Some snowbirds want to get out of Florida. A bad housing market makes it difficult to move

As the season of bad blood between Canada and the US continues, some snowbirds are faced with a choice this January: Go south to a cooler place, or boycott a country that has gone from friend to foe in some way.

That decision is especially difficult for the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who own an estimated $60 million in Florida, a favorite refuge for generations of winter-weary people.

Donna Lockhart, a snowbird from Ennismore, Ont., decided that the recent anti-Canadian sentiment was too much to bear and it was time to put her condo near Punta Gorda, Fla., up for sale and get out of US President Donald Trump’s America.

In addition to Trump’s 51st district speech and the ongoing trade war, disparaging remarks from Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis – he has been hostile to Canada and mocked Ontario Premier Doug Ford last month – made him feel unwelcome in the place he had made his second home.

“I think you get a little worried as you get older, and I don’t like the way the United States comes in. If they don’t want us there, we don’t need to be there,” Lockhart said in an interview with CBC News.

But, when it came time to list her home, Lockhart faced a problem: She wasn’t the only one trying to leave. Continued Canadian immigration has affected the real estate market in some parts of the state, and southwest Florida is uniquely vulnerable to a snowbird selloff.

“Not that many people are watching,” he said. “The supply is greater than the demand.”

Housing problems in southwest Florida

Southwest Florida, along the Gulf Coast from Naples in the south to the edge of Tampa Bay in the north, is facing a number of housing problems.

Dozens of storms have ripped through this usually sunny part of the state in the past five years, destroying homes, injuring others and raising the price of insurance — in some cases dramatically. The average policy price has increased 40 percent in three years, according to state regulators.

The COVID-19 spike in juice prices is over. House construction is still going well despite the decline in prospective home owners. Add in the stampede of Canadians trying to get out, and it’s not a good time to sell, analysts say.

In the Lockhart neighborhood near Charlotte Harbor, more than 100 units are on the market. That means that about 10 percent of all homes in the scenic boating area are currently for sale, above the median income. A similar unit in the same building has been listed since last April.

“Southwest Florida is currently experiencing a very high level of innovation,” said Joel Berner, chief economist at Realtor.com who tracks the Florida market, in an interview.

“Prices are coming down a lot and the time in the market is over and what we’re seeing is more supply than we’ve seen in years,” Berner said.

Some of this can be attributed to Canadians moving back, he said.

“The number of Canadian buyers in Florida and the US overall has decreased.”

Canadian immigration

Realtor.com has been tracking the decline in the number of Canadians interested in buying US homes. There has been little traffic to its website, one of the biggest listing sites.

The company’s data shows two southwest Florida destinations are among the top four most sought-after by Canadians in the entire US: Cape Coral-Fort Myers and the North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota metropolitan areas.

Those two locations also happen just as the company is projecting the highest depreciation in the state in 2026.

Berner said he expects prices to drop 10.2 percent in Cape Coral, 8.9 percent in North Port and 3.6 percent in Tampa, to the north — falling more than what’s already been recorded in 2025.

John Willows, a retiree who lives in rural eastern Ontario near the US border, is one of those people who don’t live far. Although he’s a boater and loves his past winters in Florida, he said he can’t go to the States right now.

“We’re in a trade war and we have to support our side,” Willows said in an interview. “I’m bullheaded and I just decided, ‘Hey, enough is enough.’ And just to throw it in their face, maybe I’ll go to Cuba. “

The declining sales data is consistent with what Royal LePage found when it surveyed Canadians who own property in the US: 54 percent are considering selling their suburban homes within the next year.

“About two-thirds of them actually point to concerns about the current US administration as the No. 1 reason for selling,” said Anne-Elise Cugliari Allegritti, vice president of research and communications, in an interview.

“Ironically the main reason for the current political situation in the US is a real temperature test of where Canadians are today.”

A different way

At least one Florida politician is trying to get the Canadian minority to stay or return to part of the state, given how dependent the area is on these neighbors from the north.

“It’s unfortunate because Canadians love to come here and I understand why they’re not here right now,” said Allen Spence, a Democratic member of the US Congress from a district that includes the hard-hitting Sarasota.

“But not everyone here believes what Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis are saying. There are people like me who spend a lot of money and free time trying to get these MAGA politicians fired.”

Canadians pay about $600 million a year in property taxes alone, according to the Canadian embassy in Miami. Restaurants, small businesses and the workers they employ in tourist towns up and down the Gulf Coast are suffering from the large number of absent Canadians, Spence said.

The government’s own data shows that the number of Canadian tourists has dropped, despite its governor’s claims of record tourism.

“The Canadian boycott disturbs us a lot. It hurts us financially because the Canadians who come here, stay for weeks or months,” he said. “Now what we’re seeing is a large portion of the tax burden being shifted from tourists to residents.”

And it’s not just about the money, Spence said.

“It’s unfortunate. We have a similar history; we were allies in both world wars. We are actually cousins ​​and I wish we treated our family with more respect.”

Lockhart said the same thing. His longtime colleague’s aggressive attitude “was like a slap in the face,” he said.

In her case, instead of selling to a lower market, she and her husband decided to wait it out and list in early 2027, hoping that prices would rebound by then. And since he’s busy paying bills whether he’s living in a condo or not, he’s decided to move down there this winter now that he has a place.

He said he has faced minor acts of opposition because he is Canadian.

“Things have changed; it makes you feel uncomfortable.”