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Why I Left Miami - Moving out of Florida in 2022 #miami #florida #moving
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May 3, 2024
Earlier this year, I left Miami and the entire state of Florida. It was a long time coming (I had wanted to move for at least 5 years, but just didn't know where to go). In this video, I break down the top five reasons why I left, plus some of the reasons that other people have left as well. You can find me on the socials @msstephsunshine 0:00 Intro 0:35 1. Overdevelopment 1:52 2. Seek Discomfort 2:43 3. Climate Change 3:31 4. Job Market, Wages, Cost of Living 6:19 5. Transience 7:24 Bonus Reasons & Conclusion
View Video Transcript
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Right now, there are a lot of people moving to Miami or to Florida, but after 15 years there
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this past summer, I moved out. If you want to know why, this video is for you
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So before I get into my reasons for leaving, I do want to mention that there are a lot of great
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things about Miami and about Florida, and I don't regret having moved there
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If you are interested in a video about what I liked about Florida and how it actually changed
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my life, leave me a comment. If enough people are interested, I will make it
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make that video. All right, these are my top five reasons in no particular order. Reason number
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one is overdevelopment. So I lived in a small beach city in northern Miami-Dade and when I first
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arrived there in 2007, it was lovely. But since then, they have overdeveloped it without
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improving the infrastructure. So aside from the sewage and waterline issues, which are wonderful
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the traffic is just insane. There is traffic at all hours of the day. So if you go out on a Saturday
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morning, you're basically just going to be sitting in traffic. When I first arrived there, I used to
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love going out and doing things, but I would say for the past five to eight years, it's really
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inhibited me from doing a lot of things. Because when I would think about going out to do something
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I would also then think about the traffic and I'd have to wait. Is it really worth going out
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to sit in traffic? And that issue also extended to the beach. So where I lived, I could walk to the beach. And of course, weekends are always going to be
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busy at the beach. But over time, the weekdays also started becoming more and more crowded at the
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beach to the point where it wasn't even enjoyable to go to the beach anymore. The only time when it's
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really nice and peaceful anymore is maybe around sunrise. There might only be a few people on the beach
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because most people are sleeping. Reason number two is I was too comfortable. I know a lot of people
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wouldn't mind that but I had habits and routines that were very hard to change and when you have a new
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environment that means that you can't fall back on those old habits and patterns anymore. Everything
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from your daily routine to what you eat if you change your environment you just can continue doing the same thing anymore and along those same lines I do feel like I experience a lot of personal growth by coming to Miami A lot of it was because of cultural differences that really
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forced me to evaluate some of the beliefs that my own culture had instilled in me. But the more
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comfortable I got with Miami culture, the less it challenged my beliefs. There weren't as many
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beliefs left to challenge. And so I felt like my personal development was a little bit stagnant
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in that regard. So yeah, like I said, I was too comfortable. Reason number three, climate change
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If you are a climate change denier, I would invite you to come to Miami during the king tides in September or October and walk around South Beach or Fort Lauderdale
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Or maybe I should say swim around because you'll see that even if it's a bright sunny day, you're going to find yourself in knee-deep water in places that are normally dry land
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Even without the king tides, you can still see sunny day flooding in certain areas
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So, in my opinion, it is only a matter of time before Miami is uninhabitable
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How much time? I don't know. But, you know, I got to live there 15 years, so I feel like I got to experience a little bit of the next Atlantis before it's swallowed up by the sea
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And I'm good, so, you know, time to go. Reason number four is the job market, wages, and the cost of living
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I know that's three reasons, but they're all related, so I put them together
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Now, I know some of this depends on what industry you're in, but I would say that of the people that I've known in Miami, at least 90% of them would probably either complain about the job market or at least admit that it is not as good as the job markets in most other places around the United States
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The Miami job market is mostly service and hospitality, so if you're not in that industry, it can be hard to find a decent job
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If we set aside the service and hospitality industry, the number of workers generally exceeds the amount of jobs that are available
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So because of this surplus of skilled employees, employers tend to have this mindset that everyone is disposable, no matter how skilled they are
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A lot of employers would even prefer to train someone entry level than to have someone who already skilled and already knows how to do the job just because they know they can pay the entry level person a lot less And because of that imbalance it is an employer market So you going to
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find that wages just overall are lower in Miami. Most of my friends who have moved elsewhere
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have seen their wages increased after they moved out of Miami. I would say on average probably 20 to
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80%. And, you know, that would be fine if it also cost less to live in Miami. But especially right now
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it is way more expensive to live in Miami than it is to live in most places in the U.S
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So in 2020, it was already moderately expensive, but post-pandemic, we saw a lot of remote
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workers moving to Miami because, of course, it is a beautiful city. But these people were able
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to keep their out-of-town job and their higher out-of-town salary while still living in Miami
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And a lot of these people came from New York where the wages are significantly higher than what
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they are in Miami. So this influx of people to Miami put an imbalance in the housing supply versus
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demand and drove up prices dramatically. Some areas were hit worse than others. I would say downtown
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Miami-Brickle area got hit pretty hard. Maybe more northern areas, more suburban areas, or even
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rural areas, maybe didn't get hit quite as hard. Even still, I would say that if you were fortunate
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in 2022, if you lived in one of those areas, it didn't get hit as hard. If your rent increased by
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400 a month up to like maybe 800 a month, you're one of the fortunate ones, because there are
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plenty of people whose rent doubled. So imagine you're paying $2,500 a month. Your landlord
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offers you to renew the lease for $5,000 a month or get out. Bye-bye. All right, so my reason number
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five is the transients. I know I said I didn't put this in any order of importance, but this one
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is probably up there as one of my most important reasons. And it does tie into reason number
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four, which is that because of the cost of living versus wages, a lot of people do choose
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to leave Miami. So yeah, for sure you can survive in Miami for a while and have a good time
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But I think as you start to get older or maybe even just experience it for a few years, you
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realize that if you in a different city you could be making more money and saving more of that money And maybe you can even have a job where you appreciated as an employee
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So I say that out of all the people I've met in Miami, maybe 90 to 95% of them no longer live in Miami
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And typically, that's because they could make more money somewhere else while also spending less on rent
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And I mean, don't get me wrong, it is great to have friends all over. It's wonderful for traveling
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But it also does get a little tiring to constantly have to meet new friends because your friends are all moving away
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So those are my top five reasons, but I thought I would also give you a few things that
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Generally people complain about in Miami these are not factors to why I personally left, but they might contribute to why someone else might leave
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Reason number one summers are hot Reason number two Hurricanes reason number three is
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tourists. Especially at certain times of year, things will get very crowded because Miami's a tourist
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destination. And this can also influence traffic and your commute to work and all of that
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Reason number four is corruption. Miami was built on the drug trade. So corruption and bribery is just
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a part of that and it has not gone away. It doesn't mean that you have to participate in it to live
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in Miami, but you definitely will encounter it at some point. Reason number five is rude people
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And reason number six is bad drivers. You really have to be extremely alert to drive in Miami, and
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honestly, even that is not going to keep you out of an accident, because if you're stopped at a
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red light and somebody rear-rends you, there's nothing you can do about that. In 15 years, I have
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probably been rear-ended six times. However, that has made me a lot happier with cheaper cars, because then
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you don't get as upset the third time you're repainting the bumper
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So there you go. Those are my top fight reasons we're leaving Miami
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Most likely I am going to do another video about why I left the U.S
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But until then, thank you so much for watching, and I will see you in the next one