Seasonal residents in Micco — Micco, Florida

About 1,187 Micco homes are held for seasonal, recreational or occasional use, roughly one in six of the 6,834 housing units in the Micco CDP, in the Census Bureau's ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates.

The figure comes from the vacancy status table for Micco CDP, ACS table B25004, which carries a margin of error of 278 homes. Divided by the 6,834 units counted in the Micco DP04 housing profile, the seasonal homes make up 17.4 percent of Micco's housing (1,187 divided by 6,834). These are units used only in certain seasons or occasionally, along with timeshares and very short rentals. Because no one is living in them as a current residence when the survey reaches them, these units are counted in the Micco housing total but classified as vacant.

Seasonal homes also make up most of Micco's empty housing. The same Micco table counts 1,678 vacant units in all, so seasonal and occasional-use homes account for 70.7 percent of the vacancies (1,187 divided by 1,678). Only 75.4 percent of Micco housing units are occupied at the time of the survey, well below the 86.1 percent in Brevard County.

Micco has more than twice Brevard County's share of seasonal homes: 17.4 percent of Micco housing units against 7.1 percent countywide and 7.8 percent statewide in the ACS 2020-2024 vacancy tables.

The Brevard County B25004 table counts 21,250 seasonal units among 299,305 housing units in the county, and the Florida B25004 table counts 802,265 among 10,256,470 statewide. The percentages in the table below are computed from those published counts and the DP04 housing totals; the arithmetic is shown in the notes column.

Within the vacant stock the Micco pattern is sharper still. Seasonal homes are 70.7 percent of Micco vacancies, compared with 51.1 percent of Brevard County vacancies (21,250 divided by 41,610) and 53.4 percent of Florida's (802,265 divided by 1,503,660). In much of the county, empty housing is spread across units for rent, for sale and other reasons; in Micco and Barefoot Bay, seven vacant homes in ten are seasonal.

The 2020 Census counted 769 Micco units held for seasonal, recreational or occasional use on April 1, 2020, out of 6,700 housing units in the Micco CDP.

The 2020 count comes from the 2020 Census vacancy status table H5 for Micco CDP and the 2020 Census housing unit table H1. On that basis seasonal homes were 11.5 percent of Micco housing (769 divided by 6,700) and 60.4 percent of the 1,274 vacant units (769 divided by 1,274). Subtracting the vacancies leaves 5,426 occupied Micco homes on census day (6,700 minus 1,274). The Census Bureau's ACS subject definitions advise against comparing vacancy estimates between the ACS and the decennial census, because differences in design, data collection methods and residency rules may materially affect estimates of vacancy rates, so the two columns below are separate measures, not a change over time.

Brevard County and Florida also show higher seasonal counts in the ACS than in the 2020 Census. The Brevard County H5 table counted 13,907 seasonal units in 2020 among 288,794 housing units in the county H1 table, 4.8 percent, against 7.1 percent in the later ACS estimate, and the Florida H5 table counted 667,183 seasonal units statewide in 2020. Micco's 2020 vacancies also included 93 units for rent and 198 sold but not yet occupied.

The two Micco counts follow different residency rules: the 2020 Census assigns each person one usual residence, while the ACS treats a Micco home as vacant when everyone staying there is there for two months or less.

The Census Bureau's ACS subject definitions state that most surveys, as well as the decennial census, use the concept of usual residence, the place where a person lives and sleeps most of the time, and that the current residence concept is unique to the ACS. Under the ACS rule, set out on page 7 of the same definitions, a unit whose occupants are all staying for two months or less is considered temporarily occupied and classified as vacant. A winter visitor in a Barefoot Bay home for a few weeks is therefore a vacancy in the ACS. Timing matters too: the same definitions note, on page 121, that the ACS is a continuous survey in which people respond throughout the year, while the 2020 Census fixed every Micco home's status as of April 1.

The ACS seasonal category is also broad. The vacancy status definitions include units used or intended for use only in certain seasons or for weekends or other occasional use, interval ownership or timeshare units, and short-term rental units with stays of one month or less. Census tables do not split Micco's seasonal units by type of structure; across all Micco housing, 67.3 percent of units are mobile homes according to the DP04 profile.

Apart from seasonal homes, very little Micco housing is empty: the ACS 2020-2024 estimates show no vacant units for rent, 89 for sale, 78 sold but not yet occupied and 270 other vacant units.

The Micco DP04 profile puts the homeowner vacancy rate at 1.8 percent and the rental vacancy rate at 0.0 percent, with a margin of 10.5 points on the rental figure. Of the 5,156 occupied Micco homes, 4,737 are owner-occupied, which leaves 419 renter-occupied (5,156 minus 4,737). In other words, a Micco home that is empty is far more likely to be held for seasonal or occasional use than to be on the market, and the 54 units rented but not yet occupied are small next to the seasonal total.

Part-year ownership matters for Micco property taxes because Florida's homestead exemption goes only to owners who make the home their permanent residence on January 1.

Section 196.031 of the Florida Statutes grants the exemption, worth up to $25,000 of assessed value, plus an additional exemption of up to $25,000 on assessed value above $50,000 for levies other than school district levies, with that $25,000 adjusted each January 1 for inflation, to a person who on January 1 holds title and in good faith makes the property his or her permanent residence. A Micco or Barefoot Bay home held as a winter residence by an owner whose permanent home is in another state does not meet that test.

Barefoot Bay adds its own layer. The Barefoot Bay Recreation District, at 625 Barefoot Blvd., Barefoot Bay, FL 32976, is the body through which Barefoot Bay residents may acquire ownership of the community's recreation facilities and common areas, according to a 2017 Florida House staff analysis that describes it as a mobile home park recreation district for the Barefoot Bay Mobile Home Subdivision, created by Brevard County Ordinance 84-05 and governed by a five-member board of trustees elected by the electors of the district. Each trustee must be a resident and a qualified elector of the district.