{"id":623724,"date":"2026-06-23T15:51:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T15:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=623724"},"modified":"2026-06-23T15:51:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T15:51:15","slug":"retirees-are-leaving-florida-and-heading-somewhere-unexpected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=623724","title":{"rendered":"Retirees are leaving Florida and heading somewhere unexpected"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A new post-retirement migration pattern has emerged, showing that those who moved to Florida are now moving out of the state and heading back north.<\/p>\n

These \u201chalfbacks,\u201d as they\u2019re being called, are deciding to move \u201chalfway back north\u201d and settle in states \u201clike South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, or Tennessee,\u201d according to Realtor.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Citing data from HireAHelper, Realtor.com reported that of the over 2.1 million retirees aged 65 and older who moved in 2025, a whopping 40,000 of them moved to Florida \u2014 which is no surprise.<\/p>\n

\n

FLORIDA IS WINNING BIG.<\/p>\n

The flood of high-earners and big money into Florida shows no signs of slowing down, fueling explosive growth and turning South Florida into an economic juggernaut. pic.twitter.com\/vEFRwHPPvr<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Andrew Alvarez (@theOGalv) June 23, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The shocking part is that \u201cnearly as many people 65 and up also left Florida altogether,\u201d leaving the state\u2019s net-gain at just 815 retirees.<\/p>\n

As a result, South Carolina has now become the state with the most net gain in retirees, followed by Texas, North Carolina, and Tennessee.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis idea of halfbacks \u2014 they are, in a sense, still coming from places like New England, they just stopped off in Florida first, and then moved to South Carolina,\u201d research economist Joey Von Nessen said.<\/p>\n

But why are retirees fleeing the state of low taxes and Republican rule?<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say about 40 percent of the retirees I work with are from Florida,\u201d Lauren Reinhardt, a residential broker based out of N.C., told Realtor.com.<\/p>\n

\u201cFlorida wasn\u2019t what they were promised,\u201d she added. \u201cThe heat has become unbearable, the larger cities feel overdeveloped with infrastructure that hasn\u2019t kept up, and the cost of living\u2014particularly insurance and HOA fees\u2014have started to take a hit on their retirement budgets.\u201d<\/p>\n

She wasn\u2019t wrong.<\/p>\n

A Recent Florida Atlantic University survey found that half of the respondents would consider leaving the state over rising costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think that Florida\u2019s housing market is very scary for lots of people,\u201d Julia Donovan, a broker based out of South Carolina, said. \u201cWhen someone owns a house, they\u2019re going to start looking at its continued cost, and your mortgage is just part of it. Your property tax, your insurance, and HOA are another huge factor. You always have to pay those\u2014the number changes, but the fact that you have to pay doesn\u2019t change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even in good ol\u2019 Florida, which boasts no state income taxes.<\/p>\n

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(Source: Realtor.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Realtor.com notes via 1-800-Insurance that, thanks to rapid increases in insurance rates, \u201cFlorida homeowners may pay nearly five times the national average of $2,110 for insurance.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not necessarily the fault of Republican policymaking.<\/p>\n

\u201cA combination of consistent hurricanes, a massive amount of fraud and litigation, and a loss of insurance carriers led to Florida\u2019s insurance crisis,\u201d according to Realtor. \u201cThe state has tried to stem the rising tide of these costs, but it may have been too little, too late for some residents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donovan kept it even simpler.<\/p>\n

\u201cA bad storm means insurance increases,\u201d she bluntly explained. \u201cAnd even after the increase, you\u2019re still in the path of the storms. It\u2019s just a vicious cycle, and I think a lot of people moving out of Florida have just had it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now compare this to South Carolina, which has better insurance rates and fewer storms.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re looking at South Carolina, which has fewer extreme weather events, and as a result, insurance costs and other housing-related costs aren\u2019t as high, then that\u2019s naturally going to change the location decisions of many people,\u201d Von Nessen said.<\/p>\n

Even North Carolina looks nice in comparison.<\/p>\n

\u201cNorth Carolina offers four seasons, and this is one of the factors I hear most often,\u201d Reinhardt noted. \u201cFor people who gave up fall foliage and cool falls when they moved South, getting that back is a determining factor when choosing where to relocate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother major draw of Western North Carolina is the opportunity to build. Many Florida buyers are able to sell their existing home and reinvest those proceeds into a custom home here. There are homesites with wooded privacy and mountain views which are impossible to find or prohibitively expensive in many parts of Florida,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new post-retirement migration pattern has emerged, showing that those who moved to Florida are now moving out of the state and heading back north. These \u201chalfbacks,\u201d as they\u2019re being called, are deciding to move \u201chalfway back north\u201d and settle in states \u201clike South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, or Tennessee,\u201d according to Realtor.com. Citing data… Continue reading Retirees are leaving Florida and heading somewhere unexpected<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":623725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[20,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-623724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economic-empowerment","category-national-security","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=623724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/623725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=623724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=623724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=623724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}