Florida County Housing Data

Alachua County, a North Central Florida county, has seen modest population growth over the past two decades. According to 2023 estimates from the Census Bureau, the County's population is now 285,994 people.¹ In recent years, the county has seen considerable volatility in permitting activity, but the trend has been upward. County median home prices have risen over $100,000 from 2018 to 2024. To properly address the local housing market, policymakers need to be able to answer a key question: "How has local housing supply been trending over time?"

The DeVoe L. Moore Center at Florida State University has developed a housing supply model to estimate Florida's County-wide surplus and shortage trends.² According to the model, Alachua County's housing market has trended towards a cumulative housing surplus in recent years. However, the estimated surplus appears to be decreasing towards equilibrium (no surplus/shortage). Recent estimates suggest a cumulative surplus of roughly 408 units. Crucially, this cumulative trend reflects differences in the trends for renter- and owner-housing. While there is an estimated surplus of renter-housing, there has been a trend towards a shortage of owner-occupied units.

Addressing the housing market going forward will require policies that support housing development and affordability. No single policy can immediately resolve Alachua County's affordability challenges, but increasing housing supply - particularly the owner-housing stock - is a necessary step to move forward.

Housing supply and affordability cannot be viewed in isolation. Population growth and permitting activity have likely each played a role in shaping Alachua County's current market conditions.

• Population Growth (Figure 1): Alachua County has had modest and relatively constant population growth. From 2001-2023, there was about a 39% increase in total population (from nearly 222,000 in 2001 to almost 286,000 people in 2023). The yearly change has only slightly fluctuated over the past two decades.
• Permitting Activity (Figure 2): Year-to-year permitting activity has been volatile in Alachua. After highs of over 2,200 units permitted in 2001 and 2005, total units permitted dropped to 600 or less from 2009-2012. After this low, however, the trend has been upward. Despite significant year-to-year jumps, total permitting in general seems to have reached early 2000s levels. In 2022, a new high (across the years of data collection) of roughly 2,800 housing units were permitted.
• Single- vs. Multi-Family Permits (Figure 3): Multi-family permitting activity has been extremely volatile in Alachua, but has hovered above single-family permitting in recent years. Single-family permitting trends have also been volatile, but less so than the multi-family trend. In 2023, 858 single-family units and 698 multi-family units were permitted in Alachua.

Recent trends indicate that median listing prices outpacing the financial reach of many Alachua County residents, as illustrated in Figure 4 and Table 1. The following captures some of the affordability challenges present in Alachua County's housing market:

• Rising Cost vs. Median Household Incomes: Alachua County's median household income of $59,659 suggests the maximum "affordable" home price for the median household is around $208,818 using conventional affordability measures.³ However, the median listing price in Alachua County has hovered near $350,000 in recent years.
• Implications for Households: Median-income households would need to make over $30,000 more a year to afford the median listing-priced home. Low- and moderate-income residents, then, appear to face serious challenges concerning homeownership. Homeownership opportunities appear increasingly reserved for the wealthier residents, suggesting a need for more affordable and workforce housing developments in the County.

Figures 5 and 6 show Alachua County's housing supply trends over time based on an estimating model developed for the DeVoe L. Moore Center at Florida State University. The model uses 5-year American Community Survey estimates of housing vacancy and occupancy rates for owner and rental units to estimate trends of the relative surplus or shortage of residential housing in Florida counties. The most recent trends suggest a cumulative housing surplus in Alachua, but this masks differences in the owner- and renter-housing trends.

• Overall Alachua County Trends (Figure 5): Alachua County is estimated to have had a shortage of roughly 1,900 housing units in the 2006-2010 estimating period. After this, the general trend was towards a cumulative surplus. This surplus trend was at its peak in the 2015-2019 estimating period. In more recent periods, an estimated surplus has persisted, but the trend has been towards equilibrium (no surplus/shortage). The most recent estimates (2018-2022) suggest a housing surplus of just over 400 units in Alachua.
• Rental and Owner Unit Shortages (Figure 6): The overall trend is slightly misleading once different housing types are considered. Renter- and owner- housing have essentially opposite estimated trends, although the total change in the estimates for renter-housing (across the years of data collection) is much greater. Renter-housing, in the early periods, had an estimated shortage, and this has moved towards an estimated surplus of almost 1,000 units. On the other hand, owner-occupied housing has an initial estimated surplus. However, there has been a somewhat smooth trend towards a shortage of owner-units. The most recent estimates suggest that the county is short of about 580 owner units.

Alachua County currently has an estimated surplus of rental housing, but an estimated shortage of for-ownership housing. This presents a unique challenge for the county. Alachua County officials have put substantial effort into developing housing policy that addresses their housing concerns. The Alachua County website details their initiatives.⁴ The following are policies the county should continue or consider going forward:

• Consider the Tradeoffs of the Live Local Act: In 2023, Florida passed SB 102, otherwise known as the Live Local Act (with a revised version passed a year later).⁵ This legislation aims to increase multifamily housing by allowing housing units to be built on commercial and industrial-use zoned land, provided certain affordability criteria are met. The law allows for projects to be streamlined without local officials needing to overhaul local zoning restrictions. It's worth noting that according to a December 2024 report, Alachua County is eligible to opt out of the act's missing middle property tax exemption.⁶ Officials will thus need to weigh the tradeoff between the act's ability to streamline housing development and its potentially preemptive nature of local zoning. Furthermore, given Alachua's estimated rental surplus, Alachua officials will need to decide the extent to which developers should pursue multi-family projects. Despite the estimated rental surplus, however, the use of Live Local can still help address affordability.
• Implement Inclusionary Zoning: Inclusionary zoning often requires developers to include a percentage of affordable housing or below-market rate units within a market-rate development.⁷ For example, an inclusionary zoning program could require developers to sell or rent 15% of their units to lower-income residents. This would allow more affordable options for Alachua residents. Benefits of inclusionary zoning include increasing the supply of affordable housing and reducing income segregation.⁸
• Expedited Permitting and ADU Developments: Alachua County has allowed affordable housing projects to be expedited at a greater degree than other projects. Such affordable housing projects include CDBG, SHIP, Housing Tax Credit Programs, and more.⁹ The county should continue to offer this in the future. Alachua County allows ADUs within rural/agriculture, estate residential, and low or medium-density residential land use designations.¹⁰ Minimizing restrictions on ADUs can help increase the housing stock, and should be a goal moving forward. One promising (lack of) requirement Alachua has already put forward is that ADUs have no minimum size requirement.

Alachua County has been making strides on addressing rental housing. However, more owner-housing units are still needed. Alachua County should prioritize a multifaceted approach to address the local housing challenges. Specifically, Alachua County should consider policies that can address local home ownership affordability concerns.

Citations