Dunedin vs. Safety Harbor: Which is right for you?

So you've got two tabs open on your computer right now, Dunedin in one, Safety Harbor in the other. And most likely you've already done the hard part of choosing to relocate to Florida. You picked the Tampa Bay side, you narrowed it down to Northern Pinellas County, and now you're staring at two little towns, eight miles apart. One of them is facing the Gulf, one of them is facing the Bay, and everything that you read says they're both wonderful, which is true. And it's probably completely useless to you right now as well. And my goal with today's video is to make it useful. So here's what we're gonna be covering today. What a normal Tuesday actually feels like when you live in Dunedin versus when you live in Safety Harbor, because these aren't the same kind of town and the internet keeps telling you that they are. We're gonna cover the commute, the drive to the airport, into Tampa, and out to the beaches. Because that's the one thing about either one of these towns that you choose that you cannot change later. We're gonna talk about the water, which is the question I get asked about Safety Harbor more than any other city in the entire Tampa Bay area. And it's the one that really catches people off guard. We're gonna talk about the storms, honestly, and what happened in each town, and how you check one specific street instead of the whole city. And then we're gonna get into what your money actually buys you in each one of these areas. That's the part that I think will surprise you the most because the thing that almost everybody believes about these two towns is backwards. And by the end of this, you're not gonna be stuck between those two tabs anymore. You're probably gonna know which one of these is yours, and you're going to know why you picked it. And for most people, this whole thing really comes down to about a 10-minute decision. So I wanna start with what I watch go wrong. Now, over the last four and a half years, we've helped over 200 families relocate here to the Tampa Bay area. I've also seen a lot of other people move to the area. I moved to the area almost eight years ago now, and here's what I've learned. The ones who ended up unhappy almost never picked a bad house. Heck, sometimes they pick beautiful homes, but what they didn't pick was a community that matched their ideal lifestyle that was gonna end up being their normal Tuesday. And then year two shows up, the vacation vibes start to wear off, and now they're in the car for 20 minutes each way going to the kids' soccer practice, and they're wondering why they made the move. And if we've never met before, my name is Juan Alcala, and like I said, almost eight years ago now, my wife Kate and I packed up our family of five, sold almost everything we owned, and moved 1,200 miles south here to the Tampa Bay area. And I'll be honest with you guys, Dunedin was that town that stole our heart. Now, we don't live there. We live in Southwest Largo, right over the Indian Rocks Beach. Now, we're beach babies. We absolutely love sunsets and walks in the morning on the beach, so we understand the vibe. And we looked at both of these cities. As a matter of fact, we wrote two offers on houses in Dunedin and didn't get either one of them accepted, and this was prior to the craze of everybody relocating here. So trust me when I say I know how difficult it can be to decide these two cities. And if you're wondering why we don't live there now, it's not because those cities aren't incredible, because they both are. It just wasn't the right timing for us, and we had to make adjustments. We could not get in the game of what was happening in Dunedin, because trust me, we love the area. So I'm sharing this from the insider view, not only of someone who helps people relocate, but also a person who is making the same decision you were, probably in a very similar way. So if you're stuck between that decision today, the goal of this video is to help add clarity so you can move confidently and only have to do it once. All right, so let's kick this thing off, and I want you to forget about real estate for a second. I know that that's difficult, but I want you to picture the day. Dunedin is the loud one, and I mean in a good way. The Pinellas Trail runs straight through the heart of downtown, and Main Street, and Weaver Park. So there are bikes going all over all afternoon. There are breweries right there. There's live music on a Thursday. The crowd skews a little bit younger than maybe you expected, and it stays out later than you'd expect too. And Dunedin's a town with a Saturday personality, and it wears it all week. And I resonate with this deeply, because Kate and I still choose to go to Dunedin for date night. It is a great place to go walk around downtown, grab a couple of adult beverages, have a great meal, walk down in Edgewater Park, check out the marina. It's just beautiful. There's always something going on. Now when it comes to Safety Harbor, this is more of the early one. The spa has been anchoring downtown for over a century. There's a farmer's market. There are people out walking at seven in the morning. There's a pier where the whole town goes to watch the sun come up over the water. It's quieter. It's a little more green, and it goes to bed earlier too. And neither one of these is better than the other, but they collect different people, and they have a different vibe. And that's the actual decision that you're making, and everything in this video is just the evidence. And here's a small thing that tells you more about the two towns than it should. Golf carts. Dunedin has a real program for them. Three zones across the city, you register the cart with the city for about 10 bucks a year. You need a license and insurance, and people use them. Now in Safety Harbor, it still doesn't have a citywide golf cart zone. The city looked at writing one, but they backed away from it. Now, plenty of folks down there drive golf carts anyways by making them fully street legal under state rules, which is a different and more expensive thing than what Dunedin has to offer. And what I would say is put that on your radar and call the city before you buy a golf cart because rules change all the time between short-term rentals and long-term rentals and golf carts and boating. We've got a lot of things to take into consideration when you live on the Gulf, so just make sure you're doing your diligence. But notice what that tells you. One of these towns organized it around itself about driving your golf cart to dinner. The other one didn't feel the need to do it. Now, the thing that actually decides this for most people isn't how either town feels at seven o'clock at night. It's usually where you have to be at eight o'clock in the morning. And that really leads us to commutes and drive times in Safety Harbor and Dunedin. Safety Harbor sits on the east side of Pinellas County, right at the foot of the Courtney Campbell Causeway. Dunedin sits on the west side on the Gulf, and it's only about six minutes further from Tampa, but those six minutes could mean a lot. Now, on an empty road, I call this the unicorn run. From Safety Harbor to Tampa International Airport, it's about 27 minutes. That's an easy drive. Dunedin to the same terminal is about 37 minutes. Into the West Shore Business District, that's 23 minutes against 33 minutes. And again, those are with clean roads. So I wanna make that caveat, and I'm gonna give you the real drive times as well, because I've made the Kessel run, if you will. Shout out to my Star Wars fans out there. You know what I'm talking about. But I've made it from where I live, which is almost in Indian Rocks Beach, all the way to Tampa International Airport in 28 minutes before it happened one time in the almost eight years we live here. That's not a normal day. Now, when we flip that around, Dunedin to Honeymoon Island is about 15 minutes. Safety Harbor to Honeymoon Island is about 25 minutes. But did you catch that? It's the same 10 minutes pointed in opposite directions. So 10 minutes towards the airport, or 10 minutes towards the beach. And that's really just the 10-minute trade that we talked about at the beginning of this video. So make sure you're being honest with yourself when you're talking about which one your lifestyle actually uses. And what I mean by that is, do you need to be closer to the office because you're still commuting, or is it time to be closer to the beach? That's really a great way to help inform this decision. Because let's be honest, if the beach is the reason you're moving at all, the same 10 minutes is the entire point of Dunedin, and you'll resent giving it up. And one caveat, because I'm not gonna share a number with you that isn't realistic, and I wanna give this to you. So anywhere in Pinellas County, on the coast, and I'm talking from Tarpon Springs all the way down to Passagrill, from there to Tampa International Airport, I personally budget 50 to 55 minutes. That gives me plenty of time to run into any traffic headache. And I regularly drive from my area, like I said, which is Indian Rocks Beach, to the airport. At five o'clock, I've taken my wife to the airport, and it's taken me less than 50 minutes. I still budget for more, and I give myself a lot of flexibility. But if you think about that, anywhere on the coast, you can be to that airport in 50 minutes. Makes your life a lot less complicated. So I wanna give you that perspective. Safety Harbor, it's an easy 30-minute drive to Tampa International Airport, even in peak rush hour. Now, if there's an accident, you can't account for that. Everybody understands that. But I wanna give you real drive times. From Dunedin to downtown Tampa, that's gonna take you anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour regularly. So keep that in mind. If you go at 10 o'clock in the morning, you can make it there in 40 minutes. I do it all the time. But if you go through peak rush hour, just consider that's gonna take you an hour. So I wanted to give you that, make sure that you guys have realistic drive time so you can just put that in the total equation. And that brings us to the other 10 minutes we were talking about, and that's the water, the beaches, Honeymoon Island. And this is where the questions that I get come in, and they're really kinda confused. The single most common question people ask me about Safety Harbor is whether you can swim in the bay. And the straight answer is, not the way that you're picturing. All right, Safety Harbor sits in old Tampa Bay. You get a marina, a waterfront park, a pier, a sunrise over the calm water in the morning, usually. In a downtown, it looks at all of it, and it's beautiful. And Safety Harbor got its name because that's where they used to hide ships during the storms, y'all. It's a whole nother conversation, but really cool history there. But what you don't get is a stretch of sand where you can plant your chair and an umbrella and then walk along the bay. Now, Dunedin is on the Gulf side, and Honeymoon Island is about 15 minutes away from downtown. It has four miles of beach. It costs $8 a car. It's open from eight in the morning to sunset. There's even a dog beach, which is incredible. And if you don't know about Dunedin, they call it Dog Eden as well. That's a whole nother conversation. And if you're a dog owner, trust me, this matters more than you think. I don't live next to or right by a dog beach. We would love to take Stella down there. We've got a Dober baby. She loves to play in it. She's not a swimmer. But man, I gotta go to Fort De Soto, or I gotta come up to Honeymoon Island and see you guys to get my dog in the water. And as we dig through these drive times, Safety Harbor to Clearwater Beach is 20 minutes. So this isn't really beach against no beach. It's 15 minutes against 20 minutes to the beach. And the real question is, do you want the water that you see every day to be the bay or the Gulf? Because this does matter. Are you a sunset versus a sunrise person? Do you like white sand, or do you wanna just go hang out at the pier in downtown? These things matter. And Dunedin's 15 minutes is gonna come with a cost. I mean, if you think about a good Saturday in season, and I'm talking about November through May, which is when most of the snowbirds come, the tourists arrive, that causeway is going to back up. And everybody headed for the island strives through the neighborhoods to get there. It can get chaotic, and that 15 minutes can turn into 30 really quick. And that's really the trade of living that close to an incredible state park. And here's what's cool, y'all. You really get 300 days of the year of Honeymoon Island, basically to yourself as a local resident. And then you're gonna give up about 40 Saturdays to tourists and people coming in. It's just part of the deal. Guess what? It's a state park and people love it because it's outstanding. So if your picture of Florida is a sandy beach before coffee, that's gonna be Dunedin. And no amount of math or spreadsheets should convince you otherwise. Now, if your picture of Florida is a sunrise over still water and a short walk to breakfast, that's going to be Safety Harbor. And you can just drive over to the beach when you wanna touch the sand, which for most of our clients who aren't beach babies turns out to only be twice a month, not twice a week. Now, here's the thing though. Water in Florida isn't only the good part, and both of these towns found that out in the same week. All right, now I'm gonna share this with you guys the way I would want it shared with me if it were my family and I were considering relocating again. Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton hit Pinellas back in 2024. They were 13 days apart as a matter of fact. County-wide, we had over 200 homes get destroyed. That's a big number and I don't usually hear people talk about it. And over 16,000 of us had major damage. And I say us because my home was one of those affected by Hurricane Milton. Now, Dunedin's Gulffront streets took the surge and the marina was heavily damaged there as well. And so did Safety Harbor's waterfront. The pier at the end of Main Street was wrecked. As a matter of fact, it just officially reopened this week, almost two years to the day. And I'm sharing that with you specifically because the assumption I hear is that Safety Harbor is the safe one since it's on the bay and it sits higher. And this is partly true. There is higher elevation. There are less areas there that are in a flood plain compared to Dunedin, but this is still not zero opportunity or zero chance to be affected by storms. And Downtown Safety Harbor is definitely higher than Downtown Dunedin. The bluff at Philippi Park up on the road is one of the highest spots in the whole county, as a matter of fact. But the high ground is a neighborhood fact and not the same thing as your house being fine because old Tampa Bay funnels water and it got hit. And using my house as an example again, y'all, my home is 43 feet above sea level. I did not get damaged because of storm surge. We had rising groundwater and I found out that I was the lowest house in my neighborhood. That six inches didn't show up on the county assessment. And those few inches of difference between my neighbors behind me and on my side made all the difference in the world when it came to flooding in my home. Because they were fine, not a drop of water, but I had a little over an inch, maybe two in my house, and it damaged everything. So here's what I tell you and what I won't. I will never tell anybody that their house won't flood. We live on a peninsula on a peninsula in the ocean if you live in Pinellas County. But what I will tell you in both of these towns, it really isn't a town level question. It's a street level and house level question because two houses on the same block can honestly have two completely different risks. So how do you mitigate your risk? Because again, peninsula on a peninsula on the ocean, that's the exchange you're making, living so close to a massive body of water. So here's how I like to share this with clients and help set them up for success. Choose a non-flood zone. That's a great place to start. That will lower and mitigate your risk. Choose a non-evacuation zone. What does that mean? We have hurricane evacuation zones in here in Pinellas County, and you can look at the hurricane evacuation map and this will give you perspective, not only on risk, but also elevation. It pulls a lot of things into account. So I love using this tool. And it's a great way to check on where your home is located before you consider falling in love with a home because you need to be asking questions like what flood zone is it in? What evacuation zone is it in? If any, how high the lot actually sits. And like I said, Pinellas County offers those first two free online, and you can run any address in about 90 seconds and learn flood zone, evacuation zone, and approximate elevation of that property. And that's a great thing to do before you fall in love with a property, not after. And if you're not from the area, this is a rule that you need to remember. You want to hide from the wind and run from the water. Our houses here mostly are made of block. They're concrete construction, and the block isn't the problem. Where the water goes, that's the problem. And here's the honest reality. Bold towns, half streets, I would feel completely comfortable raising my family, buying a home, or investing in, and they have streets that I wouldn't. And anybody who tells you that one of these towns is safe while the other isn't is selling you something. All right, so let's take the last excuse off the table because there's one belief about these two towns that I hear constantly, and it's backwards. Okay, so almost everybody walks into this comparison believing the same thing. Dunedin is the nice one, and Safety Harbor is the one you take when Dunedin costs too much. Now, we've put three families in Dunedin and Safety Harbor in the last two months, and I pulled every home that sold and closed in both towns over the last six months so I could share this information with you. Not what homeowners were asking or listing their home for, but what people were actually paying to move into the area. And it's the opposite of what I see people say about these two cities. Now, the average home sold in Dunedin for about $652,000. The average home in Safety Harbor sold for $749,000. So Safety Harbor came in about $98,000 higher than Dunedin. Now, I know what you're probably thinking. Safety Harbor is the expensive one then, right? That's not that either, so stay with me because this is the part that usually surprises people. Now, the average square footage of a home that sold in Safety Harbor, 2,240 square feet. The average square footage of a home in Dunedin that sold was 1,825 square foot. That's 400 square feet of difference. That's usually at least a bedroom and a den or a big family room in a small den. So if you run the math by square foot instead of just the house, Safety Harbor actually comes in cheaper. So about $335 a square foot against Dunedin's $361 a square foot. So Dunedin's dirt costs more, Safety Harbor gives you the bigger house. You're not really paying more or less in either town. You're buying a different shape of the same dollar. Now, what happens when you look at the top of each market? Now, this is where a lot of our clients ended up purchasing, and we're talking about anything over a million. Well, in Dunedin, the average is 1,423,000. In Safety Harbor, it's 1,442,000. So they weren't that far off, but remember how much more home you're getting in Safety Harbor. So roughly one in eight sales in each town, and the two averages land $90,000 apart. And think about that for a second. If you're in a position where that budget isn't an issue for you, and you could really choose either town without blinking, people are paying the same number in both cities. So no one is settling for Safety Harbor and Dunedin. They're choosing it on purpose. And two things that I think you should keep in mind before you really start deep diving houses. Safety Harbor is a little bit more difficult to get into. Homes sell there in about seven and a half weeks. It's not super fast, but it can get competitive at that million dollar plus range. And again, we just moved three clients in those areas. We are in multiple offers in almost every one of those situations. It's not as feverish as it was in 2021 or 2022. Don't believe anybody that tells you that, but it is competitive again, because people want to be in these communities. And if you're looking at Dunedin because that's a better fit for you, homes on there take about nine weeks to sell. So there is a little bit more room for negotiation, but again, the right house and the right community can be competitive. So keep that in mind. Once you find the thing, you're gonna have to make a decision faster. That's the way that I share it with people. You shouldn't feel forced, but be ready to make your decision when you find the thing that you're actually looking for. And if a condo or townhome is really your plan, the two towns aren't really comparable at all. Dunedin sold almost 200 condos during that six month time period and Safety Harbor only closed 35. And that's because these cities are just built different. When it comes to condos, we really want to be mindful about this because there's a good, a bad, and an ugly when it comes to condos. They took about three and a half months to sell in both towns. So definitely a lot more negotiation room there. You have an opportunity. You shouldn't feel forced at all when it comes to buying condos. And this has a lot to do with associations and assessments. I've made entire videos on condos. Y'all, you need to go deep on that. If you have questions about that, please feel free to put them in the comment or reach out to our team directly. We help clients negotiate this. And it is not as simple as, hey, I like that condo. I think I should buy it. You want to get into the financials. You want to get into the nitty gritty when it comes to anything with a homeowner's association. So just keep that in mind. And I really want to cover one more thing if you've got kids at home, and that's schools and education. And if you're coming from the Northeast, this is the one that I see people get wrong most often. So stay with me. Up there, your address usually locks you into a school. And it doesn't work that way here. First of all, Florida is school of choice. That's a whole topic. We've made videos on that. And if you've got questions, feel free to reach out. But Pinellas County runs application programs, magnet and fundamental programs, and special assignment requests. And all of that is sitting on top of whatever school your address zones you to. Dunedin High School, for example, it runs a fundamental program in an architecture and robotics academy. So your address here is really where the conversation starts not where it ends when it comes to education. So pick the town first, then work the application calendar accordingly, and get those dates from the district directly because they move around all the time. And now for the question that really is this entire video. Which one of these towns do you want to be tired of in five years? And I'm serious, because you're going to walk to one of them 200 times. You're going to take every visitor you have there. You'll have a rough day and end up there. One of them is going to be your Thursday night. And the other one is going to be a nice place to drive through once in a while. And you probably already know which is which. Heck, you might've known since the first tab you've opened up. So let's wrap all this up. Dunedin and Safety Harbor cost about the same to move into. And at the very top of both markets, they're only $19,000 apart. They're only eight miles from each other and 10 minutes apart in opposite directions. So what that really means is you're not choosing the budget, you're choosing which 10 minutes you want back. Towards the airport, towards the west shore, or towards the beach in the sand. And every other difference in this video really kind of flows from that one. Now, if you want to go deeper, you've got lots of questions, don't hesitate to reach out to me and my team. Listen, we can get you four walls and a roof in either town. That's the easy part. But the communities are the hard part. And you want to make sure you get this right because there is nothing worse than waking up in two years and regretting the decision you made and having to know that it's only 10 minutes from where you are now. So two things you can take action on this week. First, run the drive that actually happens in your life. Not the airport, your Tuesday. Are you driving to the office or are you driving to the beach? Do you want to be downtown for coffee or do you want to hit the Gulf first? Second, pick three addresses that you've got saved in your Zillow or Redfin account and run all six of those through the county flood and elevation evacuation lookups. Because you'll learn more about what you've been looking at in 10 minutes than the hours of videos you've been pouring through. And lastly, come kick the tires, come community shop, fly in on a Thursday night, leave on a Sunday, do it twice. Make sure you're making the best decision for your lifestyle, not just the house. Because the reality is only you know what feels like home. Looking at homes on Zillow and Realtor and Redfin, that is easy to do. You know, listen, we put pretty photos up for our clients. We make sure that you guys love what you're looking at but that doesn't describe what the street looks and feels like. That doesn't describe what the neighborhood looks and feels like to you. And this is where you get it right or you end up regretting where you moved to. If you want to go deeper on this, we offer a buyer strategy session for anyone who's considering relocating the area. Whether that's in three weeks or three years, we meet with clients all the time who are going through the same thing you are. Remember, I went through this as well. I know exactly what it feels like. If you want to take us up on that, all of my contact information is down below. There's even a link where you can schedule a time that is most convenient for you. I'll open up Zoom, pull up Google Maps, show you the communities that you're looking in, really help you shake out what neighborhood is best for you. And if you've gotten any value out of today's video, don't hesitate to hit that like and subscribe button so you can be notified every time a new video comes out. As a matter of fact, I'm gonna put another Dunedin and Safety Harbor video up here. That way it can help you make a decision. And as always, until next time, y'all, go out and live that Tampa life.