Florida's no-income-tax advantage is real, but property insurance, condo assessments, and a cost of living above the national average increasingly erase it.
Post-collapse inspection mandates triggered massive condo special assessments, trapping fixed-income retirees in units buyers refused to purchase at any reasonable price.
Retirees who left compared full annual costs including insurance, taxes, utilities, and healthcare rather than just tax rates, and chose Tennessee, Texas, or inland Florida.
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Every few weeks, someone in a personal finance forum will undoubtedly make the same comment someone else made the week before: they plan to retire in Florida, but a friend who made the move calls to say they are leaving. The reason is the annual cost of keeping the house, rather than weather or politics. The claim you see in headlines that insurance is eating everyone alive is also true, but somewhat incomplete, as retirees who left describe the insurance bill as the first envelope they opened, not the last.