Where Is Palm Beach County’s New Income Coming From?
Follow the Tax Returns.

Every seller eventually asks the same question: where is my buyer coming from?

Most marketing does not begin with evidence. A listing goes into the MLS, onto the portals, into a magazine or two, and then it waits. The hope is that the right buyer, wherever they are, wanders by.

There is a better starting point, and it has been sitting in public for years.

The data most marketing ignores

Each year the Internal Revenue Service publishes county-to-county migration statistics based on year-to-year filing-address changes reported on individual income tax returns. When a return is filed from a different county than it was the year before, the IRS counts that move. It reports how many returns moved, how many individuals those returns represent and the total adjusted gross income associated with them.

Returns approximate migrating tax households; they are not records of home purchases. Even so, the income measure adds something ordinary population data cannot. Population data tells you people are arriving. The IRS data estimates how much adjusted gross income arrived with those returns and where it came from.

Years ago, one of my first conversations with Gay Cororaton, chief economist at MIAMI REALTORS®, was about exactly this dataset. Her point was simple: if you know which counties are sending Palm Beach County its highest-income households, you have better evidence for deciding where to market. She has since published her own analyses of the IRS migration data for Southeast Florida, and we have used the same underlying idea ever since.

What it changed about how we sell homes

The conventional approach spreads a marketing budget broadly on the theory that a luxury buyer could be anywhere. Some could. But the IRS data shows that migration into Palm Beach County—and the income associated with it—is concentrated in a relatively short list of origin counties.

So for years a portion of our marketing budget has been aimed directly at homeowners in those counties rather than at everyone. A home in Admirals Cove or on Jupiter Island is not just marketed to "the Northeast." Its geographic plan can give greater weight to the specific counties whose residents are already moving to Palm Beach County with substantial income.

That is the difference between advertising and targeting. Advertising hopes the right buyer sees the home. Targeting begins with evidence about where likely prospects live.

The IRS data is not the entire marketing plan. It is one signal—to be considered alongside the property, its price, MLS evidence, brokerage relationships and actual response to the campaign. But it is a far better place to start than a regional stereotype.

Where Palm Beach County's new income comes from

The 2022–2023 IRS data shows 228 displayed county flows into Palm Beach County. Sorted by the total adjusted gross income associated with those returns, the top ten are these.

Top ten of 228 displayed origin-county flows by total AGI. IRS county-to-county migration data, 2022–2023, as displayed at irswealth.davidabernathy.com. Average AGI is total AGI divided by returns.

Connecticut replaced its counties with planning regions for this data series. The Western Connecticut Planning Region includes Greenwich, Darien, New Canaan and Westport, among other municipalities.

Two things stand out.

First, return count and income tell almost opposite stories. Broward sent more returns than the other nine counties combined, but those returns carried an average AGI of $94,295. Manhattan sent roughly one-tenth as many returns, with an average AGI of $578,149. Cook County and Westchester, with fewer than 500 returns each, were both above $528,000. Eight of the ten counties on this list are outside Florida, and every one of those eight had an average AGI above $234,000; neither Florida county reached $115,000.

Put the two groups side by side. The two Florida counties sent 10,222 returns and about $1.01 billion in AGI, roughly $99,000 per return. The eight out-of-state counties sent 4,399 returns and about $1.83 billion, roughly $417,000 per return.

Fewer than half the returns carried nearly twice the income.

Second, the list is specific. It is not simply "the Northeast." It is Manhattan, Chicago, Westchester, Nassau, Suffolk, Bergen, Western Connecticut and Monmouth.

For sellers: these are the origin markets carrying the most income into Palm Beach County. For an upper-tier listing, they deserve specific consideration in the geographic marketing plan.

The list most marketing never sees

Sort the same 228 flows by average income per return instead of total income, and a different set of counties rises to the top.

Top ten of 228 displayed origin-county flows by average AGI per return. Small flows are sensitive to a handful of high-income filers; Jefferson County's 48 returns should be read with that in mind.

Only three of these counties—Manhattan, Cook and Westchester—also appear in the top ten by total income. The other seven send too few returns to register on a volume-based list, which is precisely why broad marketing assumptions can miss them.

Mecklenburg County, home to Charlotte, sent 149 returns to Palm Beach County at an average AGI of $850,329: the highest average of any displayed origin county and about nine times Broward's. Norfolk County in Boston's southern and southwestern suburbs and Montgomery County, home to much of Philadelphia's Main Line, each sent more than $100 million in AGI on fewer than 200 returns.

A volume-only marketing plan could easily overlook these smaller flows. An income-based view brings them into consideration.

For sellers: smaller flows with unusually high average AGI can reveal affluent prospect markets that a volume-only plan would miss. Ask whether those markets are being tested.

Why this matters to a seller

Three practical consequences.

Your buyer has a hometown, and evidence can narrow where to look. A seller of a $5 million waterfront home is not limited to waiting for a random buyer to appear. The IRS data points toward a relatively short, evidence-backed list of origin markets that may deserve disproportionate attention and makes the geographic plan less arbitrary.

Average income by origin can inform positioning and testing. A county sending returns with an average AGI of $500,000 represents a different prospect pool from one averaging $100,000. That distinction can influence the creative, the channels, the properties emphasized and the amount of budget assigned to testing that market. It should inform judgment, not replace it.

The evidence can be refreshed. The IRS releases new migration data annually. Origin patterns and income flows change. A current analysis can surface places—such as Mecklenburg County—that broad assumptions about "New Yorkers moving to Florida" could miss.

Ask any agent proposing to market your home one question: where, specifically, will the marketing go, and why those places? If the answer is "everywhere," it is not a strategy.

What AI made possible

The IRS files are public, but they were not designed for someone casually exploring where people and income are moving. The source records have coded geographies, separate inflow and outflow directions, AGI reported in thousands of dollars, suppressed small flows and aggregate "other" records. The Connecticut geography also changed with the introduction of planning regions. I used AI as a development partner to help organize those records, translate the geographic identifiers into readable labels, calculate comparable measures and turn the source files into a searchable interface.

AI accelerated the technical work. It did not become the source of the data or eliminate the need for scrutiny. The IRS files remained the source of truth. Calculations still had to be checked, suppression and aggregate records handled consistently, unusual geographies reviewed and the limitations made visible to the reader.

That distinction matters. As I wrote in What Buyers and Sellers Can Already Do With AI and Public Real Estate Data, AI can make public information far more accessible, but the source, methodology and human judgment still determine whether an answer deserves to be trusted. The same principle applies to local real estate analysis. Palm Beach County Is Really Five Markets explains why a countywide headline can obscure meaningful differences inside the county. The IRS migration data adds another dimension: the places and income sources feeding demand into those local markets.

Look it up yourself

The result is available at irswealth.davidabernathy.com.

Select nearly any county in the United States, choose inflow or outflow, and rank the origin or destination counties by returns, individuals, total adjusted gross income or average adjusted gross income. It works for Palm Beach County, but it also works for the county you are moving from, the county your children live in or any county you are curious about.

If you own a home here and are considering selling, run two searches: Palm Beach County, inflow, sorted first by total AGI and then by average AGI. The first list shows where the volume is. The second surfaces smaller flows carrying unusually high income.

Neither list identifies your buyer. Together, they make the question of where to look much more informed.