As a Florida native but unqualified to comment on the LE aspect, this is a great point.
I’m sure most states are the same, but Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties have a pretty nut so cost of living when it comes to real estate in particular. Largely because we are “pinched” between the ocean and the Everglades and the lake and there’s no place to expand.
Even the west coast of Florida doesn’t have quite the same issues, in part because they’ve been growing for less time and still have room, but areas like Tampa, St Pete, sarasota, Naples, etc are all getting expensive.
I’m originally from North Florida. It’s more like Georgia than what most people think of as “Florida”, including the population being more rednecks and FL natives vs the lower half of the state all being foreigners (including those from Chicago, NY, Philly, Boston, etc).
By and large, the south west coast of Florida is midwesterners (Chicago, etc) and the south east coast is Northeasterners (NY, Philly, Boston). I live on the south east coast of FL but greatly prefer those on the west (although my truest preference is for N Florida where I’m from, In large part because of how few out of towers there are at all).
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