ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — Lori Matthias and her husband had uninterested in Atlanta site visitors after they moved to St. Augustine, Florida, in 2023. For Mike Waldron and his spouse, transferring from the Boston space in 2020 to a spot that expenses itself as “the country’s oldest town” was once motivated via a want to be nearer to their grownup youngsters.
They have been amongst 1000’s of white-collar, faraway staff who migrated to the St. Augustine space lately, reworking the touristy seashore the city into one of the crucial most sensible faraway paintings hubs in the US.
Matthias fell in love with St. Augustine’s small the city feeling, buying and selling the hour-long trip she had in Atlanta for bumping into pals and acquaintances whilst working errands.
“The entire tempo here’s slower and I’m drawn to that,” mentioned Matthias, who does gross sales and advertising and marketing for an influence device corporate. “My trip is like 30 steps from my kitchen to my workplace. It’s simply other. It’s simply comfortable and pleasant.”
Centuries sooner than turning into a faraway paintings hub, the St. Augustine space was once claimed via the Spanish crown within the early sixteenth century after explorer Juan Ponce de Leon’s arrival. In trendy occasions, it’s best recognized for its Spanish structure of terra cotta roofs and arched doors, tourist-carrying trollies, a ancient castle, an alligator farm, lighthouses and a shipwreck museum.
In St. Johns County, house to St. Augustine, the share of staff who did their jobs from house just about tripled from 8.6% in 2018 to nearly 24% in 2023, transferring the northeast Florida county into the highest ranks of U.S. counties with the most important proportion of folks running remotely, in step with U.S. Census Bureau figures.
Most effective counties with a heavy presence of tech, finance and govt staff in metro Washington, Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte and Dallas, in addition to two counties in North Carolina’s Analysis Triangle, had a bigger proportion in their personnel running from house. However those have been counties a lot more populous than the 335,000 citizens in St. Johns County, which has grown via greater than a 5th all the way through this decade.
Scott Maynard, a vp of monetary construction for the county’s chamber of trade, attributes the preliminary inflow of latest citizens to Florida’s lifting of COVID-19 restrictions in companies and faculties within the fall of 2020 whilst a lot of the rustic remained locked down.
“Numerous folks have been relocating right here from the Northeast, the Midwest and California in order that their youngsters may get again to a face-to-face training,” Maynard mentioned. “That introduced in an amazing quantity of people that had the power to paintings remotely and sought after their youngsters again in a face-to-face college scenario.”
Public faculties in St. Johns County are top-of-the-line in Florida, in step with an annual document card via the state Division of Training.
The inflow of latest citizens has introduced rising pains, specifically in relation to reasonably priced housing since most of the new, faraway staff transferring into the realm are wealthier than locals and ready to outbid them on houses, officers mentioned.
Many crucial staff similar to law enforcement officials, firefighters and lecturers were compelled to trip from out of doors St. Johns County as a result of emerging housing prices. The median house worth grew from $405,000 in 2019 to nearly $535,000 in 2023, in step with Census Bureau figures, making the acquisition of a house additional out of achieve for the county’s crucial staff.
Very important staff would wish to earn a minimum of $180,000 once a year to manage to pay for the median worth of a house in St. Johns County, however a instructor has a mean wage of round $48,000 and a legislation enforcement officer earns round $58,000 on moderate, in step with an research via the native chamber of trade.
“What came about was once a large number of the folks, particularly coming in from up North, have been ready to promote their houses for this sort of top worth and are available right here and simply pay money since this gave the impression reasonably priced to them,” mentioned Aliyah Meyer, an financial researcher on the chamber of trade. “So it roughly inflated the marketplace and put just a little of a constraint at the native citizens.”
Waldron, a gross sales government within the well being care business, was once ready to promote his Boston house on the top of the pandemic and buy a three-bedroom, two-bath house in a gated neighborhood via a golfing path out of doors St. Augustine the place “issues in reality labored out to be more cost effective down right here.”
The versatility introduced via speedy wi-fi web and the recognition of on-line assembly platforms because the get started of the pandemic additionally helped.
“If I used to be nonetheless locked in an workplace, I wouldn’t have been ready to transport down right here,” Waldron mentioned.
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Practice Mike Schneider at the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social
