Leveraging Crisis: How the Real Estate Industry Consolidated Power During Florida’s Housing Emergency

• In Event: 40821 - Community and Urban Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 8. Inequality and Speculation in Housing Markets

Abstract

Since 2019, housing costs have increased rapidly across the State of Florida, causing myriad forms of distress, including financial strain, psychological distress, eviction, displacement, and rising levels of homelessness. Indeed, the Washington Post has characterized the Miami Metro area as "the center of America's housing crisis" (Funcheon 2022); the Miami Urban Future Institute has described South Florida's affordable housing crisis as the worst in the nation (Reminington 2019); and Andrew Ross has claimed that Florida exemplifies "the failure of American housing" (Ross 2021).

Drawing from interviews, field observations, public records, policy analysis, and multiple sources of secondary data analyzed for an "Emergency Housing Study and Policy Response Analysis" that I conducted for a small city in South Florida, this paper examines the causes and consequences of the region’s affordable housing crisis. It makes three main arguments. First, while state officials tend to attribute rising housing costs to inadequate housing production and problems in the property insurance market, I show they have been primarily driven by wealth migration fueled by regional growth machines and state tax policies, increased seasonal homeownership and short-term vacation rental activity, and aggressive real estate speculation. Second, I show that this definition of the situation, which has been shaped by extensive lobbying and public relations efforts, has encouraged policymakers to address the state’s housing crisis through a combination of corporate tax incentives, deregulation, and other supply-side economic policies. Third, I argue that these measures have not only exacerbated the state’s housing crisis but have also allowed real estate developers, corporate landlords, and property insurers to capitalize on these problems, consolidating their economic and political power.

Author

• Philip George Lewin, Florida Atlantic University