How old are the homes in your city?
Two thirds of the homes in Pompano Beach were standing before 1980. In Parkland it is under two percent. The age of a house is the best single predictor of how rodents, roaches and spiders get inside it, so here are the Census Bureau's own year built counts for every city Buggify serves.1
Map: share of homes built before 1980
Darker and larger circles mean older housing. Click a city for the full breakdown and the Census geography it comes from.5
Every city, ranked by share of pre 1980 homes
Sort by any column. Shares are of all housing units, occupied or vacant, single family and multifamily together. The margin column is the survey's 90 percent margin of error on the before 1980 share, in percentage points.3 The decade strip shows the whole build history of each city at a glance, oldest on the left, with a dark tick where the pre 1980 share ends.
| Build history by decade | Margin | Census geography |
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Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020 to 2024 five year estimates, table B25034, Year Structure Built, retrieved September 20, 2026 through the Census Reporter API. Cities are Census places; West Boca Raton is not a Census place and is shown as ZIP codes 33428, 33433 and 33434 combined. Shares were calculated from the published decade counts, which were checked against each area's total before publication. Hillsboro Beach and Ocean Ridge are small samples; read their margins. Comparison rows for the two counties and the state are shown at the bottom of the table. Download the data as CSV.
What the pattern looks like
The coast is old and the west is new, with a few exceptions. Along the Intracoastal and the beach, Pompano Beach, Deerfield Beach, Lighthouse Point, Hillsboro Beach and Ocean Ridge all have more than half their housing from before 1980, and in Lighthouse Point the busiest building decade was the 1960s. Boca Raton, Delray Beach and Boynton Beach sit in the middle at just over 40 percent pre 1980, but roughly two thirds of each was built before 1990. West of the turnpike the picture flips: Coral Springs and Coconut Creek were mostly built in the 1980s and 1990s, Wellington in the 1990s and 2000s, and Parkland is almost entirely a post 2000 city, with 36.5 percent of its homes built in 2010 or later.
The 1980 line matters less for its own sake than for what it says about construction. The homes on the old side of it went up before the post Andrew code changes of 1994 tightened soffit, gable vent and roof edge detailing,4 and most of them are now on their second or third roof, with the original soffit panels loosened a little each time. That is why an exclusion job on a 1972 Pompano Beach or Deerfield Beach house usually involves more sealing points than one on a 2012 Parkland house, and why the inspection comes before the quote. Margate is the inland exception, an older city with 58.8 percent of its housing from before 1980, so on this measure it belongs with the coastal cities rather than with Coral Springs and Coconut Creek next door.
Coral Springs and West Boca deserve a second look. Both read as relatively new on the pre 1980 measure, at 28.2 and 25.4 percent, but three quarters of West Boca's housing and about 60 percent of Coral Springs' was built before 1990, and much of it in the 1980s boom. Those homes are now 35 to 45 years old, which is the age at which door sweeps, weep screed and garage door seals start to fail together, so they are moving into the same category as the coast rather than staying with Parkland.
Questions about this data
If yours isn't here, call (561) 672-0200. Tyler answers directly.
Where do these numbers come from?
–Every figure is from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, 2020 to 2024 five year estimates, table B25034 (Year Structure Built), read through the Census Reporter API on September 20, 2026. The shares on this page were calculated by adding the Census Bureau's own decade counts and dividing by each area's total housing units; the decade counts were checked against the published totals for every area before this page was built. Nothing here is estimated, modeled or taken from a real estate site.
Why does the page say before 1980 instead of before 1978?
+The Census Bureau publishes year built in ten year groups (1970 to 1979, 1980 to 1989, and so on), so the exact 1978 lead paint line and the 1994 post Andrew code line cannot be read from the table. Rather than guess how a decade splits, this page prints the nearest published boundaries: before 1980 (slightly wider than the pre 1978 group), before 1990 (homes that certainly predate the post Hurricane Andrew code changes, which took effect in 1994), and the 1990 to 1999 group shown on its own because it straddles the change. Statewide code standards changed again with the Florida Building Code in 2002, which falls inside the 2000 to 2009 group.
Why does the age of a home matter for pests?
+Two reasons that come up on almost every inspection. First, construction methods changed. Homes built before the post Andrew code changes were more likely to have open soffit vents, unblocked gable vents and looser roof edge details, and those are the gaps roof rats use to reach an attic. Second, materials age. Door sweeps wear, weep screed rusts, stucco cracks along expansion joints and caulk around penetrations shrinks. In a 1970s Pompano Beach or Deerfield Beach house those are simply more common than in a 2010s Parkland house, which is why exclusion work is scoped differently in each.
Is West Boca Raton a real Census area?
+No. West Boca Raton is unincorporated Palm Beach County west of the city limits, so the Census Bureau does not publish a single figure for it. This page combines the three ZIP code tabulation areas that cover most of it, 33428, 33433 and 33434, which together hold 54,503 housing units. The combined figure includes some homes that residents would not call West Boca, but it is the closest published measure and the method is stated so you can judge it.
How reliable are the figures for the small towns?
+Less precise than the big cities. Hillsboro Beach has 2,685 housing units in the survey and Ocean Ridge has 1,601, so their before 1980 share carries a margin of error of roughly seven percentage points either way, against about two and a half points for Boca Raton. The margin column in the table shows this for every area. Treat the small town figures as a strong indication of the pattern, not a precise count.
Can I use this data?
+Yes. It is derived from public Census Bureau data, and the CSV linked below the table contains every underlying decade count and margin. Please credit the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey and link to this page.
Notes
- Source and date. U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020 to 2024 five year estimates, table B25034 (Year Structure Built), release acs2024_5yr, retrieved through the Census Reporter API on September 20, 2026. The five year estimate pools survey responses collected across those five years, so it describes the housing stock as of roughly 2022, not the current year. The next release (2021 to 2025) is due in December 2026; this page is scheduled for refresh then.
- Cutoffs. The Bureau publishes year built in ten year groups. The 1978 federal lead paint ban, the 1994 post Andrew code changes and the 2002 Florida Building Code all fall inside a group, so this page uses the nearest published boundaries (before 1980, before 1990, 2000 or later, 2010 or later) and does not split any decade by assumption. The before 1980 figure is therefore slightly wider than a true pre 1978 count.
- Margins of error. Every ACS figure is a survey estimate with a 90 percent margin of error. Shares were calculated from the published decade counts; margins on sums use the root sum of squares method and margins on shares use the Bureau's ratio formula, both from the ACS accuracy documentation. Small towns carry wide margins: Hillsboro Beach (2,685 units) and Ocean Ridge (1,601 units) are within roughly seven points either way on the before 1980 share. Differences smaller than the margin between two cities should not be read as real.
- Building code dates. The 1994 and 2002 dates are the effective dates of the South Florida post Andrew code amendments and the first statewide Florida Building Code. They are given for context and are not derived from the Census data. Which code a particular house was permitted under depends on its permit date, not its Census decade.
- Geographies and the map. Cities are Census designated places and follow municipal boundaries, which do not always match mailing addresses. West Boca Raton has no Census boundary and is shown as ZIP code tabulation areas 33428, 33433 and 33434 combined; those areas include some homes east and west of what residents call West Boca. Map circles are placed at approximate city centers for orientation only and do not mark a Census centroid. Map tiles are provided by Esri.
- Purpose. This page is published for general information. It describes housing stock by city, not any particular house, and it is not an inspection, a code compliance opinion or a pest risk assessment for your property. Whether a home has open soffits, gaps at the roof edge or other entry points can only be established by looking at it. Figures may be reproduced with credit to the U.S. Census Bureau and a link to this page.
Older house? Find the entry points before the rats do.
Buggify inspects the roofline, soffits, vents and slab edge before quoting any rodent work, and seals what we find instead of setting traps and hoping. Same technician every visit, and same day service across Boca Raton, Parkland, Coral Springs and Deerfield Beach.