Street Economics

DeLand, Florida

HJR 1 Homestead-Exemption Tax-Base Exposure

Volusia County . 2025 final assessment roll

Snapshot

The DeLand read

DeLand fits the Bedroom Residential Monoculture archetype. The base is owner-occupied single-family housing at moderate value with thin commercial, industrial, or rental property — this is the maximum-exposure profile, because almost every dollar of value is the exact kind of property the amendment exempts. At full $250,000 phase-in in 2028, 39.4% of DeLand’s non-school taxable base is exposed; the 2027 step at $150,000 already removes 23.6%. The driver is straightforward: a high homestead share combined with a low commercial share means the exemption lands on nearly the whole base at once.

Of DeLand’s 15,947 residential housing units, 59.1% are owner-occupied, 14.1% are owned by out-of-state owners, and 26.8% are non-homestead but Florida-owned. Among Florida cities, DeLand ranks 39 of 404 by exposure — placing it in the top tier of structurally exposed municipalities statewide. The 26.8% Florida-owned non-homestead share reflects a meaningful local rental market, which is a partial buffer, but not enough to offset the weight of the homestead-dominant base.

Land-use composition

Share of taxable value by category, DeLand, 2025 roll:

Residential value dominates at 65.7% of the roll. Commercial sits at 9.8% — thin but not absent. Industrial at 2.9% and multifamily at 3.9% are both shallow. The out-of-state ownership figures within industrial (42.8% of value) and multifamily (44.6% of value) are notable: a large share of the value in those smaller categories is held by out-of-state owners, which is a structural signal about who controls the non-homestead base that already exists.

What the exposure band means

Band: High exposure. A large share of the base shifts. Diversification is the multi-year strategy; near-term, expect pressure to raise millage to hold services flat.

Looking ahead

Neither of the following changes the exposure figures above; both shape how DeLand grows its base after the amendment takes effect.

First, beginning January 1, 2027, the annual assessment-increase cap on non-homestead property drops from 10% to 5%, covering commercial, industrial, and small residential rentals of nine units or fewer. Because capped values can rise only 5% per year, the primary path to growing taxable value in these categories is transactions — a sale or change of control resets assessed value to market. Transaction velocity matters more to non-homestead base growth under the new cap than it did under the old one.

Second, new Florida residents who did not maintain a Florida permanent residence as of December 31, 2026 phase into the larger exemption over five years rather than receiving it immediately. This cannot be read from the roll, so all exposure figures here assume full application of the exemption. Near-term exposure could run slightly lower than modeled in places with many recent arrivals still inside their five-year window.

Where the opportunity is

These recommendations are based solely on the tax roll’s land-use composition. They do not account for whether local land development regulations and zoning permit any of these uses, whether there is local obstruction, or the political dynamics that typically decide what actually gets approved. This is a starting point for a conversation, not a development plan.

• The single highest-leverage move for DeLand is building a commercial and employment spine. At 9.8% of taxable value, commercial is thin — and every square foot of commercial, medical-office, or light-flex business space added to the roll carries no homestead exemption. The target is a neighborhood-serving retail node, a small office or medical-office cluster, or a light-flex business park on an arterial. Concentrating that growth along one existing corridor rather than scattering it is the difference between forming a real non-homestead spine and staying thin everywhere.
• Multifamily rental is the second lever. Apartments pay full freight under the amendment — no homestead exemption applies. Allowing well-sited rental near jobs and transit adds non-homestead value and workforce housing simultaneously. At 3.9% of the roll today, there is meaningful room to deepen this category, and the out-of-state ownership signal within multifamily (44.6% of value) suggests outside capital is already watching this market.
• Industrial is at 2.9% of taxable value — shallow enough that even modest additions would move the needle. Prioritizing commercial and industrial parcels for any future municipal growth rather than more subdivisions means any expansion of DeLand’s footprint deepens the non-homestead base instead of the monoculture. Protecting and intensifying any existing employment anchor — hospital, college, distribution, government office — is the lowest-cost near-term move, because these are the non-homestead taxpayers already in place.

Watch-out: do not solve a revenue hole by approving more single-family subdivisions. Each one adds homestead value the amendment will exempt while adding service demand the millage must cover. That is the structural trap that created the exposure in the first place.

Source and scope

All figures are computed from the Florida Department of Revenue 2025 final assessment roll — the most recent certified roll in the state’s possession. The roll is used as a structural proxy for DeLand’s tax-base composition, not as a dollar forecast for any specific budget year. HJR 1 / CS-HJR 1F is on the November 2026 ballot; the 2026 roll is the assessment roll in place when voters decide. If the amendment passes, the first roll affected is the 2027 roll (the $150,000 step), followed by the 2028 roll at full $250,000 phase-in. When the 2026 and later rolls are certified, this analysis re-runs on the new data.

Ownership shares are measured on a residential-unit basis. The out-of-state figure (14.1%) is a mailing-address proxy: it counts units whose owner’s mailing-address state in the roll is a non-Florida state or country. It undercounts true outside ownership — an out-of-state owner using an in-state LLC address counts as Florida — and it does not prove where any individual owner actually lives. This is a land-use-composition starting point, not a full fiscal, economic, or legal analysis.

Place: Deland