via New Haven Register

By Amy Coval | Published on August 16, 2022

During COVID's first wave in early 2020, many Connecticut residents packed up and headed down to Florida, according to data from the Internal Revenue Service.

IRS tax return data for 2019-2020 shows where people moved to from Connecticut by comparing the addresses people filed in from one year to the next. The data shows how many people moved from Connecticut’s counties to other locations out of state, as well as how much income traveled across the two regions.

In Connecticut, the wealthiest movers on average came from Fairfield County and moved to Palm Beach County, Fla. Palm Beach County is home to popular coastal cities like Palm Beach, West Palm Beach and Boca Raton. The data showed that 418 different families totaling 778 people filed their 2019 taxes in Fairfield County and their 2020 taxes in Palm Beach County. That means over $327 million in income moved from Connecticut down to Florida, making the average income per person just over $421,000.

Fairfield County fills the top seven spots of where the wealthiest Connecticut movers came from. Four of Fairfield County movers’ destinations were all in Florida: Palm Beach County, Indian River County, Collier County and Miami-Dade County. From those four counties alone, over $546 million in income moved out of Fairfield County.

Lisa Treu, founder of Palm Beach County-based Treu Group Real Estate, said her agency has seen this increase in Connecticut clientele. 

"Treu Group Real Estate has seven current clients looking to buy from Connecticut. Five of them have decided to retire, they are in their early 50s-60s and two own businesses," Treu said. "They feel that now is the time to make the move to Florida. Their decisions are pretty consistent: lower taxes and better weather."

Treu also said that although Florida home prices are going up due to to influx of people, her Connecticut clients have also seen their home values increase at a similar pace, making the decision to move even easier. When asked what her Connecticut clients were looking for in moving down south, Treu said, "the Florida Dream."

"[They want] something on the water. Out of the seven, four are looking for single family homes with a pool. The buyers are looking to spend year round in Florida versus the snowbird approach that was typical prior to COVID."

Outside of Palm Beach County, the next most popular migration areas were Newport County, R.I., Indian River County, Fla. and Dallas County, Texas. People moving to these counties from Connecticut accounted for average incomes of $398,000, $363,000 and $358,000 in each county respectively.

All but two of Connecticut’s eight counties had their wealthiest movers find new residence somewhere in Florida. Only Tolland and Windham counties had their wealthiest movers move to a Massachusetts county.

Palm Beach was the top moved-to county for wealthy Connecticut residents for three counties— Fairfield, Hartford and Litchfield. Outside of Palm Beach, the second most popular county for wealthy movers was Collier County, which is home to the cities of Naples and the Everglades in Florida. According to the data, most wealthy Connecticut movers stayed on the East Coast, but moved to areas with more temperate climates like Florida and South Carolina.

For those who stayed in the Northeast, many moved to states like Massachusetts and Rhode Island. In addition, a smaller number of wealthy Connecticut movers opted to head out West, with areas like Dallas County, Texas, Maricopa County, Ariz., and Denver and Boulder counties in Colorado gaining over $184 million of annual income from Connecticut counties.

Connecticut's pandemic moving trends followed the national wave as well. According to a report from Pew, many people either opted to move from dense cities to nearby suburbs, or they left pandemic lockdown cities "in search of roomier, cheaper Sun Belt homes," just as the IRS data suggests many wealthy Connecticut residents did.

The data in this story only examines outflow migration, or those moving out of Connecticut. It does not examine the net gains or losses of income based on how many people moved into the state in the same time period.