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How Much Does It REALLY COST To Live in Clearwater Beach Florida Moving to Clearwater
Feb 8, 2024
So you're considering moving to Clearwater Beach, and you're probably wondering How Much Does It REALLY COST To Live in Clearwater Beach Florida? In today's video, I'm going to answer the three most frequently asked questions (according to Google) about the cost of living in Clearwater Beach, Florida:
1.) Is it expensive to live in Clearwater Beach Floirda?
2.) How much do you need to make to live comfortably in Clearwater Florida?
3.) How much it does it really cost to live in Clearwater Beach.
We'll cover everything from buying a home in Clearwater to insurance, Food and Dining, and entertainment. We'll break down the cost of owning a home in Clearwater so you can make the best decision possible.
Maybe you're trying to decide whether moving to Tampa, Clearwater, or Sarasota is best for you. Hopefully this helps you, too.
Living in Tampa, Florida is an incredible experience! The lifestyle here in Tampa Bay is second to none. From the beaches to the amenities, Living in Clearwater Beach is where you want to be.
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So you're considering making a move to Clearwater Beach, Florida, and you're
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wondering just how much is the cost of living. For years, Florida has been known
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as the land of milk and honey for little money. It's for way too little money
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But recently, man, things have really started to change. I mean, we do have some
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awesome benefits. There's no state income tax, there's no tax on your pension, and
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there's no estate tax when you head off to the Pearly Gates. And Florida is
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recognized as the most friendly business state in the entire country. In today's
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video, we're gonna answer your top three most frequently asked questions. Is
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Clearwater Beach expensive? How much money do you need to live comfortably
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And how much money does it really cost to live in Clearwater Beach? We'll cover
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housing, insurance, dining, food, shopping, taxes, all the things you want to know
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And I'll even cover the things that most people do not want to talk about. And if
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we've never met before, my name is Juan Alcala. I'm a licensed real estate agent
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and a team leader, and I help people just like you buy, sell, relocate, and
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invest here in the Clearwater, St. Pete, and Tampa area. All of my contact
1:01
information is listed down below, so if you have any questions, do not hesitate
1:05
to reach out. But let's get right into it. The first thing that I want to do is make sure that we're all on the same page. Some of you are gonna hear these
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numbers and think, I would never live anywhere so expensive. And others are
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gonna laugh at just how affordable things are compared to where they currently live. The numbers I'm gonna share today are based on current cost, my
1:22
budget, the budget of my friends and clients that I've polled, and statistics
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that we can find on the internet. The goal of today's video is to share what it actually takes to live a great lifestyle if you were to move to
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Clearwater Beach today. This is not gonna be a video on how little you have to
1:36
make in order to survive. Now let's be real, if you're thinking about moving to
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Clearwater Beach, you're moving for the sun, the sand, the Gulf of Mexico, and the
1:44
lifestyle. But if you're gonna make that move, the first thing you got to do is put a roof over your head. And real estate here in the Clearwater Beach area
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is as diverse as the people who visit here every year. You'll find condos, town
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homes, villas, single-family homes, and manufactured homes. There are HOA, non-HOA, and deed-restricted communities. You'll find flood zone and non-flood zone. And
2:05
you'll also find evacuation and non-evacuation zones too. Right now the median home price in Clearwater Beach, Florida is $952,500 at the time of this
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recording. But you can get a 439 square foot studio condo in Island Estates for
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$245,000. Or you can get an 8,500 square foot, 5-bedroom, 3-bath, single-family
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home complete with a boat dock, pool, and rooftop sanctuary for the low cost of
2:36
right around $14 million. And like I said, real estate is extremely diverse here in
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Clearwater Beach. Now when owning a home here on the Gulf Coast, we need to talk about more than just the price. We also need to talk about the cost of ownership
2:48
Mainly HOA, repair and maintenance, boat fees if you're gonna have a boat, and
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future investments that you're gonna make into the property in terms of renovation. And HOA fees most commonly associated with condominiums, town homes
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and villas can range anywhere from a few hundred dollars a month to well over a
3:04
thousand dollars depending on the community. You can also find HOA fees
3:08
with some single-family residents. It depends on the community that you live
3:13
in. Those are usually paid quarterly and not nearly as much, but they can also be
3:17
expensive. So be mindful of that when you're looking at real estate here in Florida. Repair and maintenance seems to be the big one that most people do not
3:24
account for when they're moving to the Gulf Coast. You live right next to the
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Gulf of Mexico, which is a body of saltwater. And that salt ends up in the
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air and it will literally destroy items that are laying around the outside. Most
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notably, fasteners. Okay, so what I mean by that is like think about the screws
3:42
that get put in the side of your home. Think about the door hinges that you have on the side of your house. Think about your garage door if it's made out
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of seal. If these things aren't protected by some sort of coating, they will tend
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to rust out. Your grill outside can rust very quickly. Your patio furniture, you
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know, these things don't have super long shelf lives. And this is important to know. If you're really close to the water, you get way more sun and you get way more
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wind and the salt is beating up on it too. So you'll have to paint your home
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more often unless you're using a different type of exterior on your
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property. I know that there's some exteriors now that are supposed to last up to a lifetime without painting them. Also, your roof. Here in the state of
4:20
Florida, insurers are being very difficult on homeowners right now. And they, a lot of the insurance companies, won't even insure a property that has a
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roof that's older than 10 years old. They won't take a new policy. Now, if you have
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an existing policy, they'll let it go. But they are being very difficult right now
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on expecting people to replace their roofs on average anywhere from a 10 to a
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15 year life cycle if you have an asphalt roof. And if you have a concrete
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roof or a clay roof or a steel roof, those last way longer. But overall, the
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cost of ownership is roughly going to be the same. You know, if it costs you 30 or
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$40,000 to put in a steel roof, you can expect that the last 30 years as opposed
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to, you know, 15 to $20,000 for an asphalt, which is going to last you somewhere between 10 and 15. But ultimately, the cost of ownership is
5:07
going to be similar over time. So keep that in perspective. Another one could
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be your boat slip or your marina fee. You know, if you're a boater, and you
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have a home that has a dock, obviously, that's going to cost you less, but you have to take care of that maintenance. But let's say you live in Clearwater
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Beach, and you're a boater, and you don't have water access on your home. Well, in that instance, you're going to have to get a marina and and park your
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boat there. And, you know, I'm not going to give a fee here or a cost on this
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because it totally varies on the size of the vessel on the marina specifically
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but just know that you're going to need to factor this into your overall cost
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of ownership. And lastly, I want to talk about renovations. You know, for my investors out there, they call this capital expenditure, CapEx, right? And
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what it is, is a formula for them to say, okay, we're going to take X amount of
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money out of this property each year and reinvest it into future renovations
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That might be the new roof that we talked about. It might be a new kitchen, it might be a new bathroom. If you're planning on owning this home for more
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than 10 years, most likely when you go to sell this property, you're going to
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want to update and renovate. And the reason being is because here on the
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Gulf Coast, you know, if you hold property for 10 or 20 years, these things
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can literally double, triple, if not more in terms of their value. I mean, just in
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the last three years alone, we've seen almost an 80% increase in real estate
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values. And if you look at this thing as an asset, not just a house or dwelling
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it really has the opportunity to bring you some future wealth. So that is
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definitely something to take in consideration when owning a home here. And that would go into the overall cost of ownership. Now, the last thing I want
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to cover here is homeowners insurance and auto for that matter. Because if
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you've been reading the news at all or watching the news, you know that homeowners insurance in the state of Florida and actually across the United
6:51
States is becoming more and more challenging. It's not just Florida, California is experiencing these, the Carolinas are experiencing these
6:57
problems. Georgia is experiencing these problems where insurers are folding up shop. They don't find it profitable to operate a state and they're leaving. And
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this is real life. If you buy a home on the Gulf Coast of Florida, meaning like
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on the water, it can be difficult to insure those properties. Depends on the
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type of property that's built. Is it up on stilts getting you out of the flood plane? Well, obviously that's going to make your home much more attractive to
7:20
an insurance company and to you in terms of insurability. But you know what? A
7:25
lot of the homes here in Clearwater were built at ground level, right? And
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some of these areas are, you know, only a few feet above sea level, you know, maybe
7:32
10, 13 feet. Some areas they are literally three to six. So these things
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can be challenging and this is something to keep in mind. What we will find is a
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lot of these larger homes are uninsured. I mean, these multi-million dollar
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properties on the coast, people have just decided not to insure them. And you know
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this is your right if you own it, but if you have a mortgage, you don't get that option. So that's something to keep in perspective when it comes to owning a
7:57
home in paradise here, right? There is a cost associated with it. So be mindful of
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that. Now I want to talk a little bit about food and dining. There is a
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Publix grocery store right here in Clearwater in Islands Estates. It's beautiful, it's newer, and the cost of groceries from my experience here in the
8:13
state of Florida, we've been here for about five years now, it seems that we
8:17
spend somewhere around five to 15% more than we were back home in Detroit. Now, I
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don't know where you live, you've got to compare it to it. If you look at websites
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like salary.com, it actually says that our groceries are 5% less in my
8:31
experience or more. So I want to share that with you candidly. And that leads me to auto insurance. You know, the one thing here that I've recognized is it does
8:38
cost more on auto insurance as well. Our automotive insurance literally doubled
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We were paying about $2,400 a year for our two vehicles. We have one that's
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completely paid off, no loan on it, and we lease another vehicle. I lease one for
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Kate and the kids, that way I don't ever have to worry about her, and then I drive my beautiful 2013 Volkswagen Passat everywhere because that bad boy is paid
8:58
for. I love that car. Would I like to have a new one? Yes, but I don't want a payment. I'm perfectly happy driving my Volkswagen. But regardless of that, it was
9:06
we were paying $2,400 a month, and when we moved to Florida, that jumped to
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almost $5,000 a year. So this is something to be aware of. There are a lot
9:15
of uninsured drivers in the state. As a matter of fact, Florida has more uninsured automotive than anywhere else in the country, so take note of that
9:23
There's also a bunch of weird driving habits that people bring here. It's strange. We've talked about that in pros and cons before, but that is something to
9:29
be mindful of. You know, I just want to talk about insurance because it is a hot topic, and you're gonna pay more money, right? So these things kind of balance
9:37
out. The way that I describe it to my clients is, depending on your income, this
9:40
typically is a net zero state, meaning that, like, if you're a high-income earner
9:45
and you come in, you save tremendously depending on where you move from on your
9:50
state income tax. Some states are lower than others. California, New York, they have huge state income tax numbers, and if you're making, you know, multiple six
9:57
figures, that is a huge savings, but you're also gonna pay for that in the
10:02
form of auto insurance and homeowners insurance. Now, depending on your income
10:06
it could more than benefit you to go the other side, but I just want to give that as a perspective. It's gonna depend on your income. It's gonna depend on your
10:13
lifestyle. There's a lot of factors that go into this, but I just want to make sure that you have a perspective that you can kind of wrap your mind around
10:20
Go do your research. Go do your homework. I'll put all the resources that we use down below. Ilovesalary.org. It is one of my favorite resources. When it comes to
10:29
food and dining, like I said, 5% on groceries. You got a Publix there, but in
10:34
dining, we found that it's a little bit more than we were used to as well, but
10:38
not much. I mean, honestly, for Kate and myself to go have a wonderful dinner, and
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I mean like date night dinner, right? Thinking like steakhouse, a couple cocktails each, and you know, five course meal, the whole thing. You know, with tip
10:51
we can get out of there usually between $200 and $250. I know some of you are
10:56
hearing that like, oh my god, we don't do that all the time, right? This is just part of our life. We like to go out and eat. We're foodies, so we'll eat at home
11:03
forever, and then we'll kind of do that as a splurge type of thing, but we can
11:08
also take the kids for tacos and be out of there for $35 to $50. So like, you
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know, keep that in perspective as you operate through. I don't think it's anything abnormal to get a great cocktail on the beach, you know, and I'm
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not talking about, you know, sour mix and house tequila. I'm talking about like a
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really nice craft cocktail. Those are gonna cost somewhere between $16 and as
11:29
much as $25 in the crazy hotels. I, you know, again, take your pick there, but on
11:34
average we see, you know, $15 to $20 for really high-end cocktails, and that's
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craft cocktails. For the beach stuff, you know, you're gonna pay more because they're getting those tourist tax on them, and you're gonna pay that too, but
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you know, you can still find a great drink for $10, $11, and again, that might
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be really expensive to you or it might be cheap. It totally depends on where you live, so that's something to keep in perspective as well. Our cars hold up a
11:58
lot better, even though I was telling you before about how difficult the ocean and
12:02
the sun can be on vehicles. Our roads are much better here, so our cars overall
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cost us less money to maintain, which I absolutely love. I put oil in my car. I
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put brakes and tires on it. I haven't done, outside of changing the oil since
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we moved to Florida, I haven't done a thing to my cars, which I absolutely love, and when I lived in Michigan, we were changing the front ends, the front-end
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ball joints and bushings and bearings, all that stuff like almost every three
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years because the roads were so bad, so trust me, it has been to the positive for
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sure on that end. You know, lots of other questions. Hey, here's what I would love
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to do. If you have any questions regarding the cost of living or specific areas, put those in the comments below or don't hesitate to reach out to my team. I
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hope you got a tremendous amount of value out of today's video. Do not forget to subscribe if you got any value. Make sure you hit that like button if you
12:47
have any questions about living in the area, buying, selling, or relocating here. I
12:52
would be more than happy to have that conversation. All of my contact information is listed down below. Until next time, go out and live that Tampa life
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