Property Taxes Have Surged Nearly 60% in Tampa and Jacksonville Since 2019, Exacerbating Florida’s Housing Affordability Crisis

Property tax bills have increased since 2019 in nearly every major U.S. metro, with Florida home to three of the five metros with the biggest hikes. Property taxes are soaring in Florida partly due to the pandemic-driven migration and homebuying boom, and partly to the increasing intensity of climate disasters. Nationwide, property taxes have increased in dollars, but the effective tax rate has declined as home prices have soared faster than tax rates. 

Florida is home to three of the five major U.S. metros where property tax bills have increased most since before the pandemic, exacerbating the difficulty of affording a home in the Sunshine State.

The median monthly property tax bill has risen most over that period in Indianapolis, where the typical homebuyer pays 66.7% more today than they would have in 2019, bringing their monthly tax bill to $205. Atlanta comes in second, with a 65.8% increase to $239. Next come three Florida metros: Jacksonville, where property taxes have increased 59.6% to $228 since 2019, Tampa (56.7% to $250) and Miami (48.1% to $367). 

This is according to a Redfin analysis of property taxes for single-family homes among the 50 most populous U.S. metropolitan areas, as of August 2024. Please see the end of this report for more on methodology. 

Property taxes have surged in Florida over the last five years for several reasons:

• Rising home values. Florida’s home values have skyrocketed over the last half-decade, partly due to the pandemic-driven homebuying boom in the Sunshine State, with many out-of-town buyers moving in and pushing up prices. While Florida prices have since fallen from their peak, assessed home values–which drive property tax bills–are much higher than before the pandemic. 
• The increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters. Florida has increased property tax rates to invest in climate-resiliency projects. Property taxes are an especially important way for governments to pay for those projects in states like Florida and Texas that don’t have state income taxes.  Additionally, some homes that are especially vulnerable to climate disasters, like hurricanes and flooding, are essentially uninsurable. That also motivates the state government to invest in projects to protect homes. 
• Florida’s increasing population. The state’s increasing population has also caused increased demand for government services, like schools and roads, which can motivate municipalities to raise taxes; inflation also plays a role because those services cost more than they used to.

“Florida was alluring for remote workers during the pandemic because of its relatively affordable housing. Somewhat ironically, the state’s population boom has driven up home prices, and property taxes along with it,” said Elijah de la Campa, a senior economist at Redfin. “The cost of owning a home has gone from affordable to unaffordable for a lot of local Florida residents and out-of-towners. Home prices that are much higher than in pre-pandemic times and the disaster-driven surge in HOA and insurance costs are now  pricing homebuyers out of the market. The increase in property taxes is the last straw for some prospective buyers. Homebuyers have realized they may save money by paying no income tax, but their property tax bill will increase.”

Demand for homes in Florida has already fallen, and Redfin economists expect it to keep falling because homes are no longer affordable enough to make up for increasingly destructive natural disasters. Here are a few pieces of evidence that demand for Florida homes may slow in the coming years:

• Fewer people moved into Florida in 2023. Movement into parts of Florida that are susceptible to natural disasters slowed in 2023 compared to past years as people became more aware of the risks–and high costs–associated with living in the state.
• Hurricane Helene made Gen Zers and millennials rethink where they want to live. Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton may further deter people from living in Florida; a recent Redfin-Ipsos survey found that nearly one-third of young adults are reconsidering where they want to move after seeing or hearing about damage caused by Hurricane Helene. 
• Floridians are moving for lower property taxes. 21% of homeowners and renters living in Florida say one reason they’re moving in the next year is for lower property taxes, and 25% say one reason they’re moving is concern for natural disasters or climate risks in their area, according to the same Redfin-Ipsos survey. Please note that this is an indicative read based on a sample of 72 responses from Florida residents. For the sake of comparison, 11% of the 904 respondents who answered this question across the U.S. say one reason they’re moving is for lower property taxes, and 14% cite concern for natural disasters or climate risks in their area. . 

Increasing home values and inflation are also major drivers for the big property tax increases in Indianapolis and Atlanta. It’s also worth noting that there are many idiosyncratic reasons municipalities raise property taxes, and those aren’t captured by this metro-level analysis; for instance, perhaps a government issued a big new bond or a new administration is making a major infrastructure investment. In Atlanta, for example, taxes increased from 2019 to 2023 partly because budgets for parks and city operations increased. 

Nationwide, property taxes, in dollars, have increased nearly 30% since 2019 to a monthly median of $250. The average effective tax rate across the U.S. is 0.67%, down from 0.77% in 2019; the effective tax rate has declined over that period because home prices have increased more than the tax rates set by local governments. Even though the effective tax rate nationwide has declined, homeowners feel the burden of increasing property taxes because they’re paying more, in dollars, than they used to.  

On a metro level, monthly property tax bills have increased in 48 of the 50 most populous metros since 2019. They have declined in just two: Las Vegas, where they’ve decreased 4.3% to $167, and Pittsburgh, where they’ve decreased 1.7% to $233.

There is a silver lining to higher property taxes for homebuyers and homeowners. Even though they’re paying more out of their pocket every month, property tax revenue is used to improve schools and parks, and those things can make a neighborhood more desirable and push up home values. Additionally, upping property taxes (as opposed to income taxes) discourages speculative investors from buying up homes and makes it more likely homes will be purchased by people who live in them. 

Metro-level highlights: Property taxes

In addition to property tax increases, Redfin analyzed several other data points relating to property taxes at a metro level. Below, we delve into where property tax bills are highest and lowest, where effective property tax rates are highest and lowest, where homebuyers spend the biggest and smallest portions of their income on property taxes, and where property taxes make up the biggest and smallest shares of monthly housing payments. 

Property tax bills are highest in New York and New Jersey, lowest in the Sun Belt 

• New York and New Jersey homebuyers have the highest property tax bills. Nassau County, NY (Long Island) has the highest median monthly property taxes, in dollars, clocking in at $905. It’s followed by Newark, NJ ($848), New York ($821), San Jose, CA ($782) and New Brunswick, NJ ($706). 
• Median monthly property tax bills are lowest in Phoenix ($151), Nashville, TN ($152), Charlotte, NC ($157), Las Vegas ($167) and Detroit ($174). Effective property tax rates are fairly low in those Sun Belt states (under 0.5%), and while rates are higher in Michigan, homes there are inexpensive. 

Effective property tax rates are highest in Texas, lowest in the Sun Belt and California

An effective property tax rate is the average rate homeowners pay as a percentage of their home’s value. It’s a useful metric to compare property tax burdens across different metro areas and municipalities because home values and actual rates vary widely from place to place. Please note that when we say “tax rates” we are referring to property tax rates. 

• Effective property tax rates are highest in Texas. Effective tax rates are highest in Austin, TX (1.8%), followed by Newark, NJ, San Antonio, Houston and Chicago, each of which have a 1.7% rate. 
• Effective tax rates are lowest in Nashville, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Charlotte, each with rates of 0.5% or less.
• Effective tax rates are also low in California, with rates of 0.7% or less in every major metro in the state: Anaheim (0.5%), Los Angeles (0.6%), Oakland (0.6%), Riverside (0.7%), Sacramento (0.7%), San Diego (0.6%), San Francisco (0.5%) and San Jose (0.5%). It’s worth noting the effective rate is quite low in California largely because proposition 13 puts a lid on how much property tax rates can increase.
• Effective tax rates have increased since before the pandemic in just five major U.S. metros. San Antonio comes first, with a 12 basis-point uptick since 2019. It’s followed by San Francisco (6 pts.), Indianapolis (3 pts.), Jacksonville (2 pts.) and Atlanta (2 pts.). 
• They have declined most in Newark, New Brunswick, Pittsburgh, Nassau County, and Montgomery County, PA. That’s because home prices in those places rose, while the tax rates set by municipalities either stayed the same or rose only slightly. 

New Yorkers spend 10% of their monthly income on property taxes, more than anywhere else 

• The typical New York buyer spends 10% of their income every month on property taxes, a higher share than any other major metro. Next come Newark, NJ (9%), Austin (8%), Nassau County, NY (8%) and New Brunswick (7%).
• In Nashville, Phoenix, Charlotte, Las Vegas and Denver, buyers put between 2% and 3% of their income toward property taxes–the lowest shares in the nation. 
• In Newark, buyers were putting 11% of their income toward property taxes in 2019; today it’s 9%. That’s the biggest decline in the U.S. Next come Nassau County, Pittsburgh, New Brunswick and Philadelphia.
• The typical U.S. homebuyer spends 4% of their income on their property tax bill, essentially unchanged from 2019. 

For many Texans, property taxes make up roughly 20% of monthly housing bill

• Property taxes make up 20% of the median housing bill in Austin, more than anywhere else in the country. Next come Newark (19%), San Antonio (19%), Houston (19%) and Fort Worth (18%). 
• Property taxes make up about 5% of housing payments in Nashville, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Charlotte, and Anaheim, a smaller share than anywhere else in the country.
• Property taxes make up a smaller share of monthly housing payments than they did before the pandemic in every major U.S. metro. The declines are biggest in some of the places with the highest effective property tax rates, led by Newark, NJ, where property taxes make up 19% of housing payments now, down from more than 30% in 2019. Next come New Brunswick, Pittsburgh, Nassau County and Chicago.
• In San Francisco, property taxes make up 6% of the typical homebuyer’s housing bill, down just slightly from about 7% in 2019. That’s the smallest decline of the metros in this analysis. It’s followed by Jacksonville, Atlanta, Indianapolis and Denver.
• Nationwide, property taxes make up 8% of the typical homebuyer’s housing bill.

Methodology

This is according to a Redfin analysis of property tax records and MLS data for single-family homes among the U.S. and the 50 most populous U.S. metropolitan areas, as of August 2024. Comparisons to 2019 are through August 2019. 

Monthly median housing payments are calculated assuming the buyer made a 15% down payment, and take that median sale price and average mortgage-interest rate, through August of the year, into account. The typical housing payments noted in this report include the mortgage principal, interest, property taxes, homeowners’ insurance, and mortgage insurance.

Income data for 2019 is from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey; income data for 2024 is estimated based on projections using 2022 data from the same source, and from the 12-month moving average nominal wage growth rate compiled by the Current Population Survey and reported by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. 

An effective tax rate is the average rate homeowners pay as a percentage of their home’s value. Please note that tax rates are different from tax bills, in dollars. Effective tax rates are calculated as the median tax bill for a given region divided by the median home sale price (through August) for that region.