Search Listings

St. Petersburg FL Real Estate News and Blog

Tampa, St. Pete Among Most Affordable Big Cities in Florida

A recent report by SmartAsset ranked Tampa and St. Petersburg among the six most affordable big cities in Florida.

To compile the rankings, SmartAsset looked at the closing costs, real estate taxes, homeowners insurance and mortgage rates for every city with a population over 200,000. Those data points were used to create an affordability index. The full methodology can be found here.

Tampa ranked as the third most affordable big city in the state with an affordability index of 39.14. The city ranked in the middle of the pack for all data points, helping it place at No. 3.

St....

Neighborhood Choices: To Go Deed-Restricted or Not?

How do you feel about matching mailboxes? How about cars parked in lawns?

Questions like this may seem silly but are very important as choosing a neighborhood you feel comfortable with is one of the first steps of the home-buying process. Your Realtor will help you narrow down areas that may be a fit for you, and one of the main criteria we use is whether you prefer to be in a neighborhood with deed restrictions or not. For the purposes of this discussion we will focus on only single-family homes. It is a safe assumption that 99% of condos in our area rank HIGH on the Restrict-o-Meter.

Other areas of the country do not necessarily have this differentiation, and if they do it is often not as pronounced as it is here in ...