Answering Your Most Asked Questions About Living in Tampa Florida

people's interest in moving to Tamp over the past few years has been absolutely mindblowing and it's showing no real signs of slowing down anytime soon so much so that in the first 6 and 1/2 months of 2024 I've already hosted almost 230 Zoom calls with potential relocation clients you heard me right 230 on those calls we answer a lot of questions about moving to and living in Tampa Bay but that's not the only place you can ask me questions and every video I always invite you to ask me questions in the comment section and man have y'all got questions in fact you've been leaving some amazing comments on our videos and you've been hitting me with great questions about living here in Tampa Bay so for today's video I figured it was time to address some of your most interesting questions and my hope is to help you make an informed decision if you're considering moving here if we've never met before my name is wan alala I make videos that are all things Tampa Bay and a little over 5 years ago my wife Kate and I sold almost everything we moved packed up our family of five and moved 1200 Mi South here to the greater Tampa Bay area and have been loving it ever since I'm also a licensed real estate agent where we help people just like you buy sell relocate and invest here in the greater Tampa Bay Area now let's get into these questions cuz boy there's some good ones now our first question is a good one and it really pertains to the cost of living here in the area and it's from Antonio and it says making an estimation how much a couple with no kids but two dogs should earn in order to live in Florida I like your video and content I do find your info very helpful well thank you Antonio I appreciate that Florida is very Broad and of course uh as you may or may not be aware it the cost of living can be dramatically different depending on what area you live in but I'm going to speak to here in Tampa Bay because I think that that's extremely valuable and I'm going to set this up in a few different ways when it comes to the cost of living um I'm going to give you guys a resource number one so you can know that and I'm going to give you an answer and then I'm going to give you what I think right depending on what your situation is because this is really going to come down to your lifestyle but I want to give you some resources first so let's look at the data so there was this great article posted this March um from Smart asset and it and it showed how much you have to make in order to live comfortably in the United States and I think that this is a great place to start all right and this is based upon the 503020 rule this says that 50% of your budget should be allocated towards housing groceries and Transportation 30% goes towards hobbies and entertainment and that last 20% goes towards savings and investing those types of things and what that article found is that one person would need to make roughly $96,500 to live comfortably in any major US city and Tampa and St Petersburg tied for 50th in terms of salaries needed to enjoy a comfortable life now again Antonio this is really going to matter on what type of Lifestyle you have if you're someone who likes to travel often if you like to invest in your health you know shop at Whole Foods and and and quality uh U groceries this is going to change if you're somebody who likes dining every evening obviously those things matter um but what we tend to find with our clients who are relocating in the area for for me personally just looking at what you know a home cost in today's market over $400,000 almost $500,000 on average um you know if you're going to have a car loan if you got student debt all of those things matter I want to give you a resource that I think is extremely helpful if you guys go over to the um forbes.com costof living calculator that thing is incredible because what that will tell you is wherever you're living now you can put in your your your annual salary and you can give it the city you want to relocate to and it'll give you a very good idea of how much money you need to make relative to what you are currently earning to have the same or similar lifestyle in that new area I love the Forbes calculator it's incredible it's a great resource I think you'll like it too all right we got another great question here actually we got two and uh Papito thank you for asking these questions I think they're wonderful the first question is is Sarasota in a high-risk flood zone now Papito most Coastal real estate is in a high-risk flood zone especially in Florida um we have very strong storms including hurricanes that we have to deal with the closer you are to the Gulf Coast or the Atlantic uh ocean whichever side you're on um you are definitely going to be closer in those flood planes cons you know when you get to the Barrier Islands you know the you know cesta Key animaria island those areas are all in high-risk flood zone so that's something to consider the the further you get Inland the better that tends to get and one of my favorite resources is going directly to the county and the FEA flood zone maps I'm going to put that right on the screen right now and I'll even put it in the resources for you guys to look at later this is a great map to use uh now think of it this way the closer you are to a um a a more high-risk flood zone the more expensive things are going to be like auto insurance and especially your homeowners insurance so just keep that in mind the further Inland you get the less risk there is for the insurer so obviously the less expense to you and maybe it's not as scary I and I'm not quite sure where the question was coming from whether you were just anxious about floods in general or if you are nervous because of cost both of those things are uh prudent um and and worth taking a look at so this is a great resource I strongly encourage you to look at it um if you're considering making a move to the area so that was question number one now question number two Pito says is Sarasota a good place for retirees love that question now Sarasota has been rated one of the best places to retire in America several times so that is already in play but the real question then becomes is what is the best area for you Papito or what is the best area for you the viewer if you're considering relocating now I want to give you guys another another resource one of my favorite alltime resources which is niche.com this is a great resource because locals get the vote on it um it takes into account a lot of Statistics they pull crime data from the FBI um all kinds of things um you know cost of the living they they aggregate all this information and give you some resources and on here it ranks the best places to retire in Sarasota specifically so I hope that helps Pito this is a great resource also again the flood map from the county is excellent also make sure you check out the hurricane evacuation zones those two things usually are are hand in hand but not always so check that out also and then again niche.com this is one of my favorite all-time resources both as a resident of Florida um and a realtor here in the area also our next question is a great one it says thank you for your videos we live in Arizona for 23 years now and have been in Tennessee for almost three years and having winter Blues don't want to go back to Arizona because we enjoy the greenery uh so we were thinking about Florida we don't want to live in a city but still want to be close to Publix's or a Sprouts Grocery Stores um and not be more than 3 hours away from the ocean any suggestions great question good news is in the State of Florida you can get from side to side in less than 3 hours almost anywhere so that's awesome got that one covered pretty easily uh in terms of not living in the city so we're talking about Suburban living or rural living when it comes to to this and this is a great question because honestly this is where the rubber kind of hits the road for most people right um most rural areas do not have a um a Sprouts or a Whole Foods or a Trader Joe's you find more of those types of amenities in more densely populated areas suburbs or the urban area so keep that in mind now there are Suburban areas that offer those type of amenities you got places like um you know Wesley Chapel that's growing like crazy that has options like that you can live in Palm Harbor which is really close to the Gul Coast um and get down to Whole Foods down in in the clearw area so you've got that option further south towards the Lakewood Ranch area and then you're going to have access to those types of amenities Costco Whole Foods Trader Joe's um most of the time you can get to amenities like that in about 30 minutes you know basically most places in the state so what I would do if that's your type of living decide whether you want to live on the Gulf Coast and enjoy sunsets or if you want to live on the Atlantic side and if you're more of a sunrise type of person in terms of what your enjoyment is what type of beaches you really like and then look for those amenities that are most important to you and draw a circumference within 30 minutes that's really going to kind of help you understand what's going on there hope that gives you some insights there because again it's a great question um and again I don't think that's going to be difficult to accomplish it really just comes down to what lifestyle is most important to you and before we get to the next question I want to invite you to ask your questions also like I said before I answer all the legitimate comments and questions down below feel free to leave me a message or a question happy to answer those and also if you're considering moving to the area don't hesitate to reach out to me and my team all of our contact information is down there as well including a link to my calendar so you can schedule one of those Zoom calls I was talking about earlier as well okay our next question is from Skynet General and uh thank thanks for the question Skynet here's the thing I want you to know right out of the rip they are asking about safety in Florida and I have a real estate license which means I cannot tell you whether an area is safe or not however however I can show you where to look I think that that would be the most valuable thing that I could do for you or anyone else I love sharing this information because here's the thing y'all we all have bias right we all believe that where we live is either really safe or usually we think it's really bad and we're trying to get out of it those two types of things but you know as human beings we all have this thing called bias mean meaning that we believe a specific way based upon the information we have either been given or that we see on a day and day out basis that anecdotal evidence if you will but here's the thing I want you to understand I'm going to give you a great resource uh where we live here in the greater Tampa Bay Area um the city of Tampa actually provides a direct link It's a Wonderful Interactive map when it comes to crime rates and this thing is awesome dude check this out we're going to put this on the screen here it not only will show you where the crime is taking place you can set a date range which I think is awesome but more importantly and I think most importantly it shows you what type of crime is taking place because listen y'all almost everywhere in this country especially when you get closer to Major metropolitan areas crime goes up that's normal more people more Knuckleheads that's the way that life kind of works but the real thing that you need to understand is where you currently live how do you perceive that do you perceive that as a safe place um or do you perceive that as an area that you need to get away from because crime is heavy and why I'm sharing this with you is because this crime map comes from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and it is a Across the Nation and why that is important is because what you can do is type in your city wherever you're watching this from and look at the actual crime that's happen in your backyard in your area and and most of the time that I show this to people they are shocked because they didn't know that things like this were taking place in their backyard now again what are you looking for you looking for petty crime you looking for kids you know just being Knuckleheads for me personally I'm looking for scary things right um violent crimes those are the things that are important to me as a husband as a you know as a father you know those are the things that matter to me most so this is about you and how you perceive things and I'm not trying to to be vague I live here in the greater Tampa Bay Area I take my kids to St Pete I take my kids to Tampa we walk around as a family I have never been anywhere in those areas where I felt unsafe or I was worried about me and my family now would I let my kids go run wild without supervision the answer is no but I'm not everybody else so you have to approach this in the way that makes the most sense for you again this interactive crime map is by far one of the best resources I've ever seen that's another one I mention niche.com earlier which is a great resource that pulls information from the same database so again these resources exist you really have to look at it in in a few different ways right what is important to you right what are you currently dealing with is it perceive safe to you or not and then is the area you're looking at moving to does it rank above or below or those types of things and hopefully this helps man because this is really hard I grew up you know in living outside of Detroit I grew I lived in Detroit you know when we moved to Detroit when I was a child we were robbed twice in a 6-month period that is unsafe period right I literally had to fight when I would go to school that was part of the deal where I lived now my kids don't have any of those challenges right and I'm super grateful for that and I've worked hard to put us in position where that's not the case but you've got to look at how this works for you what is important to you your goals your family we all want safe and secure I completely understand understand that this is a great question but you have to look and you have to make decisions qualified decisions with the information you're provided and I hope this gets you to an answer our final question here from Bruce steamer is about homeowners insurance and I have shared my personal homeowners insurance policy on this channel both on a live stream and in videos in the past so much so where people have accused me of not being forthright and I shared that on a live stream um where I actually held it up showed you guys in in real time because our insurance we are completely blessed I shared this many many times before but our home we pay less than $2500 for our annual insurance premium our homeowners insurance premium I don't have Cut Rate Insurance um now I'm going to explain how I got to that because Bruce wants to know he says curious if you did anything to get your insurance rate that low such as hurricane clips for the roof impact windows or anything else and this is a great question and I'm going to explain to you guys how our house is built um and explain to you how to get some of the best insurance rates also okay I don't sell insurance but I want to share with you the same counsel you give clients that puts them in the best possible position okay so first and foremost my home is an all block construction home okay literally it's made out of cinder blocks all right they tie them together with rebar there's concrete I don't build houses but I I know that our home is built like a little mini bomb shelter so that's the first thing so you can have a um a block home or you can move to areas like St Pete and Tampa where there's stick construction stick built traditionally Built Homes and you might be hearing me right now like ju what's the difference like well one's concrete and one's stick well when you got to stand up to Hurricane forced winds right what home is more likely to be standing up on stronger winds is it the home that's built out of out of uh traditional Lumber or is it a home that's built out of block so that's the first thing I would Target an all block construction home the next thing that you're going to want to do to mitigate your um insurance cost to bring it down if possible is to be in a nonf flood and a non- evacuation Zone we touched on both of those things earlier in the video so Target those two areas my home Bruce is is uh almost 30 ft above sea level even though we're less than 2 miles to the gulf and this is why Bruce was asking cuz we are very close to the Gulf of Mexico um and we have a very reasonable insurance rate so all block construction I'm almost 30 ft of elevation um uh those are two great things nonf flood non Evac Zone and people are hearing me like well how can you be that close to the ocean and not be in an evacuation Zone it's because of the elevation of the property so keep that in mind also um I do not have hurricane impact windows I do have a new roof well at this point it's almost a year old so just kind of put that in perspective um but we have the original windows to the home that is something we're in the process of upgrading right now I am going to go to hurricane impact because I don't want to deal with boarding up my house or putting up shutters every time there's a storm threat I just want to shut it down and it you know let the Lord do his work after that right um and and to be quite honest y'all this is just something you have to deal with as a Floridian you're talking about homeowners insurance you're talking about hurricanes especially if you're going to live closer to the coast if those things terrify you move to Orlando okay are you still in in In Harm's Way in terms of wind yeah absolutely can you still get flooded over in Orlando you absolutely can but in theory um these things start to slow down and um the the the challenges diminish as they get further into the state so this is just the reality of living in Florida I hope you guys have gotten a tremendous amount of value out of this video keep bringing those questions I invite you to the comment section down below again I will answer every legitimate comment um and question that I see I try to get to those I actually go through those daily I welcome you to that if you're considering moving to the area and you have more questions maybe ones we didn't address in today's video I invite you to the zoom calls that we talked about earlier all that contact information down below it even says schedule the time to talk with Juan and then I will be there and if you know anyone else considering moving in the area do not hesitate to share this video with them also so they can get as much value as you did and as always and until next time go out and live that Tampa life [Music]