Florida's grim warning for America's real estate

Found Image Holdings/Corbis via Getty Images; Rebecca Zisser/BI

Zach Janik had all the makings of a Florida lifer. Born and raised in West Palm Beach, he spent most of his adult years in St. Augustine, a small beach town on the state's northeast coast. In 2018, just shy of 30, he purchased a tidy three-bedroom house for $195,000. Life was good.

A few years into the COVID-19 pandemic, though, he no longer recognized the place he had long called home. The area around St. Augustine was...