St. Augustine Record | July 6, 2019
By: The St. Augustine Record Editorial Board
Recently The Record ran a story that turned the tables on what’s called “conventional wisdom.”
The story’s bottom line was, in St. Johns County, you may be better off renting a home than buying. The American Dream, of course is home ownership. There are exceptions. Two that come quickly to mind for many of us are Matthew and Irma.
The dream became a nightmare. And, unless you had far better insurance than average, including flood, you’ve likely eaten up a good portion of your equity rebuilding — or, in many cases having to walk away from — a home and the nest egg you invested in for decades.
Reporter Colleen Michele Jones’s story pointed quickly to the issue: wages are nowhere near keeping up with home prices. Consider; the average price for a home here was $320,000 at the end of 2018. Nearby, prices plummet. In Putnam County, average sale price is $172,500; in Duval, $194,020; it’s $211,754 in Clay County.
In addition, even as fast as development is spreading in St. Johns County, it is not keeping up with demand — frightening, but true. According to Melanie Green of the Northeast Florida Association of Realtors, up to 15 percent of homes turned over last year sold at higher than the listing price because it’s a seller’s market.
Normally, this type of activity might point to a bubble about to burst. That does not seem to be the case here, where the cost of buying and owning a home are up 14 percent over last year.
Wages certainly are not.
Rents are rising, but not at that rate. According to RentCafe’ the average rent in St. Augustine is $1,057, a 5 percent increase over last year. In Ponte Vedra, rents are up 8 percent, averaging $1,251. World Golf Village prices were up 3 percent at $994. Palm Valley rents rose 8 percent to $1,251. It’s $939 on St. Augustine Beach, a 3 percent hike. Butler Beach showed an increase of 3 percent to $939 as well. Average rents in Crescent Beach were $925; up 4 percent. Saint Johns (generally the northwest sector) average rents were $1,396; up 2 percent.
But in St. Augustine, for example, rents have increased by over 17 percent over the past six months for the average apartment. Rents for smaller one-and two-bedroom units have dropped by double digits at the same time. There were 1,052 rental units listed in the city in April, the last data available.
Understand, we’re not talking about “affordable” or housing that’s subsidized. This is housing for nurses, teachers, firefighters and law enforcement. It’s for the hundreds of hospitality workers in our restaurants and lodging. In 2018, 49.9 percent of the county’s total workforce of 114,000 was employed in service jobs. The next highest category was construction at 6.5 percent.
For those in low-income jobs, the picture is darker.
A recent study determined a minimum wage worker would need to work 108 hours a week to afford a modest two bedroom apartment.
It’s become clear we can’t look to local or state government for answers.
The legislature continues to sweep millions each year from a pot ironically called an affordable housing “trust” fund. We can trust it to be robbed annually. It passed new laws this year constricting the ability of counties to encourage workforce housing in new development plans.
For our county’s part, it has included workforce housing in master planning for communities such as Nocatee — then quietly excused the developments from the (legal) responsibility in total. In Nocatee, the same is true with commercial and industrial development there. When you absolve PUD mandates for both the workforce and the work, the results are predictable and demonstrable.
The developments maximize profits, while we force workers to Flagler and Putnam to live — or to rent locally. Government gets the revenue gold mine, while workers get the shaft in terms of building equity, stability and a future for their young families.
We can do better.
Article last accessed here on July 6, 2019. A print-ready pdf is available here.