ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. (AP) 鈥� Lori Matthias and her husband had tired of Atlanta traffic when they moved to St. Augustine, Florida, in 2023. For Mike Waldron and his wife, moving from the Boston area in 2020 to a place that bills itself as 鈥渢he nation's oldest city鈥� was motivated by a desire to be closer to their adult children.
They were among thousands of who migrated to the St. Augustine area in recent 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鈥檚 small town feeling, trading the hour-long commute she had in Atlanta for bumping into friends and acquaintances while running errands.
鈥淭he whole pace here is slower and I鈥檓 attracted to that,鈥� said Matthias, who does sales and marketing for a power tool company. 鈥淢y commute is like 30 steps from my kitchen to my office. It鈥檚 just different. It鈥檚 just relaxed and friendly.鈥�
Centuries before becoming a remote work hub, the St. Augustine area was claimed by the Spanish crown in the early 16th century after explorer . 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 8.6% in 2018 to almost 24% in 2023, 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.
Only counties with a heavy presence of tech, finance and government workers in metro Washington, Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte and Dallas, as well as two counties in North Carolina鈥檚 Research Triangle, had a larger share of their workforce working from home. But these were counties much more populous than the 335,000 residents in St. Johns County, which has grown by more than a fifth during this decade.
Scott Maynard, a vice president of economic development for the county鈥檚 chamber of commerce, attributes the initial influx of new residents to Florida鈥檚 lifting of COVID-19 restrictions in businesses and schools in while much of the country remained locked down.
鈥淎 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 education,鈥� Maynard said. 鈥淭hat brought in a tremendous number of people who had the ability to work remotely and wanted their children back in a face-to-face school situation.鈥�
Public schools in St. Johns County are among the best in Florida, according to an by the state Department of Education.
Surging popularity comes at a price
The influx of new residents has brought growing pains, particularly when it comes to since many of the new, remote workers moving into the area are wealthier than locals and able to outbid them on homes, officials said.
Many 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 $405,000 in 2019 to almost $535,000 in 2023, 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 $180,000 annually to afford the median price of a home in St. Johns County, but a teacher has an average salary of around $48,000 and a law enforcement officer earns around $58,000 on average, according to an analysis by the local chamber of commerce.
鈥淲hat 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,鈥� said Aliyah Meyer, an economic researcher at the chamber of commerce. 鈥淪o it kind of inflated the market and put a bit of a constraint on the local residents.鈥�
Waldron, a sales executive in the health 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 community by a golf course outside St. Augustine where 鈥渢hings 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.
鈥淚f I was still locked in an office, I would not have been able to move down here,鈥� Waldron said.
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Mike Schneider, The Associated Press
