assessed value, which moves with market value, though more slowly. Therefore taxes can go up or down year-to-year, which is unpredictable rather than complicated. If your Florida home is your main residence and you file for Homestead status, your maximum yearly rate of tax increase is inflation or 3%, whichever is lower, which protects long-term owners and retirees from being priced out of their home - at least as far as taxes go. However, insurance is another matter, and so is the risk in a condo that there might be a lot of deferred maintenance and lack of adequate reserves to cover repairs, leading to large one-off assessments which are also unpredictable. This problem is especially prevalent with condo associations which are mostly owned by second-home part-time older folk. There is a lot of thinking along the lines of 'I'll be dead before we need a new roof, so why should we vote to put money in reserve for it....'. The state is moving to force COA boards to adequately fund reserves in future.

In my experience of owning a couple of houses and one condo in FL over the past 30 years they are certainly not 'investments' and I never expected them to be. In fact, they were all very nice places and very reasonably priced and nice places to raise a family. Overall, after mortgages and expenses I lost money on my houses and made a bit on the condo as I sold it part-way through the runup post-covid. The current rapid spike in prices across the state plus insurance increases make it far less value-for-money than it once was, leading many naturally to think of relocating.

There's also the current political climate. Again, things are very different now in FL than 30 years ago, and unfortunately if you want to escape that you've got a very long drive. But things go in cycles....

Re: Do you really want to move to Florida?
 

Congratulations on missing the point that Nunnun was talking about calculating income tax on a rental business, not property tax, which is indeed fairly simple, and no different from other states that I am familiar with.

Re: Do you really want to move to Florida?
 

Calculating rental taxes are not hard either. Online programs make it very easy to do. Depreciation is about the only item that would be unusual for anyone from the UK but that is fairly simple after the first year. Selling is a bit more complex (more so in Florida) but that’s a one time issue and easily taken care of by a CPA.

Re: Do you really want to move to Florida?
 

I agree (though there are a lot of possible deductions against rental income, and we've had posters here on BE concerned that when the deductions exceed the gross income, they "must have done something wrong!", which of course isn't the case, as msking a tax loss on rental property is perfectly normal), I think its more that Brits often freak out at the mere thought of completing a US-style tax return, with the apparent concern being that the IRS will be along to spit-roast the tax payer if any discrepancies are found, and then seize their first-born as a penalty. However in reality the chances of anyone with income under $200,000 being audited is vanishingly small, but that doesn't stop people worrying about it.

Re: Do you really want to move to Florida?
 

My aunt lived in Britain and the cross border taxes were complicated for her and her husband and they spent a lot on management fees. It was not a sensible way to invest their spare cash IMO. She enjoyed the extended winter holidays in FL, but after her husband died she didn't want to go on her own and so she sold the FL condo and her big house in the UK and bought a flat in a retirement community near Oxford.

Re: Do you really want to move to Florida?
 

Yes, some of the recent new laws and court decisions in FL are a worry to some people and they are part of the reason I would not move to FL myself...also I'm not a fan of heat and humidity or beaches. I've noticed that fewer of my retired friends in New England are thinking of being "Snow Birds" because of the political atmosphere in some of the common retirement places like FL and also because the winters in New England just aren't as difficult as before; this year there was only one time I had to shovel snow and that was just a couple of inches. Insurance costs is another reason.

Re: Do you really want to move to Florida?
 

Love FL for golf and hopping on a cruise. 4 days max