St. Augustine, Florida (AP) – Laurie Matthias and her husband tired of the Atlanta movement when they moved to St. Augustine, Florida, in 2023 for Mike Waldron and his wife, moving from the Boston area of the sofa, which is the most enjoyable -Bex to their elderly children.
They were among thousands of white collar, remote workers who migrated in the area of St. Augustine in recent years, turning the tourist beach city into one of the best hobby for remote jobs in the United States.
Matthias fell in love with the feeling of the small town of St. Augustine, trading the hour trip he had in Atlanta to encounter friends and acquaintances while executing orders.
“The whole pace here is more slow and I am attracted to it,” said Matthias, who makes sales and marketing for a power tool. “My journey is 30 steps from my kitchen to my office. It’s just different. It’s just calm and friendly.”
Centuries before it became a remote work center, the area of St. Augustine was stated by the Spanish crown in the early 16th century after the arrival of researcher Juan Ponce de Leon. In modern times, it is best known for its Spanish architecture on the roofs of Terra Cotta and vaulted doors, tourist trolleys, a historical fortress, an alligator farm, headlights and a shipwreck.
Boom of the population driven by the pandemic
In St. Jones County, House of St. Augustine, the percentage of workers who did their job from home, almost tripled from 8.6% in 2018 to almost 24% in 2023, moving the Northeast District of Florida to the highest ranks of the US counts with the largest part of the people.
Only counties with a difficult presence of technology, finance and state workers in Washington, Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte and Dallas, as well as two districts in the North Carolina Research Triangle, had a greater share of their home work force. But these were far more populated than 335,000 inhabitants in St. Jones County, which has grown more than fifth this decade.
Scott Maynard, Vice President of the Economic Development of the Chamber of Commerce of the County, attributes the initial influx of new residents of lifting Covid-19 restrictions in Florida in business and schools in the fall of 2020, while much of the country remained locked.
“Many people have moved here from the northeast, the Midwest and California, so that their children can return to face -to -face education,” Maynard said. “This led to a huge number of people who had the ability to work remotely and wanted their children back in a school situation face to face.”
Public schools in St. Jones County are among the best in Florida, according to the annual card of the State Department of Education.
The popularity of the increase comes at a price
The influx of new residents has caused increasing pain, especially when it comes to affordable dwellings, as many of the new, remote workers who are moving in the area are larger than locals and can surpass them at home, employees said.
Many major workers such as police officers, firefighters and teachers are forced to travel outside St. Jones because of increasing housing costs. The average home price increased from $ 405,000 in 2019 to nearly $ 535,000 in 2023, according to the Census Bureau, which makes the purchase of a home out of reach for the main workers in the county.
The main workers will have to earn at least $ 180,000 a year to afford the average home price in St. Jones County, but the teacher has an average salary of about $ 48,000, and a law enforcement officer earns an average of about $ 58,000, according to an analysis by the local Chamber of Commerce.
“What happened was many of the people, especially coming from the north, were able to sell their homes for such a high value and to come here and just pay money, as it seemed accessible to them,” says Alia Mayer, an economic explorer at the Chamber of Commerce. “So this inflates the market and put a little restriction on the locals.”
Waldron, CEO of sales in the health industry, managed to sell his home in Boston in the midst of a pandemic and buy a two-bedroom home with two bathrooms in a golf-type golf course in front of St. Augustine, where “things really got to know it to be cheaper here.”
The flexibility offered by Fast Wireless Internet and the popularity of platforms for online meetings since the beginning of the pandemic has also helped.
“If I was still locked in an office, I wouldn’t be able to move here,” Waldron said.
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Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social