Moving from Connecticut to South Florida: The Greenwich and Fairfield County Guide to Florida Real Estate

Greenwich buyers have been making this move for 20 years. The pattern is established: the kids finish school, the last reason to stay in Fairfield County disappears, and the question shifts from whether to move to where in South Florida and what to buy.

Greenwich buyers have been making this move for 20 years. The pattern is established enough that I can often map the conversation before it starts. It goes something like this: the kids have finished high school or college, the last forcing mechanism keeping them in Fairfield County is gone, and the question shifts from "should we stay for the schools?" to "why are we still doing Connecticut winters and Connecticut taxes?" The answer, increasingly, is that they are not. The Tax Case Connecticut is one of only 12 states in the U.S. that imposes a state estate tax in addition to the federal estate tax. The Connecticut exemption is $13.61M (matching the federal level in 2024), but the rate on amounts above that reaches 12%, and the threshold is subject to change with each legislative cycle...