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In addition, it matters whether one is buying with cash or with a mortgage. Higher interest rates are causing monthly mortgage payments to rise dramatically. Retirees who can buy with all cash are more mobile and in a much better position than those of working age who need a job and to earn enough to cover monthly mortgage payments.

Home prices have risen dramatically in the most developed and desirable areas in Florida like southeast Florida, but there are still smaller communities in more rural areas where homes prices have risen less and homes remain affordable for many.

Yes, it is still possible to buy a bit more affordable homes in rural areas and smaller communities, but then, people would be buying in areas that are more distant from the desirable infrastructure that people of older ages need, such as hospitals and police and firefighters.

But still, a few years ago, when the prices of homes in the Tampa/St. Pete area started going up, people opted to go a bit further out, like to Sarasota and Bradenton and Ft Myers and Lakeland, the prices there went up too, and now, the prices in places like Sarasota are even higher than in the Tampa area. My niece and husband (from upstate NY) decided to find a place in Sarasota and are having second thoughts about that area too. You have to move out to very distant open country to find the more affordable prices.

Florida may have stopped growing as fast as it was a decade or two ago, with prices going up to unaffordable levels.