Why a Florida study is different
Florida posted the fastest real GDP growth of any state in 2025 and added nearly 200,000 residents in a year, but the composition of that growth has changed. Net domestic migration fell to 22,517 in the year to July 2025, down from 310,892 in 2022, while net international migration of 178,674 was the highest of any state. Demand cases built on 2021–2023 in-migration overstate absorption, and a credible Florida study separates the South Florida core, where Miami-Dade now loses residents domestically, from exurban growth counties such as St. Johns, Sumter, Osceola, and Polk.
The cost stack is where Florida studies are won or lost. The state levies no personal income tax, which supports retiree and high-earner demand, but it shifts weight onto property tax and transaction tax. Non-homestead property, including all commercial real estate, carries a 10 percent annual assessment cap that resets to just value on a change of ownership, so an acquisition must be modeled at the reassessed basis, not the seller's bill. Documentary stamp tax on deeds and notes and the nonrecurring intangible tax on mortgages are material closing-cost lines. On the favorable side, Florida repealed the sales tax on commercial rent effective October 1, 2025, lowering occupancy cost for leased office, retail, industrial, and self-storage; transient rentals of six months or less, including hotel rooms and RV sites, remain taxable. Amendment 3 on the November 3, 2026 ballot would cut the non-homestead cap from 10 percent to 5 percent and raise homestead exemptions; if it passes, commercial millage may rise as local governments replace lost homestead revenue, so until certification a Florida study should run both scenarios.
Insurance is the single most important Florida-specific expense line. Citizens Property Insurance, the state-created insurer of last resort, peaked at 1.41 million policies in October 2023 and had fallen to roughly 255,000 by September 2026 after record depopulation to private carriers, which means more risk now sits with newer, thinly capitalized insurers. Florida carries 1,767,045 NFIP flood policies, about 39 percent of the national total, and commercial NFIP limits of $500,000 building and $500,000 contents mean hotels, multifamily, and industrial assets typically need private excess flood. Named-storm deductibles of 2 to 5 percent of insured value, carrier financial-stability ratings, and FEMA Risk Rating 2.0 premium phase-ins all belong in the operating-expense sensitivity, and the Florida Building Code's High-Velocity Hurricane Zone in Miami-Dade and Broward moves the capital budget.
SBA and USDA in Florida
For SBA 7(a) and 504 financing, loans numbered through September 30, 2026 fall under SOP 50 10 8, effective June 1, 2025, and loans numbered on or after October 1, 2026 fall under SOP 50 10 8.1. Special-purpose assets, including gas stations, car washes, hotels, RV parks, event venues, and assisted living, carry a higher equity injection, 15 percent for a special-purpose property or a startup and 20 percent when both apply under the 504 program, and a clear expectation of an independent feasibility study. Self-storage and industrial are generally treated as multipurpose collateral with standard injections. The SBA does not finance market-rate multifamily, so those projects run through agency, HUD, conventional, or CMBS channels. Florida is served by two SBA districts: South Florida, headquartered in Miami with branches in Tampa and Fort Pierce, which has historically ranked as the nation's largest district by volume, and North Florida, headquartered in Jacksonville with an Orlando branch, which reported 1,919 loans and nearly $1.2 billion in FY2025, a 21 percent increase over FY2024. SBA volume is heaviest in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach, then Tampa Bay, Orange and Seminole, and Duval and St. Johns.
USDA is a realistic path only where geography allows it. Under 7 CFR Part 5001, rural means any area not within a city or town of more than 50,000 and not in its contiguous, adjacent urbanized area, and eligibility must exist at approval, not be a condition of it. In Florida that rules out nearly the entire I-95 coast from Miami to Port St. Lucie and most of the I-4 corridor from Tampa through Lakeland and Orlando to Daytona, including much of Pasco, Polk, Lake, and Osceola. It leaves the Panhandle interior, the Big Bend and Nature Coast, North Central Florida, the Heartland, the Glades and Lake Okeechobee towns, and many Keys communities outside Key West as the realistic Business and Industry territory. A B&I guaranteed loan over 1 million dollars to a new business requires a full independent feasibility study prepared by a qualified consultant (7 CFR 5001.306). Community Facilities carries a tighter 20,000-population limit. USDA rescinded the FY2025–2027 REAP notice of funding on April 15, 2026, and applicants without an executed agreement must reapply under the updated regulation. We confirm eligibility parcel by parcel on the USDA eligibility map at the start of every engagement and screenshot the result for the loan file, because Jacksonville's consolidation with Duval County, Lakeland's own urbanized area, and the Orlando, Fort Myers, and Port St. Lucie fringes routinely exclude land that looks rural.