Florida tops New York as second-biggest U.S. housing market: Report

Florida has surpassed New York as the second most valuable United States housing market. The top five most valuable housing markets in the U.S. are: California, Florida, New York, Texas, and New Jersey, according to Zillow.

Yahoo Finance's Rick Newman, Josh Schafer, and Pras Subramanian discuss the news. For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.

Video Transcript

RICK NEWMAN: So Florida now has the second-highest value of housing in the country, displaced New York. We're sitting here in New York. I say great. I mean, let Florida have it.

That is by-- that's actually by value. It's not by number of housing units. That's by value. And I guess that tells you that Florida is growing fast. To me, it tells you-- tells me Florida has a problem, which is that housing is getting unaffordable, which it is. And I'm fine if people want to move out of New York so that housing becomes more affordable in New York. Fine with me, and I think anybody who's looking for an apartment in New York City would probably agree.

JOSH SCHAFER: Yeah, and it's an interesting inventory story too, right, when you think about Florida and a lot of the natural disasters you've seen down there and what happens to people's houses that are on the coast, and then you want to move around, right? So you have all these people moving from the Northeast. Then you also have houses being destroyed. So at some point, it just makes sense, simple supply and demand--

RICK NEWMAN: It does.

JOSH SCHAFER: --of prices going up down there.

RICK NEWMAN: And there's another crazy phenomenon in Florida, which is insurance companies are leaving the state in droves. They don't want to be down there, and it's not because of hurricanes. It's because of this crazy situation they've got with lawsuits there. Now, they have made some reforms recently under DeSantis, but this problem is going to persist for a while.

And basically contractors and lawyers got together to just sue all these insurance companies. The insurance companies basically have to pay a penalty if they go to court and they lose, so they just basically end up settling. So it's like the whole state of Florida has gotten a free roof, and it's all on the insurance companies.

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Outside of that, my take on this story is there's two parts, right? One part is, you know, want to leave New York? Leave New York. That's fine. Make it better for people who are still here.

But Florida, the hurricane angle is not insignificant. Like, a lot of that property is under threat. Every year it's getting worse and worse and worse.

RICK NEWMAN: It is.

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Water is rising there. I can't imagine the property values are going to stay that strong 10 years from now.

RICK NEWMAN: Personally, I have zero interest in Florida, you know, even as a half time, like, semi-retirement place. New York is not so bad. It barely snows here anymore, so we don't have winters.

[LAUGHTER]

I mean, like, we just had this little tropical storm that came through. I mean, it rained for a few days. I mean, so what?

JOSH SCHAFER: It would be interesting to see if you see Arizona on that, like coming up that list and keep coming up that list. It seems like that's been a little--

RICK NEWMAN: Sure.

JOSH SCHAFER: --bit newer of a Florida.

RICK NEWMAN: It's only 150 degrees.

JOSH SCHAFER: People keep moving there, though.

RICK NEWMAN: No big deal.

JOSH SCHAFER: People keep going on vacations there.

RICK NEWMAN: I know.

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: They just need more and more New Yorkers to go there and retire.

JOSH SCHAFER: Or the Chicago to Arizona pipeline process is a very popular thing.

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Yeah. We've got the spring league there, spring baseball. Spring baseball? Spring training.

JOSH SCHAFER: People watch that?