5 Pinellas Towns Named Most Affordable Beach Towns In America

DUNEDIN, FL — Living at the beach can be expensive. But, according to personal finance website SmartAsset, there are five Pinellas County towns where you can find a beachside home without breaking the bank.

SmartAsset compared data for 218 beach towns and ranked them by four key real estate metrics: median home value, average number of rooms per house, median monthly property taxes paid and monthly housing costs.

When the metrics were tallied, five Pinellas County towns — Gulfport, Dunedin, Tarpon Springs and Palm Harbor — ranked in the Top 50 Most Affordable Beach Towns in the United States in 2021.

Coming in 17th was Gulfport, followed by Dunedin at No. 21, Tarpon Springs at No. 22, Clearwater at No. 31 and Palm Harbor at No. 34.

For details on the data sources and how SmartAsset put all the information together to create its final rankings, check out the Data and Methodology section.

This is SmartAsset’s sixth annual study on the most affordable beach towns in America. Check out the 2020 version here.

Key Findings

• The best deals are still in the South. The top 10 cities in this study are located in three Southern states: four in Florida, four in Mississippi and two in Texas. While Florida may be an obvious choice for many people, the prevalence of Mississippi and Texas on the list shows how thinking outside the box can help you find affordable deals to fulfill your beach home dream.
• Low property taxes and cheap monthly costs: Homeowners in the top 10 beach communities on the list take advantage of low property taxes and affordable housing costs. Median annual property taxes for these cities are just $1,185, and median monthly housing costs are $746. By comparison, those figures are $8,677 and $2,956, respectively, for the study’s bottom 10 cities.

Courtesy SmartAsset