As pandemic lockdowns sent Americans fleeing for warm-weather locales where they could take Zoom meetings in shorts and flip-flops, Florida emerged as one of the hottest destinations for the remote-work crowd.
Now, these employees have been called back to the office in droves — forcing them to abandon their sun-drenched homes while property values tank.
Florida dominated a year-end list of metro areas nationwide that saw the steepest year-over-year median home value losses — and experts predict it’s only going to get worse.
The Sunshine State claimed six out of 10 spots on Realtor.com’s report, which found the North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota area to be the hardest hit.
The Gulf Coast metro saw its median home price drop 8.6 percent over last year, or a whopping $36,423, to a median listing price of $478,800.
‘During the pandemic, many of these areas saw home prices shoot way up because there was so much demand and so many people were able to work remotely,’ Sarasota real estate agent and Ron Myers, owner of Ron Buys Florida Homes, told the Daily Mail.
‘A big part of the problem in this area is people from New York and up North have to move back for work and there hasn’t been an increase in value in their homes since the pandemic, in fact there’s been a drop,’ he added.
The nearby Cape Coral-Fort Myers area saw the second biggest drop in median home values, down at 7.9 percent since last year, according to Realtor.com. The metro’s median listing price sat at $399,900, down $29,393 from a year earlier.
Florida dominated a year-end list of metro areas nationwide that saw the steepest year-over-year median home value losses, with Sarasota (pictured) among the hardest hit
Cape Coral (pictured) joins neighboring Ft. Myers in seeing home values plummet
A ‘foreclosure boat tour’ looks at houses that have gone under in Cape Coral
‘Many people moved here during the pandemic and have to go back to the office, and that’s out of Florida,’ Katrina Allison, a local real estate broker in Cape Coral, told the Daily Mail. ‘In the meantime, their houses have lost value.’
Cape Coral in particular became a place where residents pulled up stakes en masse, with rows of for sale signs popping up on lawns all over town.
‘It is one of the worst real estate markets for a seller right now,’ local realtor José Echevarria told the Daily Mail in July.
As of this summer, prices for more than half of the homes in Cape Coral had been slashed over the previous two years, more than any other major metro area in the US, he added.
In central Florida, the Lakeland-Winter Haven and Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach metro areas both saw their median home values slip 4.4 from the year prior, according to Realtor.com, while the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area on the Gulf Coast saw a 4.2 percent decline.
In Florida’s northeast, the metro area surrounding Jacksonville — the state’s most populous city — experienced a 3.3 percent dip year over year.
‘We no longer have the influx of remote workers looking for homes,’ Jacksonville real estate agent Kati Spaniak told the Daily Mail.
‘In fact the remote workers here are trying to sell, but there is so much new construction it’s hard to even compete for buyers when you have even a slightly older home.’
The area that includes Lakeland was one of six Florida metros to land on the list of the 10 worst for home values
The Lakeland metro and the area encompassing Daytona Beach (pictured) both saw home values drop 4.4 percent year over year
Jacksonville real estate agent Kati Spaniak said the city and surrounding area is dealing with intense competition from new construction
The metro area covering St. Petersburg saw one of the steepest year-over-year median home value losses
Spaniak explained that many people who bought homes for remote work ended up with a property that’s now a burden, as insurance and property taxes have increased while housing prices plummeted.
‘Sellers need to figure out if they’ll take a lower a price because the market is not going back up anytime soon,’ she said, predicting that things are going to hit rock bottom in the new year.
‘It’s only going to get worse,’ Spaniak continued.
‘Buyers are waiting and sellers aren’t budging, so it’s a long logjam of buyers waiting and sellers waiting until the sellers realize they have to start reducing in order to sell.
‘I see prices going down even more and more into next spring and summer.’
Aside from return-to-office mandates, everything from soaring homeowner’s association fees and insurance rates to too many homes on the market have sent Florida’s home values spiraling, according to agents.
Myers said that despite the price drops, Florida’s insurance costs are ‘going to get even worse’ in 2026, giving potential buyers pause even if a home itself is affordable.
‘Not many people can afford or want to pay these exorbitant insurance rates,’ he said.
The metro area surrounding Jacksonville — Florida’s most populous city — experienced a 3.3 percent dip year over year
As of this summer, prices for more than half of the homes in Cape Coral had been slashed over the previous two years, more than any other major metro area in the US
The Downtown Winter Haven Historic District
Adding to the trouble for sellers, would-be buyers have so many options to choose from that they are hesitant to purchase, thinking a better deal is around the corner, Myers noted.
Both he and Spaniak said that sellers in struggling markets need to price below everyone else to even stand a chance of offloading their homes.
‘In 2021 and 2022, people bid high and came from different states, they bought unseen just to get something they thought would gain in value over the years,’ Myers said.
‘Now they have to go back to work, and two mortgages or a mortgage and a rent aren’t sustainable long-term, and it’s happening to a lot of people at once.’