Posted on 05/06/2003 7:04:35 PM PDT by Psalm118
Florida's Land Boom By 1920, Florida had a population of 968,470 people. Just five years later, the population had grown to 1,263,540. What had caused such a rise in the population?
Following World War I, large numbers of Americans finally had the time and money to travel to Florida and to invest in real estate. Educated and skilled workers were receiving paid vacations, pensions, and fringe benefits, which made it easier for them to travel and to purchase real estate. The automobile was also becoming an indispensable way for families to travel, and Florida was the perfect destination. Many of the people who migrated into Florida were middle class Americans with families. Unlike visitors of the past, these newer arrivals wanted homes and land rather than resorts and hotels.
The "Roaring Twenties" was a time when a person's wealth and success was measured by what he owned. At the same time, because the economy was prospering, credit was easy to acquire if one had a decent job. People who recognized this economic change and wanted to make money by selling land poured into Florida. These people, known as land speculators, bought land at cheap prices and sold it at a large profit.
During this boom, however, most people who bought and sold land in Florida had never even set foot in the state. Instead, they hired young, ambitious men and women to stand in the hot sun to show the land to perspective buyers and accept a "binder" on the sale. A binder was a non-refundable down payment that required the rest of the money to be paid in 30 days. Many people got rich quick from the commission they made from these sales. With land prices rising rapidly, many of the buyers planned to sell the land at a profit before the real land payments were due. Sometimes land buyers didn't even have enough money to pay for the land; instead they had just enough money for the binder. They were counting on the prices to continually go up.
Laws were also written to help support the land boom. In order to get people to come to Florida and invest in real estate, the Florida Legislature passed laws that prohibited state income and inheritance taxes.
(Excerpt) Read more at fcit.usf.edu ...
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