More than 125,000 people have left New York City for Florida since 2020. According to Citizens Budget Commission data, they took an estimated $13.8 billion in combined income with them. That’s the headline figure people usually cite. What gets less attention is what the move actually involves once the moving truck pulls away.
For readers across the Finger Lakes region, the decision looks a little different than it does for someone leaving Manhattan. There’s no city income tax surcharge to escape. There’s no subway to give up. And winters here already come with their own kind of resilience built in. Still, the core trade-offs are the same ones every New Yorker weighs before heading south.
New York vs. Florida: The Tax Numbers
New York’s state income tax tops out at 10.9 percent, one of the highest top rates in the country. Florida has no state income tax at all. For a household with substantial retirement income or investment gains, this gap alone is a big number.
Property taxes in both the states tell a very similar story. New York’s average effective property tax rate runs around 1.30 percent. On the other hand, Florida’s average is closer to 0.78 percent. On a $400,000 home, this difference works out to a few thousand dollars a year, that too year after year.
Most people don’t understand that these numbers describe averages and not guarantees. A homeowner in a lower-tax upstate county may already pay less than the statewide New York average, which narrows the gap.
There’s also a catch worth knowing about if you’re buying a second home and not relocating. Florida’s homestead exemption and its 3 percent assessment cap under the Save Our Homes program only apply to a primary residence. A property bought as a part-time or investment home doesn’t get those protections. This shrinks the tax advantage for anyone who won’t be living there year-round.
The income tax comparison also isn’t as simple as the top-line rates suggest, particularly for retirees. New York doesn’t tax Social Security benefits at all, and it already exempts government pensions in full.
On top of that, anyone 59 and a half or older can exclude up to $20,000 of private retirement income each year, covering 401(k) withdrawals, IRA distributions, and most pensions. A married couple who both qualify can shelter up to $40,000 combined. If you are a retiree living mostly on Social Security and a modest pension, a meaningful share of your income may already be untouched by New York state tax before they ever cross the Florida border. The 10.9 percent top rate matters most for households with substantial income well beyond those exclusions, not for every retiree weighing the move.
What Living in New York Offers That Florida Doesn’t
The financial side of this decision is easy to lay out. The personal side is not, and it’s usually the part that gets left out of the conversation.
Family and friends are not part of the move. For someone who has spent decades in a Finger Lakes town or nearby areas, with grandchildren nearby or friendships built up over a lifetime, leaving means giving up something that’s genuinely hard to replace. Building that kind of support network again only gets harder with age.
There’s also a financial piece tied specifically to this region that’s worth factoring in before deciding anything. Finger Lakes home values have climbed sharply over the past year. Canandaigua’s median sale price rose 25.6 percent year over year to $341,046, and Skaneateles climbed 10.7 percent to $949,432. That run-up works in a seller’s favor, since it means more equity to carry into a Florida purchase than a few years ago.
It also means the selling the property here deserves its own careful planning. Waterfront properties in the region carry an added wrinkle too.
New York has no statewide law requiring a septic inspection when a waterfront home changes hands, so sellers and buyers alike should confirm septic and water quality details directly instead of assuming they’ll surface during a standard showing.
There’s also the rhythm of the seasons, and Florida simply doesn’t have an equivalent. Apple picking in autumn. The lake effect snow that upstate New York takes in stride. The wineries and harvest festivals that mark the calendar year after year. None of it exists in Florida. A number of retirees end up missing the seasons more than they expected to, even after years of complaining about February.
Hurricane risk belongs in this same conversation, and it shows up directly in insurance costs. A 2026 study by Insurance.com and Quadrant Information Services priced an identical homeowners policy on a typical single-family home across every state.
The national average came out to $2,872 a year. Florida’s figure for the same coverage was $8,471, nearly three times higher. That difference belongs in the same calculation as the tax savings.
On top of that, flood insurance is a separate cost and it surprises a lot of first-time Florida buyers. Standard homeowners policies don’t cover flood damage at all. Anyone with a federally backed mortgage in a designated flood zone has to carry a separate flood policy, and the statewide NFIP average runs about $1,363 a year, though it ranges widely by county. A home in a high-risk coastal county can run well above that average, while an inland property in a lower-risk zone can come in well below it. Either way, it’s a second premium to budget for, not a cost that gets folded into the first one.
What Florida Homes Actually Cost
With the trade-offs on the table, the more useful question is what a move actually looks like for someone with a realistic and middle-range budget.
A lot of the most visible real estate coverage out of Florida focuses on oceanfront estates and luxury condo towers. That coverage isn’t representative of what most relocating New Yorkers are actually buying. Most are working with a far more ordinary budget, and their searches reflect that.
A more typical search looks like pool homes for sale in Florida under $300,000. That price point is realistic across much of the state, outside the most expensive coastal pockets. At that budget, a pool tends to be a standard expectation and not a luxury add-on, since the Florida climate makes it usable most of the year. Real estate platforms like Hometrino track this kind of filtered search closely, because it shows where genuine buyer demand actually sits.
Things to Consider Before You Move to Florida
None of this is an argument for or against the move. It’s an argument for making the decision with the full picture in front of you, not just the tax comparison that shows up in most of the coverage.
The financial case for leaving New York is genuinely strong for a lot of households, particularly those with significant retirement income. But the people who end up happy with the decision tend to be the ones who weighed what they were giving up, not just what they were saving, before they signed anything.
A useful first step is running the numbers on your own property tax bill and your own income instead of relying on statewide averages. A second step matters just as much: spend real time in the Florida community you’re considering, across more than one season, before you commit.
That second step matters way more than it sounds. A Florida winter is close to perfect across most of the state. A Florida summer, with its heat, humidity, and daily storm pattern, is a very different experience. Summer is the season that tells you whether you’d actually want to live there year-round. Renting for a few months before buying, spanning both seasons, costs little next to the price of discovering a mismatch after the sale has closed.
The move works out well for a lot of people. It works out best for the ones who went in with realistic expectations on both sides of the ledger.
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