There’s a tempting narrative making the rounds right now: Florida’s housing market is fine. Tampa Bay is booming, the snowbirds are still coming, and anyone worried about a crash is just a coastal media pessimist who doesn’t understand the Sunbelt.

I understand the impulse to push back on doom-and-gloom coverage. I’ve spent the better part of my career doing exactly that. But I’ve also been in real estate development for 25 years, and I’ve learned to pay attention when multiple leading indicators start pointing in the same direction — even when the headline numbers look manageable.

Florida’s housing market is not crashing. But there are troubling signs underneath the surface, and dismissing them because Tampa Bay is having a good year is exactly the kind of selective reading that gets operators and investors into trouble.

Let me show you what I’m looking at.

Why Permit Data Matters More Than Median Prices

Most housing market commentary is backward-looking. Closed sales, median prices, days on market — by the time those numbers move, the trend has been underway for months. You’re reading yesterday’s newspaper.

Permit data is different. When a builder pulls a permit, construction typically follows in three to six months for smaller projects and up to 24 months for large residential developments. The homes coming to market in late 2026 and 2027 are being permitted right now. That makes permit activity one of the cleanest leading indicators we have — it reflects what builders, who are committing real capital, actually believe about future demand.

So what does Florida’s permit data say? It says proceed with caution.

The 31% Drop Nobody Is Talking About

Here’s the number that should be getting more attention: Florida is permitting 31% fewer homes annually than it was in 2021.

That is not a rounding error. That is a structural pullback in new housing formation that will shape Florida’s supply picture through 2027.

Year | Residential Permits | YoY Change

2021 | 54,547 | —
2022 | 50,473 | -7.5%
2023 | 47,238 | -6.4%
2024 | 37,289 | -21.1%
2025 | 37,804 | +1.4%

And here’s what makes this more troubling, not less: residential permits were already declining in 2022 and 2023, while total construction numbers were still climbing. The headline permit data looked fine. The core housing product was already weakening underneath it.
That divergence should have been a warning sign. For a lot of people, it wasn’t.

The 1.4% uptick in 2025 is being called a stabilization. Maybe it is. Or maybe it’s a dead cat bounce at the bottom of a multi-year decline. At current volumes we are nowhere near the construction rates needed to keep pace with Florida’s population growth, which means the affordability pressure that is already straining buyers is not going away.

The Largest Homebuilder in America Is Walking Away

D.R. Horton is the biggest homebuilder in the United States. They have more data, more market intelligence, and more at stake than virtually any other single actor in the Florida housing market. When they make a decision about where to pull permits, it is worth paying attention.

Permits filed under the D.R. Horton brand in Florida are down 65% from their 2023 peak.
Sixty-five percent.

Builder | 2023 | 2025 | Peak to 2025

D.R. Horton | 2,926 | 1,012 | -65%
Lennar | 2,330 | 1,090 | -53%
PulteGroup | 804 | 567 | -29%

This is not a minor adjustment. D.R. Horton confirmed in their Q2 2025 earnings call that softer conditions in Florida and Texas drove the decision to pull back on new starts. Lennar is down 53% from peak under its primary brand. Even accounting for the fact that Lennar files a substantial portion of its Florida permits through subsidiary LLCs tied to master-planned communities — which means their actual production is probably higher than permit data suggests — that is a significant retreat by an operator with no incentive to leave money on the table unless they think the risk-reward has shifted.

PulteGroup’s relative resilience — down only 29% — reflects their focus on move-up buyers where affordability pressure is less acute. That distinction is telling. The entry-level and first-time buyer segments, where affordability is most stressed, are where the biggest pullbacks are concentrated.

When the largest operators in your market are systematically reducing exposure, that is a signal worth heeding.

Florida Homeowners Are Pulling Back Too
It is not just builders who are getting cautious. Existing homeowners are sending the same signal.

Permit Type | 2021 | 2025 | Change

Pool & Hot Tub | 46,769 | 29,557 | -37%
Solar | 21,738 | 16,531 | -46% from 2022 peak
HVAC | 119,155 | 117,268 | -11%
Electrical | 127,895 | 121,963 | -5%

Pool permits have fallen 37% since 2021 — in Florida, where pools are practically a standard feature, not a luxury upgrade. Solar installations are down 46% from their 2022 peak, partly due to changes in net metering policy that extended payback periods. HVAC, electrical, and plumbing permits are all down 14-16% year-over-year.
These are not discretionary vanity projects people are cutting. HVAC systems fail. Electrical panels need upgrading. Plumbing problems don’t fix themselves. When permit volumes for essential maintenance start declining, it suggests one of a few things: fewer home sales overall, owners deferring maintenance they know they need, or financial stress that is making even necessary spending feel impossible.

The one category bucking the trend is ADUs — accessory dwelling units, up 9.8% year-over-year. Florida ranks second nationally with 18% of all ADU activity. The interpretation here is straightforward: homeowners are cutting discretionary spending and doubling down on projects with direct financial return. A rental unit that generates monthly income pencils out when you are financially stretched. A pool does not.

That is a rational response to financial pressure. It is also a sign of financial pressure.

The Markets That Are Genuinely Struggling
Statewide averages mask significant regional divergence. Tampa Bay is genuinely performing well — Manatee County up 42% year-over-year in new construction permits, Pinellas County up 42%, Hillsborough County up 18-19%. The fundamentals there are real: sustained population growth, diversifying employment base, available land.

But Tampa Bay is not the whole story.

Jurisdiction | 2023 | 2025 | Change

Polk County | 5,032 | 2,789 | -44.6%
Walton County | 2,472 | 1,561 | -36.8%
Charlotte County | 4,224 | 2,833 | -32.9%
Sarasota County | 3,189 | 2,419 | -24.1%

Polk County is down 44.6% from its 2023 peak. This is a market that ran hard on pandemic-era migration and remote work tailwinds. Those tailwinds are gone, and what is left is a market that got ahead of itself on demand projections that have since faded. Walton County on the Emerald Coast is down 36.8%. Charlotte and Sarasota are declining, and while some of that reflects post-hurricane normalization, it would be a mistake to attribute all of it to that.

The Wild Card That Permit Data Cannot Capture

Everything I have described above is visible in the data. But the most troubling signal in Florida’s housing market is one that does not show up cleanly in permit counts: insurance.
Premiums have surged across the state, particularly in coastal and hurricane-exposed markets. Major carriers have exited or sharply curtailed their Florida exposure. Citizens Property Insurance — the state’s insurer of last resort — has become the largest insurer in the state, which is not how any of this was designed to work. Homeowners in some markets are paying $10,000, $15,000, or more annually in premiums on properties that were affordable by every other measure two years ago.

This is a structural affordability problem that compounds every other pressure in the market. It does not show up in median price statistics. It does not show up in permit data. But it shows up in the decision calculus of every buyer, builder, and investor evaluating Florida exposure right now, and it is not going away.

What I Actually Think Is Happening

Florida’s housing market is not in freefall. The permit data shows a market that overheated during the pandemic years — low rates, massive in-migration, euphoric pricing — and is now recalibrating. That recalibration is real, it is ongoing, and in some markets and product types it is going to be painful.

The difference between a correction and a crisis is usually determined by two things: the pace of adjustment and the underlying fundamentals. Florida’s underlying fundamentals — weather, taxes, quality of life, relative affordability compared to the Northeast and California — have not changed. People will continue to move there. Demand will not disappear.

But the supply pipeline is constrained, builder confidence is fragile, national operators are reducing exposure, homeowners are financially stretched, and insurance costs are a structural headwind with no clear near-term resolution. That combination does not add up to a crash. It adds up to a market that deserves to be watched closely, not waved away.

Tampa Bay being up 42% does not mean Polk County being down 44% is not a problem. Both things are true simultaneously. The job of a serious market analyst is to hold that complexity rather than cherry-pick the data point that supports the most comfortable conclusion.

Pay attention to Florida. The troubling signs are real.

Daniel Kaufman is the principal of Kaufman & Company, a real estate development and investment firm with 25+ years of experience across multifamily, mixed-use, workforce housing, and resort/hospitality projects in California, Vermont, and Maine.