‘My commute is like 30 steps': Florida beach town turns into remote work hotspot

Lori Matthias and her husband had grown tired of Atlanta traffic when they moved to St Augustine Florida in For Mike Waldron and his wife moving from the Boston area in to a place that bills itself as the nation s oldest city was motivated by a desire to be closer to their adult children They were among thousands of white-collar remote workers who migrated to the St Augustine area in fresh years transforming the touristy beach town into one of the top remote work hubs in the United States Matthias fell in love with St Augustine s small town feeling trading the hour-long commute she had in Atlanta for bumping into friends and acquaintances while running errands The whole pace here is slower and I m attracted to that disclosed Matthias who does sales and marketing for a power tool company My commute is like strategies from my kitchen to my office It s just different It s just relaxed and friendly Centuries before becoming a remote work hub the St Augustine area was claimed by the Spanish crown in the early th century after explorer Juan Ponce de Leon s arrival In modern times it is best known for its Spanish architecture of terra cotta roofs and arched doorways tourist-carrying trollies a historic fort an alligator farm lighthouses and a shipwreck museum A population boom driven by the pandemic In St Johns County home to St Augustine the percentage of workers who did their jobs from home nearly tripled from in to almost in moving the northeast Florida county into the top ranks of U S counties with the largest share of people working remotely according to U S Census Bureau figures In Miami-Dade and Broward counties those figures grew from and respectively to and according to the Florida Robustness Department Only counties with a heavy presence of tech finance and leadership workers in metro Washington Atlanta Austin Charlotte and Dallas as well as two counties in North Carolina s Research Triangle had a larger share of their workforce working from home than St John s County But these were counties much more populous than the residents in St Johns County which has grown by more than a fifth during this decade Scott Maynard a vice president of economic progress for the county s chamber of commerce attributes the initial influx of new residents to Florida s lifting of COVID- restrictions in businesses and schools in the fall of while much of the country remained locked down A lot of people were relocating here from the Northeast the Midwest and California so that their children could get back to a face-to-face tuition Maynard mentioned That brought in a tremendous number of people who had the ability to work remotely and wished their children back in a face-to-face school situation Citizens schools in St Johns County are among the best in Florida according to an annual statement card by the state Department of Teaching Surging popularity comes at a price The influx of new residents has brought growing pains particularly when it comes to affordable housing since various of the new remote workers moving into the area are wealthier than locals and able to outbid them on homes functionaries noted A multitude of essential workers such as police officers firefighters and teachers have been forced to commute from outside St Johns County because of rising housing costs The median home price grew from in to almost in according to Census Bureau figures making the purchase of a home further out of reach for the county s essential workers Essential workers would need to earn at least annually to afford the median price of a home in St Johns County but a professor has an average salary of around and a law enforcement officer earns around on average according to an analysis by the local chamber of commerce What happened was a lot of the people especially coming in from up North were able to sell their homes for such a high value and come here and just pay cash since this seemed affordable to them declared Aliyah Meyer an economic researcher at the chamber of commerce So it kind of inflated the sphere and put a bit of a constraint on the local residents Waldron a sales executive in the medical care industry was able to sell his Boston home at the height of the pandemic and purchase a three-bedroom two-bath home in a gated society by a golf unit outside St Augustine where things really worked out to be less expensive down here The flexibility offered by fast wireless internet and the popularity of online meeting platforms since the start of the pandemic also helped If I was still locked in an office I would not have been able to move down here Waldron revealed