Spotlight on the unaffordable housing situation in Walton County

WALTON COUNTY, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) - In recent years, the housing market in the U.S. has changed, leaving many working-class Americans struggling to find homes within their budget.

It’s a problem seen across the country and here in the panhandle. In May, officials from Walton, Okaloosa, and the state all met for the Okaloosa - Walton Housing Summit to discuss the current housing affordability outlook within the two counties and potential solutions.

“There are no easy solutions,” Walton County District Two Commissioner Danny Glidewell said in a video posted by the county after the summit. “One of the things that was stressed at this meeting was the need to keep housing costs for the normal person or family under 30% of the pay. That figure compared to our rental costs... the two do not jive up.”

Representative Shane Abbott, who attended the summit, reportedly explained that the average sale price for a home in Okaloosa County is $300,000 while in Walton County, it’s over $500,000.

“For your teacher, your social worker, your hairdresser, pricing is not affordable anymore.” Stephanie Phillips, owner and broker at Resort Real Estate Group, said. “Unfortunately, we are losing a whole segment of workers that we desperately need in this area. If we’re going to continue to grow and build, we need that workforce.”

Both Phillips and Glidewell explained there are other factors that play into homes being unaffordable for an average worker.

“It’s the elevated insurance, it’s the elevated taxes, it’s the elevated cost of living. All of those things combined together make our area unaffordable to middle-income wage earners.”

Due to the high cost and demand in areas like south Walton County, a majority of the people who work in those areas are having to commute from more affordable areas where they live.

“We’ve got workers coming from Crenshaw County, Alabama. Houston County, Alabama. Calhoun County, Florida. Jackson County, Florida. We’ve got them coming from Crestview,” Glidewell said. “If we had a huge increase in gas prices, for example, where people can’t afford to drive to work, we could be impacted severely, and it could happen very quickly.”

Now the focus is clear: finding solutions. But, Glidewell said some of those solutions may not be as easy as they seem.

“One of the solutions that was presented was for government to make land available to developers at a lower or no cost. That could be challenging politically.” he said. “The underlying problem is ageless and simple, the first law of economics: supply, demand. Right now, we’ve got no supply and high demand.”

NewsChannel 7 will continue following any potential solutions that are put in place in the future to help bring housing costs down in Walton County, or any other developments that may occur.