Over the past months, more people have been buying a piece of real estate Tampa than other Florida real estate properties, as reported by the Greater Tampa Association of Realtors and Florida Realtors. There are a lot of reasons for Tampa’s popularity among buyers, and among them is the lower cost of living in the Tampa area.
In the ACCRA Cost of Living Index report compiled by the Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER), the Tampa metropolitan area remains among the more affordable cities in the country as of the end of 2011. Over the past three years, Tampa’s cost of living index has stayed below the nationwide average index of 100. As of the end of 2011, the metro area’s index was 91.8, far below 218.8, which was the index of Manhattan, the most expensive metropolitan area, and closer to 81.0, which was the index of Harlingen, Texas, the least costly metro area.
The Tampa area was also the least costly among Florida’s well-known cities, as seen in the following table:
| Tampa | 91.8 |
| Jacksonville | 93.9 |
| Orlando | 97.3 |
| Miami | 107.1 |
The C2ER index considers six categories and various subcategories in its cost of living studies. The main categories are housing, health care, utilities, grocery items, transportation and miscellaneous goods and services. In the Tampa area, certainly housing was a significant factor in the downward drift of the index as prices for real estate Tampa substantially dropped from their high levels over the past years. The area’s housing index in 2011 was 78.7, significantly below the nationwide average.
In the home sales report released by the Greater Tampa Association of Realtors for 2008 to 2011, the volume of residential sales in the Tampa area has been on an upward trend, with some fluctuations, but never dropping to a level lower than any monthly sales level in 2008. The December 2011 sales total of 1,756 units was higher by 31.4 percent than the 1,336 units sold in December 2008. Over the month, the sales volume also increased, with a 12.6-percent jump from the November 2011 sales of 1,559 units.
In the 19 metropolitan markets monitored by Florida Realtors, the Tampa Bay real estate market was again the best-performing in December 2011 and in the whole of 2011, based on sales of existing single-family homes. In December, the Tampa-Clearwater-St. Petersburg area soared with sales of 2,422 existing units, higher than any other metro market in Florida. In 2011, the Tampa area had a sales total of 30,425 existing single-family homes, higher by 11 percent than second best-performing Orlando.
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