7 Reasons to Move to Tampa And Why You’ll Love Living in Florida

In the last 10 years, almost 5,000 people each year have decided to pack up and move to Tampa and call it home. In today's video, I'm gonna cover the seven reasons why people move to Tampa and why you'll love living here too. Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We are arriving Tampa International Airport. Now it shouldn't be news to anyone that Florida has had the great migration over the last five years. I mean, it seems like everybody from everywhere has decided to pack up and move into the Sunshine State. And I am no exception. Five years ago, almost to the date, I packed up my family from 1,200 miles away. We moved from Metro Detroit, decided we were gonna head south and call Tampa our home. And it has not let us down. It's been absolutely incredible. But today I wanna share with you the seven reasons why people choose to call this area home. Over the last two years, me and my real estate team have been able to serve so many people just like yourself who are considering making the move to the greater Tampa Bay area. And all of you have such great questions. But what I have found over that time is you're not any different than we were, right? We came because of the great weather. We came because of the lifestyle. And there was other things that we discovered that we weren't aware of that turned out to be absolutely incredible. Now, there's some things that are challenges too. And we cover all kinds of pros and cons videos. But in today's videos, I wanna cover the top seven reasons why we see people just like you making a move to the area. And if we've never met before, my name is Juan Alcala. I make videos that are all things Tampa Bay, what it's like to live here, what it's like to work here, what it's like to play here, the food, the dining, the outdoors, the beaches, and the sunshine. I'm also a team leader here with The True Living Group. And we help people just like you buy, sell, relocate, and invest here in the greater Tampa Bay area. So if you're into Tampa and you wanna know everything about it, do not hesitate to hit that subscribe button so you can be notified every time we drop a new video. And go ahead and save this video. That way you can revisit it anytime and you don't have to go searching all over the internet. So the first reason people love living in Tampa, and it's the same reason why we moved here, was because the cost of living is extremely affordable. Now, I know there are Tampa locals here going, Juan, over the last five years, this place has become outrageous. Now, I gotta be honest with you. If I was living here six, seven, eight, 10 years ago, I would totally be on your guys' page. But over the last five years, I moved here as well. And I have seen things increase what I would consider dramatically. But it was so inexpensive to begin with to us. Now again, we moved from Michigan. Our taxes on our properties were significantly higher than I even pay here today. So that was an extreme value to me. Also, I don't pay a state income tax, which is also another huge benefit. So that's something to take into consideration. But the overall cost of housing when we moved here, I thought that Tampa was an absolute steal. And if you look at what is happening nationally, it still is. Now, I wanna break down some of these numbers for you guys. Right now, at the time of this recording, the median sales price in the United States is right around $414,000 to buy a home anywhere in the US. Okay, so that's the median. Here in Tampa Bay, we are just shy of $400,000. Now, that's a $15,000 discount and you get to live by the ocean, which I understand that some people it's not a benefit, but for others, they absolutely love it. Now, when you start to compare us to other cities like Miami, this is where the real rubber hits the road and you see the big gap in housing prices. Like I said, the median sales price here in Tampa is 399,000 but if we jump over to Miami, the median sales price then goes up to a whopping $555,000. And if you wanna move a little bit further north because you don't think you can afford Miami, Fort Lauderdale is $553,000 as well. So you can really see why Tampa is so attractive. You get the Gulf Coast, you get the Gulf of Mexico, you get the beautiful white sugar sand and the beaches, but you don't have to pay Miami prices. So this is why Tampa has been adding 5,000 people a year and this is why one of the reasons it's so extremely attractive to people relocating to Florida. Another reason you'll love living in Tampa is our incredible weather. Five months out of the year, our average temperature is in the 70s and we have really mild winters that are absolutely stunning. We have very low rainfall during that time period and an abundance of sunshine and those are the main draws that bring people here. I know that was one of the reasons we definitely packed up and moved down here. Now, it does get, I would say, incredibly warm in the summer. That's the best way I can explain it. It's not for everybody. This is something you do need to keep in perspective. I would rather sweat any day of the week than have to bundle up in cold gear, go out, scrape the car off, but that's me. You may not be coming from that environment so I just wanna share this with you because June, July, August, those months all average right around 90 degree temperatures and then when you get into September, we get a little bit of reprieve down into the high 80s and then it starts to take a break in October and then again, November is really where we make our hay, so to speak, and it's just an incredible time to be down here. We're a subtropic climate so we have great greenery all year round. It's very rare that you will see brown leaves. We do have beautiful, majestic oak trees here which I absolutely love in our neighborhood. It's something that we absolutely come to adore. Obviously, all the palm trees, but it's something to keep in perspective, right? The weather here can be extreme at times. We do have the threat of hurricanes. Tampa has been incredibly blessed. Almost 105 years without a direct shot of the hurricane which is unbelievable. Last year, Idalia came through. We did have some flooding in St. Pete and South Tampa, but for the most part, we got away unscathed. Is that gonna continue? I'm not, God, I don't play one on TV, but we have been very fortunate. Something to keep in consideration. We were nervous of it too, but we've been here for five years now. There seems to be a scare every year. It's just part of living here. I was on a Zoom call today with clients who relocated from Houston and they've been here for two hurricane scares now. I asked them, how do you guys feel about this? They're like, this is home. We love it. We wouldn't wanna be anywhere else. So hope that shares some perspective with you guys. Now we get to number three on this list and it happens to be my number one. I know this video is about you, but I do wanna share. This is the thing that stole our heart when Kate and I came to Tampa Bay. We went to Indian Rocks Beach and this was 2017, spring of 2017. We walked on that beach and it just totally ruined us in the best way. We knew immediately. We're like, this is the place we wanna call home. And for almost eight years prior to that, I thought we were gonna be making a move to Stewart, Jensen Beach area on the Atlantic side of Florida. But when we stood on that beautiful white sugar sand, it just absolutely, it stole our heart. And we had to make this dream a reality. And forgive me for taking time away, but I think it's so important to note, we knew all of the challenges that we would face. We knew that there would be things that we didn't know, things that we were ignorant to and things that we probably would not love when we made the move to Tampa. But when we saw that beach, we saw the sun, we saw the sand, we felt the warm water. We saw our kids playing. We just knew we had to move here and that is what drew us here. So when we talk about these beaches, now when we talk about Tampa proper, Tampa proper, it does not have a real beach. There are some beaches you can go to. Those are not the beaches you're thinking about when you're thinking about the greater Tampa Bay area. You're thinking about the top beaches in the world like Clearwater Beach, St. Pete Beach, Madeira Beach. If you drive an hour south of us, you can go to Ana Maria Island. You can go to Siesta Key. You can go to Lido Beach. There are unbelievable beaches in the greater Tampa Bay area. And here's the dirty little secret, y'all. We have almost 26 miles of sugar sand, beautiful beaches stretching from Clearwater all the way down to Passagrill. You can't go wrong with any of these. I tell everybody, the dirty little secret is they're the same beach almost all the way down. The biggest difference and the thing that you're gonna wanna stay focused on is the communities behind them. And if you have questions about that, do not hesitate to reach out to me and my team. All of my contact information is listed down below. Heck, there's even a link to my calendar where you can schedule a time to get these questions answered. Do not hesitate to reach out, but I'm telling you right now, you are going to love the beaches. Now, if you love outdoors, number four is going to be for you. The activities that you have available to you in Tampa and the greater Tampa Bay are second to none. If you love living an outdoor lifestyle, this is going to be your jam. From the boating to the fishing to the kayaking to the paddle boarding to the bike riding to the running, there is so many things to do here in the greater Tampa Bay area. Heck, you can go on plane rides and helicopter rides and boat rides and take the jet skis out. You can go on the lakes. You can go on the trails. You can go hiking on all the beautiful paths we have in all of our incredible parks. All of the greater Tampa Bay area has incredible community parks and county parks that you can take advantage if you like the outdoor lifestyle. People are walking. They are biking every single day. We get over 230 days of sunshine annually. And when you think about the winter months, we get very low rainfall during that season. It's called our dry season, actually. So not only do you get the incredible mild temperatures ranging in the 70s and all the abundant sunshine, but there's very little rain to deal with during that time too. And you just see so many people out and about. I mean, guys, if I took you on a walk with me in the morning in my neighborhood, when I go walk my dog, I will regularly see somewhere between 15 and 20 different people out doing the exact same thing in one neighborhood. Multiply that and cross the entire Tampa Bay area and it's mind blowing. So if you like outdoor activities, there are so many here to take advantage of. We even have cycle cross opportunities here too. So just keep that in perspective. So much to do here in the greater Tampa Bay area. You're gonna love it. Number five on the list here is the rich cultural scene you have here in Tampa. Tampa's extremely diverse. There is a lot going on here. You have influence from so many different ethnicities. You've got a ton of art influence in the area. I mean, art is a serious thing here, y'all. If you go to St. Pete, you get the Dolly Museum. You've got murals all over the city. If you go to Gulfport, that is very artistic. They paint the houses all these crazy colors, but there's like art in people's lawn. It's very unique in that respect. And then when you head over to Tampa, if you go to Ybor City, you can really tap into some of the rich history we have here in the cigar trade, the cigar factories over there. You've got the French Quarter right in Ybor City. You can walk down there and people are still hand rolling cigars today, which is incredible. And don't even get me started on the Cuban sandwiches that you can get your hands on. We'll get into that in a second. But you've got the Stratus Center where you can go see great fine arts and plays. And there's the community play center down in St. Pete and just so many different areas to plug into. It's something worth investigating. All of these rich cultures have had an influence here. You know, we even talk about pirates and Native Americans here in the area. It's fascinating. They believe the reason that we don't have hurricanes here on a regular basis, as a matter of fact, 105 years, as I noted before, is because the Pinellas County is protected by Native American burial grounds. Now, listen, I'm not here arguing for or against that. I'm just letting you know, there is a lot of talk. Every time a hurricane passes by us, you'll see Native American posts on Facebook where people are like, they did it again. It's incredible when you think about the rich history of here in the greater Tampa Bay area, all the way back to Ponce de Leon, like literally. So keep that in perspective. There is something for everyone when it comes to, whether it's art or just rich culture, you're trying to connect with the community, Tampa has so much to offer. Now, if you're a sports fan, you are absolutely gonna love Tampa Bay or Champa Bay as they call it. Now, I know if you're moving here from a different area, you typically bring your home teams with you and you usually don't let that go. You never let that go of being a fan, but it is nice to have good sports teams in your area because they bring a lot of excitement. I mean, in the past few years, we've hosted the Super Bowl as well as won a Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Tom Brady at the helm. We've also hosted an NHL All-Star game and the Tampa Bay Lightning have won multiple Stanley Cups, which is pretty incredible. The Tampa Bay Rays are perennial contenders. They've been a very good baseball team for many years. And then having access to those other types of sports, like again, the soccer, the rugby, there's all kinds of things going on here in Tampa. You're absolutely gonna love it. And here's the other thing too. If you're a parent, our kids play sports all year round. It is November 23rd as I'm recording this right now. My son is swimming outdoors. And to me, that just doesn't make any sense. They're also playing football right now, which is really cool. It's getting snowy or really cold up north. That tends to stop happening. Soccer starts to kick up now too. There's just so many things to do for sports fans. We've got incredible gymnastics programs here in the greater Tampa Bay area too. So if that matters to you and your family, keep that in perspective as well. Again, something for everybody. You've got IMG Academy just to the south of us down in Bradenton. You can find it here in Tampa Bay, I promise. Now when it comes to dining here in Tampa, you are not gonna be disappointed. There is something for everyone in this department as well. I love eating. As you can see, I'm not the thinnest thing in the world. Exercise. But, you know, I can't say that I'm disappointed with what I get to experience here because it has taken me five years to eat my way through this city and I'm still not done and I'm having a great time doing it. Kate and I love to go on date night together and explore everything the area has to offer. We go to places like Ulele, which you have to experience. It's right on the Riverwalk, right just south of Armature Works, which if you've never been there before, make sure you go. They've got an incredible steakhouse there called Steel Bok. You've got Okinola up there. All of the cool restaurants and boutiques that you can shop there. There's just so much to do. Entertainment and dining is absolutely incredible here. You can head over to Hyde Park Village, go to the meat market, go to Buddy Brew to grab a coffee. I mean, there is something for everyone. Head down to St. Pete. Make sure you go to Engine 9. Great restaurant. Whoever lived in Chicago owns the place because there's a Chicago flag in there. I noticed it right away. But let me just tell you, they make these hamburgers that I encourage you to share because if you try to eat a whole one, it's probably gonna hurt you. But they also have some of the best wings. Sriracha honey on top of them. I know, I know. Forgive me, I'm going crazy here. Head over to the brisket shop in West Tampa. Go see Danny Hernandez and their team. Some of the best brisket you're ever gonna have in your life. Guys, I could do this for an hour, I promise you. If you wanna know the best places to eat in Tampa, do not hesitate to make that comment down below. Reach out. I would love to respond to you. Also, share. What are your favorite places to eat here in Tampa that you've ever eaten? I will try to put some more in the description. That way you guys can go check those out. I hope you got value out of today's video. I'm gonna put two more videos up here that I think you're absolutely gonna love. They're gonna help you make a decision about what is right for you here in Tampa. And until next time, go out and live that Tampa life.