3 Moves Tampa Bay's Rich Make That You Can Copy

Earlier this year, somebody paid $19,140,000 for a house on Gulfview Street in South Tampa. They paid cash, no loan, and this home was only on the market for seven days. Now, if you've been researching your move for a few months, you've probably already seen the headline that goes along with that purchase. And as a matter of fact, Tampa just came in as number one in the entire country for luxury price home growth, not in the top 10, first place. But here's the reality. Most people who watch that will ask the wrong question. Well, really, it's two questions. First, people ask, what does someone have to do to be able to afford a home like that? And the second one they ask is, what do those buyers know that I don't? Now, I wanted to dig deeper on this topic, so I went through every single sale over a million dollars in the Tampa Bay area so far this year, all 4,578 of them. But here's what's unique. I didn't just find one. There were three interesting moves that the rich continually made. And the expensive part of what those homebuyers did, the price, is the only part that you and I can't copy. So if you've already decided that making the move to Tampa Bay is probably the right move, and now you're trying to figure out what to do about it, this one's for you. And if you're wondering why I care about you getting this right, well, over the last five years, I've been able to help over 200 families relocate here to the Tampa Bay area. And for those of you who don't know me yet, my name is Juan Alcala, and a little over seven years ago, my wife Kate and I packed up our family of five, sold almost everything we owned, moved 1,200 miles out here to the Tampa Bay area, where we've been loving it ever since. And a big part of why we picked Florida specifically is the same math I'm about to walk you through. I wanted to build a business somewhere that makes building one easier, keep more of what our family earns, since Florida has no state income tax, and give our kids a little bit more room to breathe. And of course, the lifestyle is a huge bonus. So I'll shoot it straight with you guys. I have bias. I love where I live. Not everyone will, and I understand that. Which is why I'm going to give you the good, the bad, and the ugly in this one, because the tax math that everybody quotes about Florida is real, but it's also probably smaller than the headline makes it sound, and I'll show you exactly where it shrinks. And just so you know what to expect out of the rest of this video, I'm going to share with you those three patterns that I identified, what they bought, where they bought it, and the thing they didn't buy at all. And the third one is where I see people get hurt. Okay, so here's where most people get tripped up on that $19 million home sale. And right now you're probably thinking, sure, Juan, if someone handed me $19 million, I'd pay cash too, because that's not really a strategy. It's just having piles of cash. And that's totally fair. But what I want you to look at is the pattern instead of the number. Of the 19 most expensive homes sold in the Tampa Bay area this year, 16 of them were in cash. Now, cash isn't clever. Anybody can pay cash if they have it. What matters is why there's no loan on these homes. Because when you're moving money out of one state and into another, you're not shopping for a mortgage. You're moving a tax base. And the house is just part of where you park it. And that's the first move. They weren't buying an investment. They were buying a cost structure. And the house is just the container it came in. So let me show you the number they're actually looking at, because I'd never seen it laid out this way until a few weeks ago. There's a study out by a company called Self Financial, published this past June, that adds up every tax a typical household pays over an entire lifetime. Federal income tax, state income tax, sales tax, property taxes, and even vehicle tax. One number from cradle all the way to the grave, if you will. And I call it the lifetime ledger, because basically that's what it is. Now, here's where things get interesting. Florida comes in 50th, dead last out of 50 states, which in this case is exactly where you want to be. $508,980. That's what you would expect to pay working over 45 years and living in the state of Florida. Now, what about the other end of the spectrum? Well, if you lived in New Jersey, which came in number one on this list, you could expect to pay $1,359,406. And y'all, that's an 850,000 gap over a lifetime in one household. And look at the rest of the top of that list. Massachusetts came in second, New York fifth, California sixth, Maryland seventh, Illinois eighth. And if you're watching this from Boston, Northern New Jersey, Long Island, or Chicago, you're sitting in the most expensive tax states in America. That's not an accident and it's not a coincidence that these are the exact places our clients keep calling and relocating from. Now, what I want to do is take that number and unpack it a little bit, because you're going to see it quoted all over the internet and most people quoting it haven't read the fine print. There were four things that stuck out to me here. The first one is the total includes federal income tax. And federal is the same across all 50 states. So most of the tax in Florida's $508,000 is actually federal. And the part that Florida actually controls is the gap, not the total. Number two, and this one's super important because it models the typical household, not just a wealthy one. So this isn't what the guy who paid 19 million for a home on Gulfview saved. This is what a normal family would save like yours and mine, which honestly makes it more useful to you. Number three, it assumes a 45-year working career in one single state. And the reality is you're probably not 22. If you move at 52, you get a fraction of those savings. Number four, and this is the big one, insurance is not a tax. So it isn't in there at all. Neither is what happened to property taxes here. And property tax in the state of Florida have gone up. Between 2019 and 2024, Tampa property taxes went up almost 57%. Third highest jump of any major metro in the country. So let me answer the question the way that you'd probably ask it. Is that tax gap real? The answer is yes. Will it be $850,000 for you? Well, that's going to depend on your age, but most likely not. Is it still one of the largest single items in this entire decision? It usually is. And that's the honest version when it comes to taxes. And I'm not trying to sound negative on this. I'm just trying to share the objective truth. The reality is we've saved a ton of money in taxes moving from Michigan to Florida. However, we're not going to see that $850,000. I can promise you that. And when it comes to insurance, because let's be real, y'all, that's part of the lifestyle tax of living in Florida. I think this is the one that usually surprises people most. Because people typically think that insurance is unaffordable or you can't get it in the state of Florida. And that's just not reality. And I want to give you an example. Ashley on my team, she lives up in a very desirable community with a really nice home. And her insurance costs her about $1,900 a year. Now her home is in a non-flood zone, a non-evacuation zone. It's a block home built to newer standards with a newer roof. And that's the whole game when it comes to insurance. And it's a geography question more than it is a Florida question. And one more piece before we move on, because it came up in two separate Zoom calls that we were having with clients over the last week. And it was with families who are almost a million dollars apart in their budget. There's a property tax amendment on the Florida ballot this November. Amendment three. And if it passes, the homestead exemption on non-school taxes goes from 50,000 up to 150,000 in 2027, and then up to 250,000 in 2028. And here's the part that matters if you're planning on moving. If you establish Florida residency after the end of this year, so we're talking about January 1, 2027, you'll be stuck at today's exemption for an additional five years if this amendment passes. Now I'm not a politician and I don't play one on YouTube. And I also don't know how our residents are going to vote on this. And I don't have any idea if it's going to pass or not. The reason I'm telling you this is because it is actually a date on a calendar. We are going to vote on it and it will absolutely change the math either way of you deciding to move here. So here's what that first pattern actually gives you. You don't need the richest money to make the move. The cost structure they bought into is the same cost structure that is sitting there for you, whether you're spending $400,000 or $19 million. Same state, same rules, same opportunity. So the house is where they parked the money. The trade is what they bought. And here's where things really start to get interesting because knowing what they bought doesn't tell you where to buy. And if you follow them to the wrong place, the whole thing works against you, not for you. And real quick, if you have more questions, please feel free to put them in the comment section down below. I do answer those personally. If they are a little bit more private, do not hesitate to reach out to me. All of my contact information is down in the description down below. As a matter of fact, there is a link to my calendar so you can schedule a time that is most convenient for you. Okay, so here's the second move that popped out to me when I was doing this research. And it's the one I'd pay most attention to if I were you. And I'm going to show you something that doesn't make any sense until you see it side by side. And I call it the two speed map. So let's start with Pinellas County. That's Clearwater, St. Pete, Dunedin, the beaches, Palm Harbor. In July, the number of months of inventory on the market was down over 27% from a year ago. Homes were going under contract in 34 days. And compared to the same month from a year ago, prices have climbed faster every month for three months running. Three and a half percent, then five percent, then almost eight percent this past month, they increased. Now Pasco County, which is to the north of Tampa, that's Wesley Chapel, Lando Lakes, Odessa, San Antonio. If we use the same months, inventory was up seven and a half percent. Homes are taking 43 days to sell and that number is getting longer, not shorter. And it's the only county in the region where homes are sitting longer than they did last year. Closed sales are down almost 12% as a matter of fact. Same region, same month, two completely different markets. So the obvious move would be to follow the money into Pinellas, right? Well, not necessarily. Seven of the 19 biggest sales were actually down in Longboat Key. Seven more in Sarasota proper. So what that means is the high-end money went to the water and it went to the established stuff. And I want you to think about that for a second though. If you follow the money into a place where it already went, you're not copying those buyers, you're bidding against them. And that's really the trap. The move was that they bought where the supply math was in their favor at that time. And that's the repeatable behavior that you and I can take advantage of, not the zip code. So if we take a look at what's happening right now, and most price ranges under about 600,000, the county where the math is friendliest is actually Pasco County. Again, more inventory, longer days on markets, sellers who have to compete with builders down the street who are giving away massive incentives. Now we also need to attach a real cost to that because I'm not here to sell you on Pasco. It's got its pros and cons. Pasco is further out. There's definitely more driving involved if you have to commute to the office. A lot of it is newer construction, which is great, but it also means that you're going to run into things like CDD fees, which are community development district fees. It's a whole other topic. I've done whole videos on that. And your HOA fees in these communities as well. And that's real money every year that isn't building you any equity. You're also going to be a good distance from the water, which for a lot of people is the whole reason you're looking in Florida to begin with. So that's the trait, more house and more negotiation room, less proximity. Because if being close to the water is the thing that you can't give up, then Pasco County probably isn't the answer for you. And I'd rather you know it now. You'll want to look closer to the coast to areas like Palm Harbor, Safety Harbor, Dunedin, Inland Clearwater, Seminole. And these are areas where you're going to give up that walk to the beach, but you can still maintain that coastal lifestyle and you get a lot more for your money. And here's the point of this whole thing. The leverage in this market doesn't come from timing. It comes from the geography. Because no one can tell you what interest rates are going to do next year. I can't, and I won't pretend to. But I can tell you which one of our five counties has more inventory and slower days on market than it did just 12 months ago. Because that's the math, and it's the same math those wealthy buyers used. Which brings me to the third move, and this one isn't about where they bought at all. It's about what they wouldn't touch. Okay, so every county in this region held or grew its median price this summer. But there is a caveat. I'm talking about single family homes. Nothing fell there. Now our condo market, that's an entirely different story. And this is the part of our market where I tell my own family to slow down on. Now across June and July this year, Sarasota condo prices came down 7.5% from a year earlier. Hillsborough was down four, Pasco down five, and Pinellas where I live, there's roughly twice as much condo inventory sitting on the market than there is single family homes. And the natural question is why? Well, if I take you all the way back to 2021, there was a condo building that collapsed in Surfside, Florida. And it was bad, y'all. A lot of people ended up losing their lives. And after that, Florida changed their law. Any condo building over 30 years old now has to get a structural inspection and actually fund a reserve for repairs. Not a promise to fund it later, money in the bank account. And for a lot of these buildings, no one had been funding these reserves for years, and a lot of cases, decades. So the bill comes due all at once and it lands on the owner in the form of a special assessment. And I've seen those things run into six figures on a single condo unit here. Then it becomes a negotiation. Who's going to pay for that? The seller or you? And that's assuming anybody figured out it was coming before you were already under contract. And then add on top of that, HOA fees in Tampa are up almost 17% in a year. And you can call that what it is. It's an assessment trap. Think of it this way. A cheap condo with an unfunded reserve is not a deal. It's a bill you haven't even opened yet. And let me be fair because my goal here is not to scare you off entirely from condos. Are all condos a problem? The answer to that is no. Are some condos a problem? Absolutely. Is the discount on pricing you're seeing real? Yes. And sometimes the reason for it is already fixed and paid for, which now becomes a genuine opportunity. And the difference is entirely in the paperwork, the reserve study, the last two years of board minutes, the association's actual financials. That's it. That's the whole test. And it takes a whole afternoon to sift through all that information. And what I've noticed is more homebuyers are aware of this. They just may not necessarily know how to navigate it because on four of my last 10 buyer strategy sessions, they brought this up before I ever did. So people are starting to catch on. And I would just want to make sure that you catch on before you write a check, not after. And that's move three. People who are buying these condos at great deals, they didn't outthink anybody. They just read the documents. And that's the thing about all three of these moves. You buy the cost structure by where the supply helps you read the paperwork before you fall in love. And here's the really cool thing. Not one of those requires $19 million. So that brings us back to where we started. You came into this video wondering what the rich see in Tampa that you don't. And the honest answer is they don't see anything you can't see. They're just doing three ordinary things carefully. They bought a cost structure instead of an upside. They bought where the inventory math was on their side instead of where the headlines were. And they read the documents on the thing everyone else was buying blindly. And you can do all three of those things, whether you're spending $400,000 or $19 million. And if you are considering making the move here, here's the one thing I'd actually do this week. Write down your non-negotiables first, not the house, the lifestyle. How far you're willing to drive, whether you need to be near the water, what your people are going to be like. Then and only then ask which one of these five counties currently has the most inventory in your price range. And that order matters so much because if you start with the house, you'll end up somewhere that looks right on paper, but never really feels like home. And the reason being is because houses are easy. Y'all, we can find you four walls and a roof anywhere in this country. And so can you, but the communities are the hard part because they're the ones that actually make a house a home. And look, I can't, and no one else can make this decision for you. It's your life and your money. But what we can do is be your boots in the ground, tell you where the landmines are and tell you honestly, if we think you're stepping over an opportunity, because the reality of this move is it should be a heck yes or a no. Now, if you want the version of that answer built around your budget, your timeline, your must haves, there's a link in the description down below. We'll hop on zoom together. I'll walk you through it. We'll pull up Google maps. We'll help you identify those communities that match that ideal lifestyle and help you build a real plan to put you in the best position and have peace about it. And one last thing, I put videos out like this every week because this decision is too big to get wrong. So if you're somewhere in the middle of it, feel free to subscribe and follow along and I'll keep showing you the parts that nobody puts in those fancy brochures.