Special to Red Tape Florida
By Samuel R. Staley, Ph.D., Director, DeVoe L. Moore Institute, Florida State University
To our readers: The following are written comments provided by Dr. Staley to the Florida Senate, Committee on Community Affairs on December 9, 2025
Florida faces a chronic housing shortage that has significant implications for affordability, economic competitiveness, and quality of life. Housing demand continues to outstrip supply at both the state and local levels.
Florida adds approximately 750,000 people annually through in-migration from other states and foreign countries. Net migration creates demand for roughly 100,000 new housing units each year. These general numbers, however, underestimate their impact. Florida also experiences substantial churn in the housing market as existing households move up the “housing ladder.” Previously owned homes account for roughly 70 percent of residential purchases, and three-quarters of new homes are single-family detached. Much of what is considered “affordable housing” is provided through filtering of existing homes to different households. When new supply slows, filtering slows.
To better understand the implications of these trends, the DeVoe L. Moore Center commissioned an econometric analysis of housing demand and supply at statewide and county levels. The analysis estimates that Florida faces a chronic shortage of at least 55,000 rental housing units and 66,000 owner units. These estimates are likely a lower bound. The American Enterprise Institute Housing Center estimates that Florida is short approximately 486,000 homes, requiring additions equivalent to about five percent of the state’s current housing stock to restore equilibrium.
The shortage is persistent and widespread. Sixty-one of Florida’s 67 counties face chronic housing shortages. More than 90 percent of counties show shortages in owner-occupied housing, and more than 80 percent face shortages in rental housing.
This deficit has been a long time in the making. Beginning with the 2008 financial crisis, housing permits have failed to keep pace with Florida’s population and household growth. The cumulative result is a substantial housing gap.
The implications for affordability are significant. As the state continues to attract new residents and households, the inability to provide the right kind of housing in the right place at the right time contributes to a housing mismatch. This mismatch places upward pressure on rents and sale prices and constrains mobility within the housing market.
Regulation and land-use policy play an important role in this outcome.
Florida adopted statewide growth management in 1985, mandating detailed local comprehensive planning and land-use regulation. The law required long-term land-use planning according to state priorities rather than market demand. Empirical research found that housing prices increased faster in communities subject to longer periods under the Growth Management Act, contributing significantly to rising prices during its implementation.
Subsequent reforms reduced state compliance requirements, but local land-use planning and regulatory systems remain intact. Lengthy and uncertain approval processes for rezoning and development permits influence the ability of the private housing market to respond to shifting demand. The effects of regulatory delay and uncertainty on housing supply and affordability are well established in academic research.
Local governments vary widely in how they apply growth management rules. Differences in impact fees, development conditions, and approval timelines create financial uncertainty and reduce profit margins for builders. As profit margins narrow, builders shift toward higher-income housing segments. Lower-margin segments — including workforce and “missing middle” housing — become less financially viable.
As private developers reduce activity in these segments, the housing market becomes less robust. Florida is not building housing at a sufficient scale to allow filtering to operate effectively across income levels.
Reforming local growth management and land-use regulation is therefore a crucial step toward restoring market resilience. The role of the state in facilitating this reform, however, requires careful consideration.
Since 2010, Florida has largely delegated growth-management responsibilities to municipalities and counties. In principle, local governments are closer to residents and better positioned to respond to community concerns. In practice, however, land development and redevelopment processes have become highly politicized. Detailed zoning maps and discretionary approvals can transform routine land-use adjustments into political contests rather than evidence-based decisions.
The state can proactively address housing shortages by adjusting incentives faced by local governments.
One approach would be to prioritize housing within comprehensive plans and hold local governments accountable for meeting measurable housing objectives. Comprehensive plans often contain numerous elements competing for attention, and housing can become secondary to other priorities. Incentivizing measurable production goals could elevate housing as a central planning objective.
A second reform would focus development review on tangible and measurable impacts rather than generalized or aesthetic objections. Narrowing the grounds for delay and tying approvals to objective standards would reduce uncertainty and increase accountability.
A third reform would improve transparency and consistency in estimating impact fees. Impact fees contribute to higher housing costs, and wide variation in methodologies increases financial uncertainty. Ensuring that fees are clearly tied to actual infrastructure costs would improve predictability and reduce barriers to supply.
Beyond these state-level initiatives, local regulatory flexibility can increase housing responsiveness. Reducing minimum lot sizes, permitting administrative lot splits, and allowing accessory dwelling units (ADUs) can unlock incremental supply without dramatically altering neighborhood character.
ADUs, in particular, provide one of the least intrusive methods of increasing housing supply. Adding a unit over a garage or within the footprint of an existing home can improve financial sustainability for homeowners, expand options for residents in transition, and enhance mobility within the housing ladder while minimizing infrastructure impacts.
Florida’s housing shortage is chronic and of sufficient scale that policymakers should focus less on building for specific segments and more on enabling abundant housing across the board. Only by substantially increasing the supply of housing — both owner-occupied and rental — can price pressures moderate and affordability improve.
Florida has previously achieved periods of strong housing production when regulatory systems were more responsive to market demand. Restoring housing market resilience will require sustained attention to regulatory predictability, accountability, and supply flexibility.
The path forward is not complicated: create a more responsive and resilient housing market where builders and developers can sustain investment across the full range of housing products. Doing so is essential to maintaining Florida’s quality of life and economic competitiveness.
Dr. Sam Staley is director of the DeVoe Moore Institute at Florida State University and is one of the state’s most respected voices on housing policy.