Arizona and FLORIDA Beware: Snowbirds No Longer Guaranteed to Fly South to Buy Up Your Properties.

Sharon Savoy, a 65-year-old retiree from just outside of Toronto, had planned a typical three-month stay at her vacation home in Miami earlier this month. But then she abruptly decided to put the trip on hold, and now she wonders when she’ll ever go back to her second home.

“I should be there right now,” Savoy told CNN. “But we’re trying to debate whether or not it’s a good idea to go.”

Savoy is one of the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who make their home in warmer parts of the United States during Canada’s colder months. In fact, Canadians are the top foreign buyers of US properties — making up 13% of all home purchases in 2024, mostly concentrated in Florida and Arizona — according to a July report from the National Association of Realtors.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/30/business/canada-snowbirds-trump-trade-war-tariffs/index.html

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IloveLucy · 22-25, F

Good, means they’ll be cheaper for us

beckyromero · 36-40, F

@IloveLucy

Good, means they’ll be cheaper for us

Not necessarily. It also means many of those property owners who otherwise would have sold can no longer afford to. That would mean fewer properties will on the market. And you know what that means, right? Potentially higher prices.

QuietChaos · 56-60, M

@beckyromero Not sure I agree with the economic calculus here. Supply and demand.

But the spirit of your comment is on the money. Trumpian doctrine will ultimately fuck up people, families, businesses in red states. How long they accept scapegoating Biden will be interesting to see.

ElwoodBlues · M

@QuietChaos One other variable is the subsidized home insurance in Florida and whether it'll continue under tRump.

There's both state subsidized insurance: Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, and federal: the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).

The cost of an NFIP policy averages about half of what would be a market rate. Congress actually mandates this inaccurate pricing method. In 2014, it hastily revoked a few tentative steps at reform after constituents complained loudly when the NFIP tried to charge something approximating market rates for flood insurance.

Who benefits from flood insurance? People in flood-prone states like Louisiana and Florida, of course. But many beneficiaries also share another characteristic: they are upper income. Evidence suggests that recipients of flood insurance are on average wealthier than the typical homeowner.

Without these subsidies, many Florida properties could become unaffordable, thus driving up the costs of other less flood prone properties.

beckyromero · 36-40, F

@ElwoodBlues

But Trump has a plan to deal with those pesky hurricanes.

And if that doesn't work, he'll resort to the indisputable weapon of last resort: