For me, this has been a long running debate with those ‘in the know’ since at least 2003. My point has always been that as house prices rise in Florida, fewer people will move here. Thus, the bigger the rise, the fewer the movers. Not only that, but higher prices will keep out and drive out families.

During my useless discussion with a School Board member about their borrowing of $700 million (now $1 billion) in free money based on the taxable value of Brevard County rising by 10% per year for the next five years, I logically reminded them that if they were correct, at the end of five years the median houseprice would be over $350,000. Nobody would be left here with kids! If their average valuation increase theory were wrong, they’d be hurting for the revenue to repay the debts (in COPs - Certificates of Participation). This is no different than the argument we had with the County over the second parks bond issue. Now as housing values continue their southern trajectory at increasing speeds, we’ll see how well the people who blew windfalls handle themselves in vacuums.

The Boomers are not coming to Florida, sunshine or not, for the same reason retirees of the last thirty years did not choose Los Angeles: too expensive, and in South Florida, too crowded. Valdosta, Georgia is little different from Ocala, Florida. Having been to Greenville, SC, and Johnson City, TN, where one gets almost double the house for one-half the price, don’t hold your breath for all of Rochester and Syracuse to be coming here. Other than the east coast, house values over the rest of the north have gone nowhere. In many cases, like Buffalo, they have gone backwards, such that the sale there cannot equal the price here anymore. Throw in taxes and insurance and the buck stops in North Carolina.

My home is fast becoming another Southern California not because the greenies lost, but because the greenies won. Mindbending regulation working with a mania drove house prices up, up, and away, while the same series of Byzantine regulations stop any industry from coming to Florida. Has anyone stopped to wonder why we have Toyota, Honda, and Mercedes plants built everywhere in the South except Florida? The coming mass job losses at NASA mean further migration out, because the only thing to save those jobs is the importation of real industry, not EDC [Economic Development Commission] tent-making operations. Real industry cannot come due to the many years of permitting, millions of mitigation extortion, and unceasing NIMBYism [Not In My Backyard] sure to run any plant with decent jobs off to Alabama or even, incredibly, West Virginia. It not just the half-backs heading to the rest of the South, but friends I have had here for over 40 years are leaving to the states our parents and grandparents came from.

Local governments have tasted blood with the housing bubble windfalls and will not go back to vegetarianism limited government under any circumstances. They will suck the life blood of every available decent private business through taxes, fees, and regulations until all we have left in Florida are the wealthy and the poor, with no jobs other than the service industry and government. If you think it cannot happen here, ask someone form Long Beach and Fullerton, California, about the jobs they had in 1967 versus 2007.

We are fast on the road to Southern California, and do not let the Greenies or Florida Today lead you to blame the developers. We will soon see what life is like without growth and job creation.

For more information, read the Wall Street Journal’s September 29, 2007 article “Is Florida Over?” by Conor Dougherty.