By Joseph Doher, Broker-Associate, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Results Realty
There is more to Florida than tourism. Even though Florida draws over 135 million tourists annually—on any given day there are more than 1 million tourists in Orlando, Florida.
Florida has the 4th largest economy in the US and 18th largest economy in the world if Florida was a nation. Florida boasts over 15 deepwater seaports, 19 commercial service airports, two spaceports, 12,000 miles of highway, nearly 3,000 miles of freight rail tracks (From the Florida Department of Transportation), and two of the world’s busiest international airports in Miami and Orlando.
Florida’s thriving business climate continues to gain the attention of business leaders from across the world. Florida provides a rich landscape for businesses to thrive due to a large and talented workforce, no personal state income tax, and a streamlined regulatory environment. Florida’s annual private-sector job growth rate of 2.8% continues to outpace the national job growth rate of 1.6%. Metro-Orlando led the state for job creation in August 2019 with a year-over-year gain of 51,600 jobs, Miami was No. 2 with 28,500 jobs, while Tampa was No. 3 with 21,700 jobs.
Florida will continue growing by more than 300,000 people a year and will top 22 million residents by 2022. Between April 1, 2018, and April 1, 2024, population growth is expected to average over 330,605 new residents per year—906 residents every day. These increases are equivalent to adding a city slightly larger than Orlando every year. Orlando has an influx of 1,500 new residents every week.
As the National Association of Realtors’ membership hit a record 1.41 million members, the Florida Association of Realtors has 187,000 members, which means 13% of all U.S. realtors call Florida home. Over 50% of all sales in the state are completed by less than 10% of realtors. Therefore, selecting the right real estate professional is a critical decision in the acquisition or disposition of your property.
According to realtor.com, Florida has three of the top 10 ranked cities in the United States for flipping properties—Miami, Tampa, and Orlando.
Florida has joined other states throughout the nation with Gov. Ron DeSantis signing bill HB 409, which allows the use of online remote notaries in real estate closings. The bill will go into effect January 2020. HB 409 also contains measures that protect the integrity and security of documents being notarized.
As many corporate sellers and realtors know, open and expired permits can bring uncertainty to the real estate transaction, major expenses, delays, or even prevent the home sale from occurring. Florida government has taken proactive measures to streamline this process with passing bill HB 447, which allows local governments to close a permit six years after issuance if no apparent safety hazards exist. It also prevents local governments from penalizing property owners for an open permit applied for by a previous owner. The open and expired permit remedies went into effect on October 1, 2019.
The Florida economy is thriving and there seems to be no end in sight. The environment has never been more favorable for the disposition or acquisition of real estate.