Austin vs Tallahassee: which should you move to?
Austin or Tallahassee? Housing, rent, crime, climate, income, taxes and transit, side by side, from each city's own published figures. Written for someone deciding where to live, not for a ranking.
Austin
Tallahassee
Two state capitals built around a large public university, a city of 1,002,632 people at the center of the fastest-growing metro of more than a million and one of 204,902 where 27.2% of residents aged three and over are in college, both pricing in US dollars in states with no income tax, so the figures net directly, though a week apart: Austin at Freddie Mac's 7.03% for 24 September 2026 and Tallahassee at 7.28% for 1 October. The prices are MLS medians over different areas and homes: Austin's is everything sold in the city, and the Tallahassee figure is Florida Realtors' single-family median for the four-county Tallahassee metro in June, $364,950, because none is published for the City or for Leon County. Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $4,041 a month on Austin's $560,000 and $2,733 on the metro median, or $2,684 at the same rate, roughly 54% of Austin's median household income of $90,430 and 58% of Tallahassee's $56,511, the lowest of any city this site compares. Zillow's index keeps the order, $497,418 for Austin, and Zillow's index for the City of Tallahassee stood at $294,444. A homesteaded owner pays about 1.69% of the median in Tallahassee against 1.61% in Austin, and insurance is budgeted at $220 a month against $300. On the same FBI counts for 2025 Tallahassee has the higher violent crime, 635 offenses per 100,000 against 421, and homicide rate, about 9.8 against 5.1, and the lower property crime, 2,405 against 3,093. Choose Austin for technology work, a labor market about seven times the size, higher pay and a large airport. Choose Tallahassee to own for about $1,308 a month less, for state government and the universities, a January as mild as Austin's with far fewer 100F days, and ask the City for the fire services fee on the utility bill first.
| Measure | Austin | Tallahassee | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| City population | 1,002,632 (2025) | 204,902 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
| Metro population | 2,620,945 (2025) | 397,442 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
| Five-year growth Growth is pressure on rents and roads as much as it is opportunity, so it is reported without a winner. | 4.6% (2020-2025) | 4.4% (2020-2025) | Not directly comparable |
What a home costs in each
The figures the two cities' rent-versus-buy and mortgage calculators run on, read from the same tables.
| Measure | Austin | Tallahassee | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Benchmark home price MLS® HPI or equivalent benchmark. Lower is treated as the advantage, which is the buyer's view rather than the owner's. | $560,000 (August 2026) | $364,950 (June 2026) | Tallahassee |
| Detached house benchmark Tallahassee publishes a single house index rather than a composite, so the two rows repeat. | $527,943 | $364,950 | Tallahassee |
| Apartment or condominium benchmark | $355,596 | $179,610 | Tallahassee |
| Two-bedroom rent | $1,812/mo (average, August 2026) | $1,309/mo (median, September 2026) | Tallahassee |
| One-bedroom rent | $1,421/mo | $1,100/mo | Tallahassee |
| Two-bedroom rent against median income A year of two-bedroom rent as a share of the median household income below. A household paying the median rent out of the median income is a fiction, but it is the same fiction in both columns and it crosses currencies. | 24.0% of a year's income | 27.8% of a year's income | Austin |
| Mortgage payment on the benchmark, 20% down 30-year amortization on American monthly compounding, the convention in both. | $2,990/mo at 7.03% | $1,998/mo at 7.28% | Tallahassee |
| Price to household income Benchmark price divided by the median household income below. A ratio is comparable across currencies; the dollars are not. | 6.2× | 6.5× | Austin |
| Property tax on the benchmark home The effective rate on market value, which is what the two rates have in common and what the Advantage column is decided on; the bills are in each city's own dollars. | $9,022/yr (1.611%, 2025) | $6,182/yr (1.694%, 2025) | Austin |
| Transfer tax on the benchmark home Compared as a share of the price. Where the seller pays it, it is a cost of leaving rather than arriving. | None | $2,555 (seller pays) | Austin |
| Rent control A cap protects a sitting tenant and does nothing for the next lease, so neither column is simply better. | Forbidden by state law | Forbidden by state law | Not directly comparable |
Austin: About 1.61% of value for a homesteaded owner, worked out on the $560,000 median sale price. A house in the City of Austin and Austin ISD is taxed by five units for 2025, which add to 2.046485 per $100 before any exemption. Each takes its own homestead exemption off the appraised value first: Austin ISD the state's $140,000, the City, Travis County and Central Health 20%, and Austin Community College 1% with a $5,000 floor. So Travis County levies 0.375845 per $100 on $448,000 after a $112,000 exemption, $1,684; City of Austin levies 0.524017 per $100 on $448,000 after a $112,000 exemption, $2,348; Austin ISD levies 0.9252 per $100 on $420,000 after a $140,000 exemption, $3,886; Austin Community College levies 0.1034 per $100 on $554,400 after a $5,600 exemption, $573; Central Health levies 0.118023 per $100 on $448,000 after a $112,000 exemption, $529. The five come to $9,019 a year, 1.61% of the price. Without a homestead, as a landlord or a buyer who never files, the same house owes $11,460. These are the 2025 rates, the bills mailed in October 2025. For 2026 the City has adopted 0.579948, the county 0.38621, Central Health 0.132863 and ACC 0.103643, and Austin ISD has proposed 0.9184; on the same house those would come to about 1.67%. Tallahassee: About 1.69% of the price for a homesteaded owner, worked out on the $364,950 single-family median for the four-county Tallahassee metro, which is lower than the 19.2060 mills a house in the City of Tallahassee is charged because of Florida's homestead exemption rather than any assessment lag. Nine levies make it, one of them at zero: Leon County 8.3144; the County's Emergency Medical Services levy 0.7500; the Children's Services Council of Leon County 0.3477; the County's voted debt 0.0000; the School Board 5.3660 (3.1180 required by the state, 0.7480 discretionary and 1.5000 for capital outlay); the Northwest Florida Water Management District 0.0207; and the City 4.4072, for 2025. Outside the city the same stack without the City's line is 14.7988, and inside the Downtown Improvement Authority's district it is 20.2060. The School Board's lines are charged on the price less $25,000, $339,950, and the rest on the price less a second slice as well, $314,950 on the base amounts, so a homesteaded buyer's first bill is about $6,183. Without a homestead, as a landlord or a buyer who never files, the same house owes $7,009. That second slice is indexed to inflation: the Department of Revenue published $25,722 for 2025, which brings the same bill to $6,173; this page uses the $25,000 base, like every Florida page on this site. For 2026 the County adopted 8.3144 and the EMS levy 0.7500 again, the City's 4.4072 and the School Board's 5.3430 were tentative when read, and the other two were not read, so no 2026 total is given. The exemption is not automatic: you file with the Leon County Property Appraiser by 1 March. There is no fire, stormwater or garbage line on a City tax bill: the City charges stormwater at $11.00 and garbage at $28.19 a month on the utility bill, $470 a year together, with a fire services fee beside them whose amount this site could not read. The seller's tax bill is not a guide to yours. Save Our Homes caps a homesteaded property's assessed value at 3% growth a year, and that cap resets to full market value the January after the sale, so a long-tenured owner can be taxed on a fraction of what you will be taxed on for the same house. Ask the property appraiser what the assessment would be at your purchase price, not what the current bill is.
How safe each city is, by the numbers it publishes
Police-reported figures for the most recent year each force or statistics agency has released. Rates describe a whole city or metro area, and the spread between neighbourhoods inside one city is usually wider than the gap between the two cities.
| Measure | Austin | Tallahassee | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crime Severity Index Statistics Canada's weighted index for the metropolitan area, where 100 is Canada in 2006. American cities have no equivalent series. | Not published | Not published | Not directly comparable |
| Violent crime per 100,000 | 421 (2025) | 635 (2025) | Austin |
| Property crime per 100,000 | 3,093 (2025) | 2,405 (2025) | Tallahassee |
| Homicides Counts, not rates, and a single year in a small city moves a long way on chance alone. What each figure covers is under the table. | 51 (2025) | 20 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
On the FBI's definitions, violent offenses in Austin went from 5,335 in 2022 to 5,046 in 2023, 4,692 in 2024 and 4,221 in 2025, a 10% drop in the last year and 21% in three, and property offenses from 35,035 to 32,900, 32,407 and then 31,011. APD's own NIBRS records for 2025 show aggravated assaults down 13% (3,038 to 2,652), robberies down 5% (835 to 790) and motor vehicle thefts down 26% (5,908 to 4,345), while rapes rose from 501 to 541 and drug offenses, which rise and fall with enforcement, went from 4,097 to 5,256. The 2025 CDE counts were read on 27 September 2026 from a feed last refreshed on 15 September and can still be revised, and APD notes that its open data may differ from its official figures.
What the rates cover: Computed: 4,221 violent offenses (murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault) in the FBI Crime Data Explorer's summarized data for the Austin Police Department (ORI TX2270100) in calendar 2025, divided by the 1,002,632 Vintage 2025 city population. On the CDE's own agency population of 1,000,639 the rate is 422. APD does not publish a total on this definition: its open NIBRS data sort offenses into crimes against persons (19,469 in 2025, of which 9,464 simple assaults and 5,918 intimidation) and crimes against property (44,250, with robbery, fraud and vandalism inside it), so neither of its totals is the FBI's violent or property count. Summing APD's own 2025 records on the FBI's definition gives 4,219, within two of the CDE.
Homicides: 51 murders and nonnegligent manslaughters in 2025 in both the FBI CDE and APD's open NIBRS data, against 66 in 2024, about 5.1 per 100,000 on the city population. APD's assistant chief put the year's homicides at 55 in January 2026 (KUT), and APD's dataset separately lists 14 negligent manslaughters and 7 justifiable homicides, which the FBI does not count as murder. The high point in the CDE series since 2021 is 81, in 2021.
Down from a 2023 peak, though the rate is still high. On the FBI CDE's figures violent offenses were 1,587 in 2022, 1,732 in 2023, 1,383 in 2024 and 1,302 in 2025, about 785, 852, 678 and 635 per 100,000 on each year's Vintage 2025 population, so 2025 was 25% below 2023. Property offenses peaked later, at 5,804 in 2024, and fell 15% to 4,927 in 2025. FDLE's incident-based file shows the same direction, 1,806 violent offenses in 2023, 1,441 in 2024 and 1,363 in 2025, and for 2026 so far: January to August brought 783 violent offenses against 893 in the same months of 2025, down 12%, and 2,985 property offenses against 3,450, down 13%. The CDE has January to July 2026, 737 violent offenses against 769, down 4%. Tallahassee Reports, tabulating the police department's daily incident data, found total incidents down 22.6% in 2025, property crime down 28.3% and violent crime down 8.9%, but assaults in September to December up 55.8% on the same months of 2024, 299 against 192. The CDE counts were read on 2 October 2026 from a feed last refreshed on 15 September and can still be revised.
What the rates cover: Computed: 1,302 violent offenses (murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault) in the FBI Crime Data Explorer's summarized data for the Tallahassee Police Department (ORI FL0370300) in calendar 2025, divided by the 204,902 Vintage 2025 city population; on the CDE's own agency population of 206,918 the rate is 629. The rate is high, for Florida and for the country. It is the highest 2025 rate of the Florida cities this site compares, above Jacksonville's 514, St. Petersburg's 502, Tampa's 375.5 and Miami's 359 and about five times Port St. Lucie's 130; only Orlando's 835.8, which is for 2022, the last full year the FBI has for that city, is higher. The CDE's rate for all reporting Florida agencies in 2025 is 248 per 100,000 and for the nation 329, so Tallahassee's is about two and a half times the state's and nearly twice the national. On the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's incident-based (FIBRS) file, which counts somewhat more (its forcible sex offenses include fondling), the department recorded 1,363 violent offenses in 2025, 663 per 100,000 on FDLE's population, the second-highest of the 46 Florida agencies serving 100,000 or more people, behind the Fort Lauderdale Police Department (675) and ahead of Gainesville's (635), another college town; a few large agencies' 2025 rows in that file, Orlando's among them, are plainly incomplete. The Leon County Sheriff's Office, which polices the unincorporated county, recorded 500 per 100,000.
Homicides: 20 murders and nonnegligent manslaughters in 2025 in the FBI CDE, about 9.8 per 100,000 on the city population, against the CDE's 3.0 for Florida and 4.3 for the nation, and against St. Petersburg's 9 (3.4 per 100,000) and Tampa's 17 (4.1), in a city half Tampa's size; Jacksonville had 80. FDLE's file has 21. The CDE series is 15 in 2022, 21 in 2023, 16 in 2024 and 20 in 2025. Tallahassee Reports, tabulating the police department's daily incident data, counted 18 fatal shootings in 2025 against 26 in 2024. FDLE's file has 7 homicides in January to August 2026, against 17 in the same months of 2025.
Winters, summers and what the weather can do to a house
| Measure | Austin | Tallahassee | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| January mean | 11.2 °C | 11.2 °C | Not directly comparable |
| July mean | 29.9 °C | 28.1 °C | Not directly comparable |
| Precipitation a year | 921 mm | 1,494 mm | Not directly comparable |
| Snowfall a year | 1 cm | 0 cm | Not directly comparable |
| Sunshine a year | 2,644 hours | Not published | Not directly comparable |
NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 normals for Austin Camp Mabry (station USW00013958), the official Austin climate station: January mean 52.2F, July mean 85.8F, annual mean 70.0F, 36.25 in of precipitation, 0.2 in of snow. August is the warmest month at 86.5F, with a mean high of 97.8F; July's mean high is 96.6F and January's mean low is 41.8F. May (5.04 in) and October (3.91 in) are the wettest months, and February (1.89 in) and July (1.96 in) the driest. The normals count 122.8 days a year at 90F or above, 28.7 at 100F or above and 11.9 nights at or below freezing. Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (USW00013904), southeast of downtown, averages 50.1F in January and 84.5F in July with 35.57 in of rain, and its nights run colder, with 33.0 at or below freezing a year. Converted here to 11.2 C, 29.9 C, 921 mm and 0.5 cm. Sunshine hours are the older 1961-1990 NCDC means (2,644 hours, 60% of possible), since the 1991-2020 normals do not include sunshine.
Hazards: Flash flooding on the creeks that cross the city is the recurring danger. The Memorial Day flood of 1981 sent Shoal Creek through central Austin and killed 13 people. On 30 to 31 October 2013 a band of 12 to 14 in (305 to 356 mm) of rain between Wimberley and Driftwood, with 6 to 10 in (152 to 254 mm) over central Travis County, sent Onion Creek through southeast Austin, damaging more than 500 homes and killing five people; in 2014 the city authorized $60 million to buy out homes in the Onion Creek floodplain. Over Memorial Day weekend 2015 the Blanco River at Wimberley, upstream in Hays County, rose from about 5 ft to 41 ft (1.5 m to 12.5 m) in four hours overnight and destroyed 350 to 400 homes in the town, and on the holiday itself Camp Mabry recorded 5.20 in (132 mm) and Shoal Creek flooded again. On 4 to 5 July 2025, 15 to 20 in (381 to 508 mm) fell on the headwaters of Cow Creek and Big Sandy Creek northwest of the city; the Central Texas floods of that week killed 139 people, 18 of them in Travis, Williamson and Burnet counties. Heat is the season to plan around: the normals give Camp Mabry 28.7 days a year at or above 100F (37.8 C), and 2023 had 80, including 45 in a row from 8 July to 21 August that broke the 27-day run of 2011, which still holds the record for a year with 90. The station's highest reading is 112F (44.4 C), in September 2000 and again in August 2011. Cold is rare and badly handled when it comes. Winter Storm Uri left 6.4 in (16.3 cm) of snow at Camp Mabry on 14 to 15 February 2021 and a low of 7F (-13.9 C) on the 16th, the coldest there since December 1989 (the airport reached 6F, or -14.4 C), with 164 hours of freezing temperatures. ERCOT cut power across the state grid from 15 to 18 February, about 4.5 million customers lost it at the worst, more than 40% of Austin Energy's customers were without power and the city was under a boil-water notice for seven days. Texas counted 246 deaths from the storm, 28 of them in Travis County. Drought is the slow hazard. Austin's water depends on Lakes Buchanan and Travis, the Highland Lakes reservoirs LCRA manages; their combined storage fell to 42% in March 2024, when most of LCRA's downstream farm customers went without lake water, and the July 2025 rains took it from 51% to more than 95%. It stood at about 92% on 1 July 2026.
NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 normals for Tallahassee Regional Airport (station USW00093805), the city's airport about 6 miles southwest of the city's center point, which is the National Weather Service's station for the city and has full temperature and precipitation normals: January mean 52.2F, July mean 82.5F, annual mean 68.4F, 58.81 in of precipitation. The airport station's normals carry no snowfall, so the 0.0 in of snow stored here is the normal at Tallahassee AP (USC00088756), the cooperative station at the same airport. July is the warmest month by a tenth of a degree, ahead of August's 82.4F, with a mean high of 92.1F; January's mean low is 40.5F. June (7.76 in), August (7.60 in) and July (7.14 in) are the wettest months, and June through September bring 27.41 in, 47% of the year, so the rain is spread more evenly than in peninsular Florida; November (3.10 in) is the driest. The normals count 102.6 days a year at 90F or above, 2.9 at 100F or above, 27.0 nights at or below freezing and 1.4 at or below 20F. Converted here to 11.2 C, 28.1 C, 1,494 mm and 0 cm. The cooperative station's own temperatures run a little cooler in winter: 51.0F in January, 82.9F in July, 59.82 in a year and 128.3 days at 90F. Tallahassee has the coldest winter of the Florida cities this site compares, a degree below Jacksonville's 12.3 C and five and a half below St. Petersburg's 16.8 C, and its summer is as hot as any: its 102.6 days at 90F are fewer than Cape Coral's 120.3, but it averages 2.9 days at 100F, where Jacksonville averages under one, Hialeah 0.2 and St. Petersburg, Port St. Lucie and Cape Coral none. Its rain is third, after Hialeah's 1,852 mm and Miami's 1,712 mm. Sunshine is not stored: Current Results' US city table, the source and 1961-1990 basis of the other US profiles' sunshine hours, lists no Tallahassee station, and the 1991-2020 normals do not include sunshine.
Hazards: Wind, falling trees and the power cuts that follow them, more than water. Tallahassee is inland, which is why its airport serves as a staging area for hurricane relief (Wikipedia), so storm surge is not its hazard, but it is a city of big trees, and every recent storm has been measured in power outages. Hurricane Hermine struck directly in September 2016 and left about 80% of the city without power, including Florida State University; Hurricane Michael passed about 50 miles to the west in October 2018 after coming ashore as a category 5 and left 95% of Leon County without power (Wikipedia). The airport's highest gust since 2010 is 70.9 mph, on 10 October 2018 during Michael, followed by 67.1 mph on 26 September 2024, the day the airport closed for Hurricane Helene, which came ashore that night near Perry, to the southeast, the strongest hurricane on record to strike the Big Bend (Wikipedia), and 66 mph on 10 May 2024, the day two EF2 tornadoes crossed the city, one of them through downtown at 1,400 yards wide (Wikipedia). Heat is the everyday hazard: 102.6 days a year at 90F or above on the normals and 2.9 at 100F (37.8 C), a temperature the St. Petersburg, Port St. Lucie and Cape Coral normals never reach. The airport reached 105F on 15 June 2011, its highest reading since 2010 and Wikipedia's record for the city, and 104F on 24 June 2022; it counted 108 days at 90F in 2025 and 114 in 2026 through 29 September, three of them at 100F or above. Unlike the peninsula's cities it freezes: 27 nights a year on the normals, 27 in 2025 and 21 so far in 2026, with a low of 14F on 11 January 2010 and 18F on 2 February 2026. Snow is rare but not unknown: the airport measured 1.5 inches on 21 January 2025 and 0.4 more the next day, the city's largest snowfall since 1958 on Wikipedia's list of its measurable snows. Low-lying streets near downtown, notably along Franklin Boulevard, flood in very heavy rain (Wikipedia).
What people earn and what the government takes
| Measure | Austin | Tallahassee | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median household income | $90,430 USD (2024) | $56,511 USD (2024) | Austin |
| Unemployment rate | 3.7% (July 2026) | 5.1% (July 2026) | Austin |
| Sales tax | 8.25% | 7.5% | Tallahassee |
| Top marginal income tax Federal plus provincial or state. The American figure leaves out payroll taxes and the cost of health insurance, both of which a Canadian household covers through the tax it pays here. | 37% | 37% | Even |
| Income tax on $100,000, single filer Computed from each jurisdiction's brackets at a single filer's $100,000 and rounded to the dollar, so a gap of a dollar is rounding rather than tax. Two cities in one province or state are shown as Even, because there the two cells describe the same tax and whatever separates them is method. | $13,449 USD | $13,449 USD | Even |
BLS counted 1,421,700 nonfarm jobs in the Austin MSA in July 2026 (not seasonally adjusted), up 23,800 or 1.7% on the year. Mining, logging and construction grew fastest (+5.5%), then professional and business services (+3.2%), the largest sector at 294,600 jobs, and other services (+2.7%), while information shrank 4.9% and government, at 201,000 jobs with the state capital and the University of Texas inside it, was flat. The seasonally adjusted series (FRED AUST448NA) was 1,424,000 in August 2026, 1.2% above August 2025. Average weekly wages across the metro were $1,957 in the first quarter of 2026 against $1,654 nationally. Opportunity Austin, the chamber's economic development program, lists Dell Technologies, Apple, Samsung Austin Semiconductor, Tesla, H-E-B, Amazon's fulfillment centers, the State of Texas, the University of Texas, Ascension Seton, St. David's HealthCare and Baylor Scott & White among the employers with 6,000 or more local jobs. bls.gov answered 403 to curl and FRED refused it, so both were read through the web fetcher.
Main sectors: Professional and business services, the metro's largest sector, Technology and advanced manufacturing (Dell Technologies, Apple, Tesla, Samsung Austin Semiconductor, AMD, Applied Materials), Government and education (the state capital, the University of Texas at Austin, the City of Austin), Trade, transportation and utilities (H-E-B, Amazon fulfillment centers), Health care (Ascension Seton, St. David's HealthCare, Baylor Scott & White).
Property tax is the local levy that matters. Tax Foundation puts Texas's effective property tax rate on owner-occupied homes at 1.40%, and school districts must exempt $140,000 of a homestead's value from their tax, plus another $60,000 for owners 65 or older or disabled, after voters raised the general exemption from $100,000 in November 2025. Part of the City of Austin's own rate, 8.75 cents per $100 of taxable value approved with Project Connect in November 2020, pays for the transit program. In November 2025 Austin voters rejected Proposition Q, a city tax rate increase that would have raised nearly $110 million, by 63% to 37%. The county, school district and other levies on the same bill belong to the housing layer.
BLS counted 200,500 nonfarm jobs in the Tallahassee MSA in August 2026 (not seasonally adjusted, preliminary), up 2,500 or 1.3% on the year. Professional and business services (+1,600, or 5.4%, to 31,100) and leisure and hospitality (+1,100, or 5.7%, to 20,300) added the most, and private education and health services 400 (to 27,600), while government lost 400 (-0.7%, to 60,500): local government 300, to 14,600, and federal government 200, to 2,000, with state government up 100, to 43,900. Government is 30.2% of all jobs in the metro, and it sets the rhythm of the year: state government jobs dropped from 47,300 in April 2026 to 43,300 in July as the universities' terms ended, and it averaged 46,200 of 202,000 jobs in 2025 (22.9%). The City's 2025 financial report lists eleven principal employers for the city, led by the State (26,831), FSU (16,207), Tallahassee Memorial (5,696), the school board (4,300) and the City (4,000), which together employ 67,609; the report's earlier lists counted Leon County rather than the city, so they are not compared here. Most residents work in the city: 88.1% of the city's 103,272 workers worked inside it in 2024 and only 6.1% outside Leon County, against 54% outside the city for Cape Coral. 11.4% worked from home, and the mean commute for the rest was 19 minutes, six shorter than St. Petersburg's and 13 shorter than Cape Coral's, with 1.9% spending an hour or more (ACS 2024 1-year, B08007, B08008, B08013, B08301 and B08303).
Main sectors: State government: the State of Florida employs 26,831 people in the city, the largest employer by far (City of Tallahassee), and state government, which in BLS's count includes the state universities, held 43,900 of the metro's 200,500 nonfarm jobs in August 2026, 21.9%, and 47,300 (23.0%) in April with classes in session, Higher education: Florida State University (16,207 employees in 2025-26, 7,723 of them full- or part-time faculty and staff and the rest graduate assistants, student assistants and temporary workers), Florida A&M University (1,794) and Tallahassee State College (1,468), with 65,657 students between them in fall 2024, Health care: Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare, the region's nonprofit hospital system, is the third-largest employer (5,696), in a metro sector (private education and health services) of 27,600 jobs, Local government and schools: the Leon County School Board (4,300), the City of Tallahassee (4,000), which also runs the electric, gas and water utilities and the airport, and Leon County (1,957), in a local government sector of 14,600, Professional and business services, the law firms, lobbyists and associations that cluster around the Capitol (Wikipedia), with 31,100 metro jobs, up 1,600 or 5.4% on the year, the most of any sector; and retail and warehousing, with Amazon (2,256), Walmart (1,700) and Publix (1,400) among the city's eleven largest employers.
Property tax is the local levy that matters. Tax Foundation puts Florida's effective property tax rate on owner-occupied homes at 0.78%, and a homestead exemption takes as much as $50,000 off a permanent residence's taxable value and qualifies it for the Save Our Homes limit on how fast its assessment can rise (Florida Department of Revenue). A house in the City of Tallahassee (Leon County tax authority code 1) pays 19.2060 mills for 2025, the rates the Leon County Property Appraiser certified to the Department of Revenue: Leon County 8.3144, the county's EMS levy 0.7500, the Children's Services Council of Leon 0.3477, the school board 5.3660 (3.1180 required local effort, 0.7480 discretionary and 1.5000 capital outlay), the Northwest Florida Water Management District 0.0207 and the City 4.4072. The City lowered its rate from the 4.4200 it levied for 2024 and proposed again, but 4.4072 is still 4.7% above the rolled-back rate of 4.2080, and with taxable values up the City's levy rose 9.0% to $81.8 million; the County has held 8.3144 since 2012 (Leon County Property Appraiser). The 2024 total was 19.2379. Downtown Improvement Authority parcels pay one mill more (20.2060), and unincorporated Leon County, which has no city levy, pays 14.7988. That puts the city near Miami's 19.9878, Tampa's 19.8428 and St. Petersburg's 19.9197, a little above Hialeah's 18.6468 and above Cape Coral's 15.3806, as those cities' housing layers carry them. The school board voted in May 2026 to ask the county to put an additional operating mill for 2027 to 2031 on the November ballot to raise teacher pay (WCTV); whether the commission did was not confirmed. Zillow's typical home value for the city was $294,444 in August 2026, up 1.4% on the year and one of only two rises among the nine Florida cities this site compares (Miami's is the other), and its observed rent index $1,470 a month, up 1.5%, the lowest of the nine; only Jacksonville's typical home value ($285,103) is lower. The bills, exemptions, insurance and fees that follow from these figures belong to the housing layer.
Whether you need a car
| Measure | Austin | Tallahassee | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| System | CapMetro buses, including four CapMetro Rapid (formerly MetroRapid) lines, and the Red Line, a 32-mile, 10-station commuter rail line from Leander to downtown (CapMetro Rail, long branded MetroRail); no light rail yet, with Project Connect's first 9.8-mile phase due in 2033 | StarMetro, the City of Tallahassee's bus system, founded as TalTran in 1973 when the City bought the private bus company, and renamed in 2005 (Wikipedia). It runs 14 weekday fixed routes, two call-ahead FLEX zones and a peak-hour express, with fewer routes on Saturdays and a separate four-route network on Sundays and weekday evenings, nearly all of them meeting downtown at C.K. Steele Plaza, and Dial-A-Ride for riders with disabilities. It also runs Florida State University's campus routes under a contract with the university, free to the public and operated with battery-electric buses, and K-12 students ride free (Wikipedia). There is no rail transit or bus rapid transit, and no intercity passenger rail since Amtrak's Sunset Limited stopped east of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005; Greyhound, Megabus and RedCoach serve the city by coach, and Interstate 10 runs across its north side (Wikipedia). | Not directly comparable |
| Commute by public transit | 3.0% (2024) | 3.2% (2024) | Tallahassee |
| Walk or cycle to work | 4.1% (2024) | 5.3% (2024) | Tallahassee |
| Airport | Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS), 21,666,852 passengers in 2025, 0.4% fewer than 2024's 21,762,904 and below the 2023 record of 22.1 million, per the airport's calendar-year activity report; 1.06 million of them were international. It sits about 5 miles southeast of downtown on the former Bergstrom Air Force Base and replaced Robert Mueller Municipal Airport in 1999. | Tallahassee International Airport (TLH), owned and run by the City and named Bobby Bowden-Tallahassee International Airport in April 2026 after the longtime FSU football coach, about 5 miles southwest of downtown (Wikipedia). It handled 936,448 airline passengers in the City's fiscal 2025 (October 2024 to September 2025), slightly below fiscal 2024's 944,835 and above 2019's 851,689 (City of Tallahassee), with American and Delta the main carriers to Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas-Fort Worth and Miami and no scheduled international service (Wikipedia). Wikipedia counts it among the smaller commercial airports in Florida. | Not directly comparable |
CapMetro carried 26,283,400 unlinked trips in 2025, 24,067,200 of them by bus and 620,600 on the Red Line, and about 77,400 a weekday in the second quarter of 2026, 1,900 of them by train (APTA ridership reports, as cited by Wikipedia; APTA's PDFs refused the fetcher). Two new CapMetro Rapid lines, 800 and 837, opened in February 2025 and reached 10-minute service in June 2026, and the Red Line gained McKalla Station in 2024, with North Burnet/Uptown Station due in 2027; the Green Line commuter rail project has no funding, environmental review or timeline. Light rail is the unfinished promise. Voters approved Project Connect in November 2020 with a city property tax increase of 8.75 cents per $100 of value, for about 20 miles of light rail reaching the airport at $7.1 billion (Texas Tribune). Its first phase is now 9.8 miles and 15 stations in three directions from downtown, no longer reaching the airport, at an estimated $8.2 billion or more; construction is set to start in 2027 and trains to run in 2033. The FTA gave it environmental clearance in January 2026, but the plan counts on about $4.1 billion in federal money that has not been awarded, and a lawsuit over the scaled-back project is still open.
StarMetro carried 1,762,062 unlinked trips in 2025 on the National Transit Database's monthly ridership file (Federal Transit Administration), 1,657,717 of them on its buses and the rest on demand-response service. That is about a third of its peak of 4,933,682 in 2010 and below the 3,624,805 of 2019; ridership fell to 1.5 million in 2020 and 2021 with FSU's campus routes suspended, recovered to 2.6 million in 2023, and has fallen since, to 2.25 million in 2024 and 1.76 million in 2025, and January to August 2026 ran 8.7% below the same months of 2025. The file does not separate the campus routes, and why ridership has fallen since 2023 was not found. For comparison, St. Petersburg's PSTA carried 10.4 million trips in 2025, Lee County's LeeTran 1,969,906 and Port St. Lucie's Area Regional Transit 825,588 (their profiles, from the same file).
Health care, schools and what each city is like
Health care
Care is paid for through employer or marketplace insurance, Medicare and Medicaid, and Texas is one of the ten states that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (KFF, August 2026). It had the highest uninsured rate of any state in 2024: 16.7%, or 5,152,427 of 30,799,312 people, against 8.2% nationally and 12.0% in Georgia, the next highest, on the ACS 2024 1-year estimates. The City of Austin's rate was 13.0% and Travis County's 12.6%. Ascension Seton runs Dell Seton Medical Center at The University of Texas, the teaching hospital of UT's Dell Medical School, in partnership with Central Health; it is the region's only adult Level I trauma center and serves 11 Central Texas counties. St. David's HealthCare, a partnership between HCA Healthcare and two local nonprofits, has more than 160 sites and calls itself the Austin area's fourth-largest private employer, and Baylor Scott & White joins both systems on the chamber's list of employers with 6,000 or more local jobs. UT and the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation are building the UT Dell Medical Center, with a new UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, beside Dell Seton on the former Frank Erwin Center site, to open in 2030; the UT System put the plan at $2.5 billion when it was announced in August 2023. This file did not verify a wait time figure for primary or specialist care.
Education
Austin ISD, which covers 230 square miles in the middle of the metro, counted 65,951 students in fall 2026, down 3,765 from 69,716 in 2025-26 and from 72,702 in 2024-25. More than 6,400 students enrolled at the end of last year did not return, and the district fell more than 2,000 short of its own projection (Austin Current, 24 September 2026); district officials told KUT that more than half of the 2025-26 loss could be attributed to families' fear of immigration enforcement, with housing costs and falling birth rates also named. In November 2025 the board approved closing and consolidating 10 schools from the 2026-27 school year, affecting 3,796 students and removing 6,319 seats, together with 24 turnaround plans the Texas Education Agency requires for campuses with repeated unacceptable ratings, adopted to head off state-ordered closures or a takeover. The University of Texas at Austin enrolled a record 55,000 students in fall 2025, 44,314 of them undergraduates, the largest total in its history.
Living there
Austin is the Texas state capital and a university town that has become a technology metro, and its growth has outrun what the city has built for it. The metro passed 2.6 million in 2025 after adding 337,554 people since April 2020, but the city grew by less than 5%, and in 2024-25 Travis County lost 6,590 more people to the rest of the country than it gained, so domestic movers now settle in Williamson and Hays counties instead. Inside the city a quarter of workers work from home, 57.5% drive alone and 3.0% take transit, and the one rail line carries about 1,900 riders a weekday. Summer sets the terms of daily life, with a July mean of 85.8F at Camp Mabry and about 29 days at 100F or more in a normal year, and the creeks that cross the city flood fast. Texas takes no income tax and has the highest uninsured rate of any state. The open question is whether Austin can build the transit and keep the schools its growth calls for: voters approved light rail in 2020, and six years later the first 9.8 miles are not due until 2033 and have no federal money, while Austin ISD, down more than 14,000 students in a decade, closed ten schools in 2026.
Health care
Care is paid for through employer or marketplace insurance, Medicare and Medicaid, and Florida is one of the ten states that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (KFF). Florida's uninsured rate was 10.9% in 2024, against 8.2% nationally, on the ACS 2024 1-year estimates; the City of Tallahassee's was 8.5% (17,205 of 201,731) and Leon County's 8.1%, well below the state's. The city has two acute care hospitals. Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare, a private nonprofit founded in 1948 that serves a 22-county region of North Florida and South Georgia, has a 772-bed acute care hospital, a psychiatric hospital and the region's only Level III neonatal intensive care unit, and is the city's third-largest employer with 5,696 staff (Wikipedia; City of Tallahassee). HCA Florida Capital Hospital, owned by HCA Healthcare and known until recently as Capital Regional Medical Center, has 266 beds (Wikipedia). The City's own count of hospital beds at the two is 1,060. Florida State University's College of Medicine trains its first- and second-year students in Tallahassee and places its third- and fourth-year students at regional campuses around the state (Wikipedia). This file did not verify wait times for primary or specialist care.
Education
Tallahassee is a college town, and the share of its residents in college is four times the national share. On the ACS 2024 1-year estimates 54,353 of the city's 199,776 residents aged 3 and over were enrolled in college (43,399 undergraduates) or graduate school (10,954), 27.2%, against 6.6% nationally and 6.2% in Florida; undergraduates alone are 21.7% of the city. Three public institutions account for most of them. Florida State University enrolled a record 46,184 students in fall 2025, 33,068 of them undergraduates and 11,022 graduate and professional students, of whom 43,936 took at least one class on the main campus in Tallahassee (FSU Office of Institutional Research). Florida A&M University, founded in 1887, the only public historically black university in Florida and the third-largest in the country by enrollment (Wikipedia), had 9,313 students in fall 2024 (7,890 undergraduates), and welcomed more than 1,900 first-time students in August 2026, its largest incoming class in a decade (FAMU). Tallahassee State College, called Tallahassee Community College from 1970 until it was renamed on July 1, 2024 (Wikipedia), had 12,455 students in fall 2024, all undergraduates, and acts largely as a feeder to the two universities. Together the three enrolled 65,657 in fall 2024 on the federal College Navigator's counts, and the City's 2025 financial report puts college-level students at 68,667. FAMU's fall 2025 headcount was not found in a source fetched here. Public schools are run by Leon County Schools, the countywide district, with 31,638 students in pre-kindergarten to grade 12 in 2025, down from 34,085 in 2019, in 51 schools (City of Tallahassee). The district is asking voters in November 2026 to renew its half-cent sales surtax, which expires in 2027 and has raised about $400 million since 2012, and warns of a $620 million gap in facility needs without it (WTXL; WCTV).
Living there
Tallahassee is Florida's capital, a college town and almost nothing else, and it shows in every figure here. It became the territorial capital in 1824 as a halfway point between Pensacola and St. Augustine, near the Apalachee town of Anhaica where Hernando de Soto's expedition wintered in 1539 (Wikipedia), and it sits at the southern end of the Red Hills, hilly by Florida standards, along nine officially designated canopy roads, with a winter unlike the peninsula's: it freezes about 27 nights a year and saw 1.9 inches of snow in January 2025. The State of Florida and Florida State University are its two largest employers, government holds 30% of the metro's jobs, and more than a quarter of residents are in college, which makes the city the youngest of the Florida cities this site compares (median age 28.5) and the one with the lowest household income ($56,511), the fourth-lowest share of homeowners, after Miami, Orlando and Hialeah (44.5%), short commutes and, after Miami, the most people who take the bus, walk or cycle to work. It also has the highest violent crime rate of the Florida cities here in 2025, 635 per 100,000 on the FBI's counts, two and a half times the state's, though falling since 2023. Its history includes the Tallahassee bus boycott of 1956, begun by two FAMU students, and the Frenchtown neighborhood, the oldest historically black neighborhood in the state (Wikipedia). It is growing slowly, 4.4% from 2020 to 2025, and its home values and rents are among the lowest of the Florida cities here, with a typical home at $294,444 and a typical rent of $1,470 on Zillow's indexes, against a property tax rate of 19.2060 mills, nearly as high as Miami's, Tampa's and St. Petersburg's.
Where each city wins, and where it loses
Both cities price in US dollars, though they were priced a week apart: Austin at Freddie Mac's 7.03% for 24 September 2026 and Tallahassee at 7.28% for 1 October, so the mortgage lines differ by rate as well as price, and Tallahassee's is given at both. The prices are MLS medians over different areas, months and homes. Austin's is the Unlock MLS median of what sold inside the city, $560,000 in August 2026, 4.3% below a year earlier. The Tallahassee figure is Florida Realtors' median of single-family houses sold in the Tallahassee metro, Gadsden, Jefferson, Leon and Wakulla counties, $364,950 in June 2026 on 364 sales, 5.8% above a year earlier, as Tallahassee Reports printed it; no median is published for the City or for Leon County alone, though Leon is almost 90% of the metro's sales, and the July and August figures were not found. Zillow's index, which models every home in each city, stood at $497,418 for Austin in August, and Zillow's index for the City of Tallahassee stood at $294,444, 1.4% higher on the year, so the order holds on a measure that is the same in both and the gap widens a little, to about $203,000 from $195,050. At 20% down, Austin's $448,000 loan costs about $2,990 a month and a $291,960 loan on the Tallahassee metro median about $1,998 at 7.28%, or $1,948 at 7.03%. Property tax is $9,019 a year in Austin and about $6,183 in Tallahassee with a homestead, and insurance is budgeted at $300 and $220 a month, the Tallahassee figure NerdWallet's average for the city, $2,640 a year, close to the Office of Insurance Regulation's Leon County average of $2,538 with wind cover, for a Florida policy with a separate hurricane deductible, and neither with a flood policy in it. The three lines come to about $4,041 and $2,733, roughly 54% and 58% of each city's 2024 median household income; at 7.03% Tallahassee's would be about $2,684. Of the $1,308 gap about $992 is the mortgage, $236 the property tax and $80 the insurance, and at the same rate the gap would be about $1,358. Tallahassee's share needs a caution: more than a quarter of its residents are in college, students living off campus form many of its households and their low incomes are likely part of why the median is low, while the price is the metro's single-family median, so the share is a rough guide to what a working household that buys would face. Rents are on different series, RentCafe's August averages for Austin and Apartment List's September medians for the City of Tallahassee: a one-bedroom at $1,421 against $1,100, a two-bedroom $1,812 against $1,309. Zillow's observed rent index, the same measure in both, puts them closer, $1,586 in Austin and $1,470 in Tallahassee in August, about 21% and 31% of median income, so Tallahassee is the cheaper in dollars either way, and against local income Austin is the cheaper place to rent. In Tallahassee, where owners hold 44.5% of occupied homes, a rent index is partly a student market.
The definitions match and so do the years: both cities' figures are the FBI's summarized counts for 2025 divided by Census Vintage 2025 populations, Austin's read on 27 September and Tallahassee's on 2 October 2026. The two split. Tallahassee's 1,302 violent offenses come to 635 per 100,000 against Austin's 421 on 4,221, and its 20 homicides to about 9.8 per 100,000 against 51 in Austin, about 5.1, in a city a fifth Austin's size. Austin's 31,011 property offenses come to 3,093 per 100,000 against Tallahassee's 2,405 on 4,927. One caution sits on Tallahassee's property figure, and it understates rather than overstates: the FBI's copy carries 23 motor vehicle thefts for the department in 2025 where the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's file has 396, and on the state's own total the rate would be about 2,577. That is still below Austin's. Tallahassee's violent rate is the highest in 2025 of the Florida cities this site compares and about two and a half times the FBI's 248 for reporting Florida agencies, and the state's file puts its police second of 46 Florida agencies serving 100,000 or more people, behind Fort Lauderdale's and ahead of Gainesville's, another college town. Both are falling. Tallahassee's violent offenses peaked at 1,732 in 2023 and were about 25% lower in 2025, and the state's file has 12% fewer in January to August 2026 than in the same months of 2025. Austin's violent offenses dropped 10% in 2025 and 21% in three years, its murders fell from 66 to 51, and motor vehicle theft fell 26% in its own records. Both sets of FBI counts come from a feed last refreshed on 15 September 2026 and can still be revised.
The winters are alike on the averages and not in the nights, and the summers differ in their ceiling. January averages 11.2 C at both Tallahassee International Airport, about 6 miles southwest of the city's center, and Camp Mabry, but Tallahassee has 27.0 nights a year at or below freezing on the normals against Austin's 11.9, the coldest winter of the Florida cities this site compares, and it snows now and then: the airport measured 1.9 in over 21 and 22 January 2025, the city's largest snowfall since 1958. July averages 28.1 C against 29.9 C. Austin's normals count 122.8 days a year at 90F or above against 102.6, and 28.7 at or above 37.8 C (100F) against 2.9; Austin had 80 days of 100F in 2023, and Tallahassee's highest reading since 2010 is 105F, on 15 June 2011. Tallahassee gets 1,494 mm of rain a year, spread more evenly through the year than in peninsular Florida, against Austin's 921 mm, and no snow on the normals against 0.5 cm; no Tallahassee station is on the 1961-1990 sunshine series behind Austin's 2,644 hours. The costly weather differs. Austin's creeks rise within minutes: the Memorial Day flood of 1981 killed 13 people, and the Central Texas floods of July 2025 killed 139, 18 of them in Travis, Williamson and Burnet counties. Tallahassee is inland, so storm surge is not its hazard; wind, falling trees and the power cuts that follow them are. Hurricane Hermine left about 80% of the city without power in September 2016 and Michael 95% of Leon County in October 2018, two EF2 tornadoes crossed the city on 10 May 2024, one of them through downtown, and broke more than 400 utility poles, and Helene left about 53,000 City utility customers without power at its peak that September. Cold is Austin's rare disaster. Winter Storm Uri took Camp Mabry to 7F (-13.9 C) in February 2021 while ERCOT cut power across the state grid, and Texas counted 28 of the storm's 246 deaths in Travis County. Tallahassee's lowest reading since 2010 is 14F, on 11 January 2010.
Both are capitals with a flagship university, and Austin's labor market is about seven times Tallahassee's and growing a little faster. BLS counted 1,421,700 nonfarm jobs around Austin in July 2026, 1.7% more than a year earlier, and 200,500 in the Tallahassee metro in August, 2,500 more, a gain of 1.3%. On the same unadjusted basis unemployment in July was 4.0% around Austin and 5.1% around Tallahassee, against 4.4% nationally, and Tallahassee's moves with the academic year: it was 4.4% in July 2025 and 4.2% that September. Austin runs on technology, state government and the University of Texas, with Dell Technologies, Apple, Samsung Austin Semiconductor and Tesla among its largest employers, and its average weekly wage was $1,957 in the first quarter of 2026 against $1,654 nationally; the Tallahassee profile carries no wage figure. Tallahassee runs on the state and its universities: the State of Florida employs 26,831 people in the city and Florida State 16,207, then Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare 5,696, the school board 4,300 and the City 4,000, and government holds 30.2% of the metro's jobs. State government, which in BLS's count includes the universities, held 43,900 jobs in August and 47,300 in April with classes in session, and professional and business services, the law firms, lobbyists and associations around the Capitol, added the most jobs in the year, 1,600. Most residents work where they live: 88.1% of the city's workers worked inside it in 2024, and the mean commute was 19 minutes. City median household income was $90,430 in Austin and $56,511 in Tallahassee in 2024, the latter with a margin of error of $5,841 either way and the lowest of any city this site compares, and the metros' $99,897 and $65,009. Neither state taxes income, so $100,000 pays $13,449 in federal tax in both for 2025, and sales tax is 8.25% in Austin, a full cent of it CapMetro's, against 7.5% in Leon County, where voters decide in November 2026 whether the school half-cent continues after 2027. The property tax stacks are close in rate and apart in exemptions. Austin's five units add to 2.046485 per $100: the school district grants the state's $140,000 and nothing more, the community college 1% with a $5,000 floor, and Travis County, the City and Central Health 20% each. A house in the City of Tallahassee pays 19.2060 mills for 2025, about 1.92 per $100: Leon County 8.3144, its EMS levy 0.7500, the Children's Services Council 0.3477, the school board's three lines 5.3660, the Northwest Florida Water Management District 0.0207 and the City 4.4072, with no fire line because the City bills fire service on the utility bill instead. Florida takes $25,000 off every levy and a second slice, $25,000 before the inflation adjustment it has carried since 2025, off all but the schools. That is less than Austin's exemptions take off a house this size, so the Florida stack charges more at either price: on the same $364,950 house Austin's five units would charge about $5,425 against $6,183, and on $560,000 the Tallahassee stack would charge about $9,929 against Austin's $9,019.
Neither is a transit city, and on the census's commuting shares they are closer than their systems. In 2024, 3.0% of Austin workers took transit and 4.1% walked or cycled, against 3.2% and 5.3% in Tallahassee, though Tallahassee's margins are wide and its 2020-2024 average is 2.2% by transit; 57.5% of Austin's workers drove alone against 67.6%, and 24.8% worked from home against 11.4%. CapMetro carried 26,283,400 trips in 2025, 620,600 of them on the Red Line commuter rail, and two CapMetro Rapid lines reached 10-minute service in June 2026; its first 9.8 miles of light rail are due in 2033 at an estimated $8.2 billion or more and count on about $4.1 billion in federal money not yet awarded. StarMetro, the City's buses, carried 1,762,062 trips in 2025, about a third of its 2010 peak, and runs Florida State's campus routes under contract, free to the public, with no rail and no rapid bus; why its ridership has fallen since 2023 was not found. No passenger train has served Tallahassee since Amtrak's Sunset Limited stopped east of New Orleans in 2005. CapMetro carried about fifteen trips for every one of StarMetro's. The airports differ most. Austin-Bergstrom, about 5 miles southeast of downtown, handled 21,666,852 passengers in 2025, 1.06 million of them international. Tallahassee International, owned by the City about 5 miles southwest of downtown and renamed for the Florida State coach Bobby Bowden in April 2026, handled 936,448 passengers in the City's fiscal 2025, with American and Delta flying to Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas-Fort Worth and Miami and no scheduled international service. Austin's airport handled about twenty-three times as many.
Coverage is a larger problem in Austin. Neither Texas nor Florida has expanded Medicaid. Texas had the highest uninsured rate of any state in 2024, 16.7%, and the City of Austin's was 13.0%; Florida's was 10.9% and the City of Tallahassee's 8.5%, against 8.2% nationally. Austin's anchor is Dell Seton Medical Center, the teaching hospital of UT's Dell Medical School and the region's only adult Level I trauma center, with a new UT MD Anderson Cancer Center due beside it in 2030. Tallahassee has two acute care hospitals: Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare, a private nonprofit serving a 22-county region of North Florida and South Georgia, with a 772-bed hospital and the region's only Level III neonatal intensive care unit, and HCA Florida Capital Hospital, with 266 beds; Florida State's College of Medicine trains its first- and second-year students in the city. Neither profile verified a wait time. The universities are the closest likeness. The University of Texas enrolled a record 55,000 in fall 2025. Florida State enrolled a record 46,184 in fall 2025, Florida A&M, the only public historically black university in Florida, had 9,313 in fall 2024 and Tallahassee State College 12,455, and 27.2% of Tallahassee's residents aged three and over were in college or graduate school in 2024, against 6.6% nationally. The public schools are shrinking in both. Austin ISD counted 65,951 students in fall 2026, 3,765 fewer than a year earlier, and closed or consolidated 10 schools. Leon County Schools, the countywide district, had 31,638 students in 2025, down from 34,085 in 2019, and asks voters in November 2026 to renew the half-cent sales surtax that has raised about $400 million since 2012.
What people underestimate is that a City of Tallahassee bill has charges the millage does not show, and that the trees are part of the price. There is no fire, stormwater or garbage line on a City of Tallahassee tax bill: the City, which also runs the electric, gas, water and sewer systems, charges stormwater at $11.00 and residential garbage at $28.19 a month on the utility bill, about $470 a year together, and a fire services fee beside them, flat per household in two zones, raised 9.98% from 1 October 2025 and challenged in a lawsuit filed on 17 November 2025, whose amount this site could not read; ask the City's utility customer service for it at the address. Neither carry here includes it. An address in Austin's extraterritorial jurisdiction may pay a utility district. Insurance is low for Florida because the city is inland, but flood comes from rain and creeks rather than the sea: the City is in Class 5 of FEMA's Community Rating System, a 25% discount on flood cover in the mapped flood zone, and low streets near downtown along Franklin Boulevard flood in very heavy rain. Flood cover is in neither carry, and from 1 January 2027 most Citizens Property Insurance policies with wind cover must carry it. This site's maintenance estimate also leaves out tree work, a real cost on a wooded lot in a city whose storms are counted in fallen trees. Without a homestead the two medians would owe $11,460 in Austin and $7,009 in Tallahassee. Both bills reset on a sale: Save Our Homes caps a homesteaded Florida assessment at 3% a year and resets it to market value the January after a sale, the Texas 10% cap lapses on a sale too, and in both the exemption has to be filed, in Tallahassee with the Leon County Property Appraiser by 1 March of the year after you buy. Closing differs. Texas has no transfer tax and no tax on the loan, and the Texas seller customarily buys the buyer's owner's title policy, $3,052 on Austin's median. Florida charges documentary stamp tax on the deed at 70 cents per $100, $2,555 on the Tallahassee metro median and the seller's by convention, and the buyer pays 0.55% of the loan in stamp and intangible tax, about $1,606 at 20% down. The City lines are moving differently: Tallahassee's commission set the City's line at 4.4072 mills for 2025, a little below 2024's 4.4200 but 4.7% above the rolled-back rate, and kept it there tentatively for 2026, and the County has held its 8.3144 since 2012, while Austin voters rejected a City tax increase by 63% to 37% in November 2025. And the growth runs at different speeds. Austin added 4,025 residents in 2024-25 and has grown 4.6% since 2020, while its metro grew 14.8%, the fastest of any metro of more than a million. Tallahassee added 877 residents, 0.4%, and has grown 4.4% since 2020, and its metro's 3.4% was the slowest of Florida's 22; Leon County lost more people to the rest of the country than it gained in each of the last three years. A capital since 1824, at the southern end of the Red Hills, it is hilly by Florida standards, with nine official canopy roads, a median age of 28.5, the youngest of the Florida cities here, and a history that includes the bus boycott of 1956, begun by two FAMU students, and Frenchtown, the oldest historically black neighborhood in the state.
Better here
- Nonfarm jobs grew 1.7% around Austin in the year to July 2026, to 1,421,700, about seven times the Tallahassee metro's 200,500, and unemployment was 4.0% against 5.1% on the same unadjusted basis.
- Average weekly wages across the metro were $1,957 in the first quarter of 2026 against $1,654 nationally, and city median household income was $90,430 in 2024 against $56,511 in Tallahassee.
- Violent crime ran 421 per 100,000 in 2025 against 635 in Tallahassee, and homicide about 5.1 per 100,000 against 9.8, on the same FBI counts.
- Zillow's observed rent index was $1,586 in August, about 21% of median income, against $1,470 and 31% in Tallahassee.
- CapMetro carried 26,283,400 trips in 2025, including commuter rail, against StarMetro's 1,762,062, and light rail is planned.
- Austin-Bergstrom handled 21,666,852 passengers in 2025, about twenty-three times Tallahassee International's 936,448.
Worse here
- Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $4,041 a month on the August 2026 median, against $2,733 on the Tallahassee metro median at 7.28%, or $2,684 there at the same 7.03% rate.
- Property crime ran 3,093 per 100,000 in 2025 against 2,405 in Tallahassee, on the same FBI counts.
- The normals count 28.7 days a year at or above 37.8 C (100F) against 2.9 in Tallahassee, and 2023 had 80.
- Flash floods come within minutes: the Central Texas floods of July 2025 killed 139 people, 18 of them in Travis, Williamson and Burnet counties.
- The City of Austin's uninsured rate was 13.0% in 2024 against 8.5% in the City of Tallahassee.
- ERCOT's grid failed during Winter Storm Uri in February 2021, and Texas counted 28 of the storm's 246 deaths in Travis County.
Choose Austin if
- you work in technology, semiconductors or at the University of Texas
- you want a large job market with pay well above the national average
- you fly often and want an airport with international service about 5 miles from downtown
- you would pay about $1,308 a month more to own for the higher pay, and will plan around 100F summers and flash floods on the creeks
The Austin guide · Neighborhoods · Austin rent vs buy · Austin mortgage calculator
Better here
- Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $2,733 a month on the Tallahassee metro median at 7.28%, against $4,041 in Austin, or $2,684 at the same 7.03% rate.
- Insurance is budgeted at $220 a month against $300, low for Florida because the city is inland and out of reach of storm surge.
- Property crime ran 2,405 per 100,000 in 2025 against 3,093 in Austin, and about 2,577 on the state's fuller count.
- January averages 11.2 C, the same as Austin's, and the normals count 2.9 days a year at or above 37.8 C (100F) against 28.7.
- The City of Tallahassee's uninsured rate was 8.5% in 2024 against 13.0% in the City of Austin.
- 88.1% of the city's workers work inside it and the mean commute was 19 minutes in 2024, and 5.3% walked or cycled to work against 4.1%.
Worse here
- Violent crime ran 635 per 100,000 in 2025 against 421 in Austin, the highest of the Florida cities this site compares, and there were 20 homicides, about 9.8 per 100,000, against 5.1.
- City median household income was $56,511 in 2024, the lowest of any city this site compares, so the carry takes about 58% of it against 54% in Austin.
- A homesteaded owner pays about 1.69% of the price in property tax against 1.61%, and on the same $364,950 house Austin's five units would take about $5,425 against $6,183.
- The City's fire services fee comes on the utility bill, and its amount could not be read, so no carry here includes it.
- Unemployment was 5.1% around Tallahassee in July 2026 against 4.0% around Austin, and government holds 30.2% of the metro's jobs.
- The seller pays documentary stamp tax of $2,555 on the metro median and the buyer about $1,606 in stamp and intangible tax on the loan, where Texas taxes neither the deed nor the loan.
Choose Tallahassee if
- you work for the State of Florida, at Florida State, Florida A&M or Tallahassee State College, or in the law and lobbying around the Capitol
- you want to own at about $2,733 a month rather than $4,041
- you want a short commute, hills and canopy roads, and a summer with few 100F days
- you will weigh the violent crime rate street by street and ask the City for the fire services fee before you buy
The Tallahassee guide · Neighborhoods · Tallahassee rent vs buy · Tallahassee mortgage calculator
Austin or Tallahassee, in short
Is Austin or Tallahassee cheaper to live in?
Tallahassee, to own and to rent in dollars, though against local income renting takes the larger share there. The cities were priced a week apart, Austin at Freddie Mac's 7.03% of 24 September 2026 and Tallahassee at 7.28% of 1 October, and the prices are MLS medians over different areas: everything sold inside Austin, $560,000 in August 2026, and Florida Realtors' single-family median for the four-county Tallahassee metro, $364,950 in June, because no median is published for the City. At 20% down the mortgage is about $2,990 against $1,998. Property tax is $9,019 a year against about $6,183 with a homestead, and insurance $300 a month against $220, so the three lines come to about $4,041 in Austin and $2,733 in Tallahassee, or $2,684 at the same 7.03%, roughly 54% and 58% of each city's median household income, $90,430 and $56,511, a Tallahassee median lowered in part by its students. Zillow's index keeps the order, $497,418 for Austin, and Zillow's index for the City of Tallahassee stood at $294,444. Zillow's observed rent index was $1,586 in Austin and $1,470 in Tallahassee in August. Neither state taxes income, and sales tax is 8.25% in Austin against 7.5% in Leon County. Tallahassee's carry leaves out the City's fire services fee, and neither includes a flood policy.
Is Austin or Tallahassee safer?
Austin, on violent crime; Tallahassee, on property crime, on figures built the same way. Both are the FBI's summarized counts for 2025 divided by Census estimates. Violent offenses ran 635 per 100,000 in Tallahassee against 421 in Austin, and homicide was 20 in Tallahassee, about 9.8 per 100,000, against 51 in Austin, about 5.1. Property offenses ran 3,093 in Austin against 2,405 in Tallahassee, a figure the FBI's copy understates; on the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's count it would be about 2,577. Tallahassee's violent rate is the highest of the Florida cities this site compares in 2025, but it has fallen about 25% since 2023, and Austin's violent offenses fell 10% in 2025. Every rate here is a count divided by a Census estimate rather than a published rate, and the counts can still be revised.
Which has the better job market, Austin or Tallahassee?
Austin's, by size, growth and pay. BLS counted 1,421,700 nonfarm jobs around Austin in July 2026, 1.7% more than a year earlier, and 200,500 in the Tallahassee metro in August, 1.3% more. On the same unadjusted basis unemployment was 4.0% around Austin and 5.1% around Tallahassee in July, and Tallahassee's rises and falls with the academic year. Both are capitals with a flagship university, but Austin adds technology and semiconductors, with an average weekly wage of $1,957 in early 2026 against $1,654 nationally, while Tallahassee's work is mostly the state's: the State of Florida, Florida State, Tallahassee Memorial, the schools and the City are its five largest employers, and government holds 30.2% of the metro's jobs. Median household income was $90,430 in the City of Austin in 2024 against $56,511 in Tallahassee, and $99,897 and $65,009 across the metros.
What does buying cost beyond the price in Austin and in Tallahassee?
Closing taxes in Tallahassee, a utility bill that carries the City's fees, and a reset in both. Texas has no transfer tax and no tax on the loan, and the seller customarily buys the buyer's owner's title policy, $3,052 on Austin's median. Florida charges documentary stamp tax on the deed at 70 cents per $100, $2,555 on the Tallahassee metro median and the seller's by convention, and the buyer pays 0.55% of the loan in stamp and intangible tax, about $1,606 at 20% down. A City of Tallahassee address pays stormwater, garbage and a fire services fee on its monthly utility bill rather than its tax bill, about $470 a year for the first two and an amount for the fire fee this site could not read. In both states the seller's tax bill is no guide: Save Our Homes resets a Florida assessment to market value the January after a sale, the Texas 10% homestead cap lapses on a sale, and each exemption has to be filed; without one the medians would owe $11,460 in Austin and $7,009 in Tallahassee. Neither carry here includes flood insurance.
Where the figures come from
Housing figures are the ones behind each city's calculators, dated on those pages. The rest are listed here with the date they were retrieved. See the methodology for how facts, estimates and opinion are kept apart.
- Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places in Texas: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2025 (SUB-EST2025) · US Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: City population, Five-year growth, Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Character
- Annual Resident Population Estimates and Components of Change for Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas and Their Counties: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2025 (CBSA-EST2025-ALLDATA) · US Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: Metro population, Five-year growth, Character
- Crime Data Explorer summarized agency data, Austin Police Department (TX2270100): violent crime, property crime and homicide, 2021-2025 · FBI · retrieved Supports: Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend
- NIBRS Group A Offense Crimes (Austin Police Department open data, updated 14 September 2026) · City of Austin Open Data · retrieved Supports: Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend
- Austin's crime dropped below pre-pandemic highs in 2025 · KUT Radio, Austin's NPR Station · retrieved Supports: Homicides, Crime trend
- US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USW00013958 Austin Camp Mabry (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: January mean, July mean, Annual precipitation, Annual snowfall, Climate normals, Climate hazards, Character, January 52.2F, July 85.8F and August 86.5F from the monthly series, and annual mean 70.0F, precipitation 36.25 in, snowfall 0.2 in and the counts of days at 90F and 100F and nights at freezing from dataset=normals-annualseasonal-1991-2020 for the same station
- US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USW00013904 Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate normals
- Global Historical Climatology Network daily summaries, Austin Camp Mabry (USW00013958), 1938-2026 · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, 80 days at or above 100F in 2023 and 45 in a row from 8 July to 21 August, 90 in 2011 with a 27-day run, 112F on 5 September 2000 and 28 August 2011, 6.4 in of snow on 14 and 15 February 2021, 7F on 16 February 2021 and 4F on 23 December 1989, 5.20 in on 25 May 2015
- Global Historical Climatology Network daily summaries, Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (USW00013904), February 2021 · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Average Annual Sunshine in US Cities · Current Results (NCDC Comparative Climatic Data, 1961-1990) · retrieved Supports: Sunshine hours
- This Holiday Weekend Marks The 40th Anniversary Of Austin's 1981 Memorial Day Flood · KUT Radio, Austin's NPR Station · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- October 30-31, 2013 Halloween Flash Flood Event · National Weather Service, Austin/San Antonio · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Lower Onion Creek Flood Mitigation Buyout Project Gets Kudos from Homeowners · FEMA · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- 2015 Memorial Day Weekend Flooding, 23 to 24 May 2015 (Weather Event Summary) · National Weather Service, Austin/San Antonio · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Tornado outbreak and floods of May 23 to 26, 2015 (Wimberley homes destroyed, Shoal Creek on May 25) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- National Weather Service releases new report on deadly Central Texas floods · KXAN Austin (via Yahoo News) · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- 2021 Winter Storm Uri After-Action Review, Findings Report · City of Austin and Travis County · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- February 2021 Winter Storm-Related Deaths, Texas (mortality surveillance report) · Texas Department of State Health Services · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- The Timeline and Events of the February 2021 Texas Electric Grid Blackouts · The University of Texas at Austin Energy Institute · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Highland Lakes and Colorado River · Lower Colorado River Authority · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Most LCRA agricultural customers will go without Highland Lakes water in 2024 · Lower Colorado River Authority · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Drought persists in Central Texas, Water Management Plan under review · Community Impact · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Water Supply Operations · Lower Colorado River Authority · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- ACS 2024 1-year tables B08301 and B19013 for Austin city and the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos MSA · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Median household income, Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share, Character
- ACS 2024 1-year table B27001 (health insurance coverage) for the 50 states, DC, the US, Travis County and Austin city · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Health care, Character
- Unemployment Rate in Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX (MSA), AUST448UR and AUST448URN · FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (BLS LAUS data) · retrieved Supports: Unemployment rate
- All Employees: Total Nonfarm in Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX (MSA), AUST448NA · FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (BLS CES data) · retrieved Supports: Labour market
- Austin Area Economic Summary · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved Supports: Unemployment rate, Main sectors, Labour market
- Major Employers · Opportunity Austin (Austin Chamber of Commerce) · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market, Health care
- City Sales and Use Tax (city rate table) · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: Sales tax
- Transit Sales and Use Tax (Austin MTA, effective July 1, 1985) · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: Sales tax
- Sales and Use Tax · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: Sales tax
- Texas Tax Rates & Rankings · Tax Foundation · retrieved Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000, Tax notes, Character
- 2025 Tax Brackets and Federal Income Tax Rates · Tax Foundation · retrieved Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000
- 2026 Tax Brackets and Federal Income Tax Rates · Tax Foundation · retrieved Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000
- Property Tax Exemptions · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: Tax notes
- Voters OK property tax breaks for Texas homeowners, businesses · The Texas Tribune · retrieved Supports: Tax notes
- Austin voters reject Proposition Q, a tax rate increase to fund city services · KUT Radio, Austin's NPR Station · retrieved Supports: Tax notes
- CapMetro (citing the APTA Transit Ridership Reports, Q4 2025 and Q2 2026) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Transit system, Transit ridership, Character
- CapMetro Rail (Red Line: Leander to Downtown, 32 miles, 10 stations) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Transit system
- What's on track and behind schedule with Austin's transit expansion nearly 6 years later · KUT Radio, Austin's NPR Station · retrieved Supports: Transit system, Transit ridership, Tax notes, Character
- How Austin's Project Connect went off the rails · The Texas Tribune · retrieved Supports: Transit ridership, Character
- Aviation Activity Report, Calendar Year 2025 vs 2024, Combined Terminals · Austin-Bergstrom International Airport · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (annual passenger traffic table and history) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- Status of State Medicaid Expansion Decisions · KFF · retrieved Supports: Health care
- Dell Seton Medical Center · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Health care
- Dell Seton Medical Center at The University of Texas · Ascension Seton · retrieved Supports: Health care
- About St. David's HealthCare · St. David's HealthCare · retrieved Supports: Health care
- Building World-Class Health Care in Austin · Michael & Susan Dell Foundation · retrieved Supports: Health care
- Austin ISD Board approves 24 state-mandated turnaround plans, school consolidation and programmatic reassignments · Austin Independent School District · retrieved Supports: Education
- District Demographics · Austin Independent School District · retrieved Supports: Education
- Austin ISD enrollment dips as transportation costs rise · Austin Current · retrieved Supports: Education, Character
- Austin ISD loses 3,000 students amid school closures and budget crisis · KUT Radio, Austin's NPR Station · retrieved Supports: Education, Character
- UT Sets All-Time Highs for Enrollment and Student Performance · UT News, The University of Texas at Austin · retrieved Supports: Education
- Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places of 50,000 or More (all states, SUB-EST2025) · US Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: City population, Five-year growth, Metro population, Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend, Character, Tallahassee city 196,182 (April 2020 base), 197,919 (2020), 200,283 (2021), 202,205 (2022), 203,267 (2023), 204,025 (2024) and 204,902 (2025); Leon County 299,048 (April 2020 base 292,205); national rank 122 and Florida rank 9; 37th of the 129 cities of 200,000 or more for growth since 2020
- 2025 Gazetteer Files: Places, Florida · US Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: point, City population, Climate normals, Tallahassee city (1270600): 102.578 sq mi of land, 2.913 sq mi of water, internal point 30.453529, -84.252272
- Tallahassee, Florida (history, geography, climate, neighborhoods, transportation) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: City population, Climate hazards, Main sectors, Transit system, Character, Capital since 1824; only incorporated municipality in Leon County; Hermine (about 80% of the city without power), Michael (95% of Leon County without power), EF2 tornadoes on 10 May 2024; record 105F on 15 June 2011; measurable snows including 2.8 in on 13 February 1958 and 1.9 in on 21-22 January 2025; nine canopy roads; Frenchtown; the 1956 bus boycott; Greyhound, Megabus and RedCoach; Amtrak's Sunset Limited suspended east of New Orleans in 2005
- Crime Data Explorer summarized agency data, Tallahassee Police Department (FL0370300): violent crime, property crime, homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and arson, 2021-2025, with Florida and national rates · FBI · retrieved Supports: Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend, Character, 2022: 1,587 violent, 4,430 property; 2023: 1,732 and 5,212; 2024: 1,383 and 5,804; 2025: 1,302 violent (20 + 149 + 214 + 919) and 4,927 property (745 + 4,148 + 23 + 11); homicides 15, 21, 16 and 20; agency population 206,918 for 2025; January to July 2026 737 violent against 769 in 2025; 2025 rates for reporting Florida agencies 248.3 violent, 1,076.6 property and 3.0 homicide, and for the US 329.3, 1,552.1 and 4.3
- FIBRS offense data by agency and month, 2021 to August 2026 · Florida Department of Law Enforcement · retrieved Supports: Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend, Tallahassee Police Department: 1,681, 1,806, 1,441 and 1,363 violent and 5,444, 5,591, 6,371 and 5,280 property offenses in 2022 to 2025; motor vehicle thefts 628, 624, 559 and 396; homicides 16, 21, 16 and 21; January to August 2026 783 violent, 2,985 property and 7 homicides against 893, 3,450 and 17; FDLE population 205,623; the 46 agencies serving 100,000 or more in 2025, led by Fort Lauderdale PD (675 per 100,000), Tallahassee PD (663) and Gainesville PD (635); Leon County Sheriff's Office 500
- Total Crime Incidents Down in 2025, Violent Crime Spikes During Last Four Months · Tallahassee Reports · retrieved Supports: Homicides, Crime trend, From the Tallahassee Police Department's daily incident data: total incidents down 22.6% in 2025, property down 28.3%, violent down 8.9%; assaults in September to December 299 against 192; 18 fatal shootings in 2025 against 26 in 2024
- US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USW00093805 Tallahassee Regional Airport (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: January mean, July mean, Annual precipitation, Climate normals, Climate hazards, Character, January 52.2F, July 82.5F and August 82.4F and the monthly highs, lows and rain from the monthly series, which carries no snowfall normal for this station, and annual mean 68.4F, precipitation 58.81 in, 102.6 days at 90F, 2.9 at 100F, 27.0 nights at or below 32F and 1.4 at or below 20F from dataset=normals-annualseasonal-1991-2020 for the same station
- US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USC00088756 Tallahassee AP (cooperative station) (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Annual snowfall, Climate normals, 0.0 in of snow (monthly and annual); January 51.0F, July 82.9F, 59.82 in, 128.3 days at 90F
- NCEI data search, normals-monthly-1991-2020 stations within 30.7N to 30.2N and 84.6W to 84.0W, and stations with a snowfall normal within 31.3N to 29.7N and 85.3W to 83.4W · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate normals, USW00093805 at 30.3975N, 84.3289W and USC00088756 at 30.3961N, 84.3556W, both at the airport; the other stations near the city are CoCoRaHS precipitation gauges
- Global Historical Climatology Network daily summaries, Tallahassee Regional Airport (USW00093805), 2010-2026 · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, Character, 105F on 15 June 2011 and 104F on 24 June 2022; 108 days at or above 90F in 2025 and 114 in 2026 through 29 September, 3 of them at 100F or above; 27 nights at or below 32F in 2025 and 21 in 2026; 14F on 11 January 2010 and 18F on 2 February 2026; snowfall 1.5 in on 21 January 2025 and 0.4 in on 22 January; gusts of 70.9 mph on 10 October 2018, 67.1 mph on 26 September 2024 and 66.0 mph on 10 May 2024
- Hurricane Hermine (2016) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, 57% of homes in Leon County without power, including about 80% of the city proper and Florida State University
- Hurricane Helene · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, Tallahassee International Airport closed on 26 September 2024
- FY2025 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, Statistical Section (Demographic Statistics, Principal Employers and Miscellaneous Statistical Data) · City of Tallahassee (filed with the Florida Auditor General) · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market, Airport passengers, Health care, Education, Principal employers 2025: State of Florida 26,831, Florida State University 16,207, Tallahassee Memorial Hospital 5,696, Leon County School Board 4,300, City of Tallahassee 4,000, Amazon 2,256, Leon County 1,957, Florida A&M University 1,794, Walmart 1,700, Tallahassee State College 1,468, Publix 1,400, and the 2016 list; airline passengers 936,448 (fiscal 2025), 944,835 (2024) and 851,689 (2019); Leon County School enrollment 31,638 (2025) and 34,085 (2019); 51 public schools; 68,667 college-level students; 1,060 hospital beds at Tallahassee Memorial and Capital Regional
- ACS 2024 1-year tables B19013, B25003 and B01002 for Tallahassee city, Leon County, the Tallahassee MSA, Florida, the US and the other Florida cities this site compares · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Median household income, Character
- ACS 2024 1-year tables B08007 (place of work by county), B08008 (place of work by place), B08013 (aggregate travel time) and B08303 (travel time to work) for Tallahassee city and Leon County · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Labour market, Character
- ACS 2024 1-year table B08301 (means of transportation to work) for Tallahassee city, Leon County, the Tallahassee MSA, Florida and the US · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share, Labour market, Character
- ACS 2020-2024 5-year table B08301 (means of transportation to work) for Tallahassee city and Leon County · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share
- ACS 2024 1-year tables B14001 and B14007 (school enrollment by level) for Tallahassee city, Leon County, the Tallahassee MSA, Florida and the US · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: City population, Education, Character, Tallahassee city: 199,776 aged 3 and over, 43,399 enrolled in college undergraduate years and 10,954 in graduate or professional school; US 17,005,362 and 4,797,493 of 329,362,620; Florida 1,094,685 and 311,297 of 22,719,284
- ACS 2024 1-year table B27001 (health insurance coverage) for Tallahassee city, Leon County, the Tallahassee MSA, Florida and the US · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Health care
- Local Area Unemployment Statistics, Tallahassee, FL MSA (LAUMT124522000000003), Leon County (LAUCN120730000000003) and Tallahassee city (LAUCT127060000000003), not seasonally adjusted · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved Supports: Unemployment rate
- Current Employment Statistics, Tallahassee, FL MSA: total nonfarm (SMU12452200000000001), supersectors (SMU1245220xx00000001), retail trade and federal, state and local government (SMU12452209091000001, SMU12452209092000001, SMU12452209093000001) · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market, Character
- Florida State University 2025-2026 Pocket Fact Book · Florida State University Office of Institutional Research · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Education, Fall 2025 enrollment 46,184 (33,068 undergraduate, 11,022 graduate and professional, 2,094 unclassified), the highest in the enrollment history table; 43,603 at the Tallahassee location and 43,936 taking at least one class on the main campus; 16,207 employees in 2025-26, 7,605 full-time, 118 part-time and 8,484 OPS
- College Navigator: Florida State University, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University and Tallahassee State College (fall 2024 enrollment) · US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Education, Fall 2024 total enrollment: FAMU 9,313 (7,890 undergraduate, 1,423 graduate; id 133650), FSU 43,889 (32,720 undergraduate; id 134097), Tallahassee State College 12,455, all undergraduate (id 137759)
- FAMU Welcomes Largest Incoming Class in a Decade at New Student Pinning Ceremony · Florida A&M University · retrieved Supports: Education, More than 1,900 first-time-in-college students in fall 2026, the largest incoming class in a decade, plus 400 online, 700 transfer and 1,200 graduate students
- Florida A&M University · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Education, Character
- Florida State University · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Health care, Education
- Tallahassee State College · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Education, Known as Tallahassee Community College from 1970 to 2024; renamed Tallahassee State College on July 1, 2024
- Leon County Schools approve increase in property tax rates, voters could decide in November · WCTV · retrieved Supports: Sales tax, Tax notes, Education, A one-mill operating levy for July 2027 to June 2031 sent to the county commission for the November ballot; the commission's 12 May motion to put the half-cent sales tax renewal on the November ballot; $400 million raised from 2012 to 2026
- Leon County school leaders push to renew half-cent sales tax before 2027 expiration · WTXL · retrieved Supports: Education, A $620 million gap in facility needs without renewal; more than $500 million over 15 years if renewed
- Discretionary Sales Surtax Information for Calendar Year 2026 (DR-15DSS) · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: Sales tax, Leon 1.5%: 1% from December 1, 1989 to December 31, 2039 and 0.5% from January 1, 2003 to December 31, 2027
- Tax Information Publication 14A01-17: Leon County Discretionary Sales Surtax Continues at 1.5% Rate · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: Sales tax, Combined rate 7.5%: 1% infrastructure surtax, 0.5% school capital outlay surtax and 6% state tax; the infrastructure surtax extended through December 31, 2039
- Florida Tax Rates & Rankings · Tax Foundation · retrieved Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000, Tax notes
- Property Tax Exemptions: Homestead Exemption, Save Our Homes Assessment Limitation, and Portability Transfer · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: Tax notes
- Leon County 2025 taxing authority millage rates by tax authority code (with 2010 to 2024), as certified by the Leon County Property Appraiser · Florida Department of Revenue, Property Tax Oversight (Leon County Property Appraiser's filing) · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, Character, 2025 code 1, City of Tallahassee: County 8.3144, EMS MSTU 0.7500, CSC of Leon 0.3477, School Board RLE 3.1180, discretionary 0.7480 and capital outlay 1.5000, NW Florida Water Management District 0.0207, City 4.4072, total 19.2060 ('City lowered from proposed rate of 4.4200'); code 3, Downtown Improvement, 20.2060; code 2, unincorporated, 14.7988; 2024 code 1 total 19.2379; County 8.3144 every year since 2012
- Table 1: Comparison of Taxes Levied, County and Municipal Governments, Fiscal Years 2024-25 and 2025-26 (Leon County) · Leon County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, City of Tallahassee 4.4200 in 2024-25, rolled-back rate 4.2080 and 4.4072 adopted for 2025-26, levy $81,772,259, up 9.0% and 4.7% above rolled-back; Leon County BCC 8.3144 and EMS 0.7500
- Zillow Home Value Index and Observed Rent Index, city files, August 2026 · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, Character, Tallahassee (region 47945) all-homes value (City_zhvi_uc_sfrcondo_tier_0.33_0.67_sm_sa_month.csv) $294,444 in August 2026 against $290,281 a year earlier, up 1.4%, and observed rent (City_zori_uc_sfrcondomfr_sm_month.csv) $1,470 against $1,448, up 1.5%; the same month for Jacksonville $285,103 and $1,601, Orlando $371,120 and $1,896, Miami $580,866 and $3,008, Tampa $377,566 and $1,957, St. Petersburg $354,074 and $2,058, Port St. Lucie $384,593 and $2,396, Cape Coral $335,825 and $1,949, Hialeah $442,859 and $2,357
- Monthly Module Adjusted Data Release, complete monthly ridership with adjustments and estimates (City of Tallahassee, NTD 40036) · Federal Transit Administration, National Transit Database (via data.transportation.gov) · retrieved Supports: Transit ridership
- StarMetro (bus service) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Transit system, Transit ridership
- Tallahassee International Airport (ownership, location, carriers, naming) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Health care, Main sectors
- HCA Florida Capital Hospital · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Health care
- August 2026 Central Texas housing report · Unlock MLS · retrieved Supports: A median residential sale price of $560,000 in the City of Austin in August 2026, down 4.3% from August 2025, 844 homes sold, down 10.3%, 4,554 active listings and 4.6 months of inventory in the City of Austin, No split of the city figures by property type
- Zillow Home Value Index, all homes, middle tier, smoothed and seasonally adjusted, by city · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: A typical home value of $497,418 for the city of Austin (region 10221) in August 2026, $516,564 in August 2025, so a fall of 3.7% over the year
- Zillow Home Value Index, single-family and condominium series, by city · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: A typical single-family value of $527,943 in the city of Austin in August 2026, against $546,174 a year earlier, down 3.3%, A typical condominium value of $355,596 in the same month, against $375,347, down 5.3%, from the condominium file at https://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public_csvs/zhvi/City_zhvi_uc_condo_tier_0.33_0.67_sm_sa_month.csv
- Austin, TX average rent and rent trends · RentCafe / Yardi Matrix · retrieved Supports: An average Austin apartment rent of $1,641, down 2.25% from $1,678 a year earlier, updated 31 August 2026, Average rents of $1,287 studio, $1,421 one-bedroom, $1,812 two-bedroom and $2,405 three-bedroom
- Zillow Observed Rent Index, all homes plus multifamily, smoothed, by city · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: An observed rent index of $1,586 for the city of Austin in August 2026, down 0.31% from $1,591 a year earlier
- Tax rates and truth-in-taxation rate table, all taxing units · Travis County Tax Assessor-Collector · retrieved Supports: 2025 adopted rates per $100: Travis County 0.375845, City of Austin 0.524017, Austin ISD 0.9252, Austin Community College 0.1034, Travis County Healthcare District (Central Health) 0.118023, 2026 adopted rates for Travis County (0.386210), the City of Austin (0.579948), ACC (0.103643) and Central Health (0.132863), and no adopted 2026 rate yet for Austin ISD
- 2026 exemption listing, Travis County taxing units · Travis Central Appraisal District · retrieved Supports: A residence homestead exemption of $140,000 for Austin ISD, with no local option, Local option homestead exemptions of 20% with a $5,000 minimum for Travis County, the City of Austin and the Travis County Healthcare District, and 1% with a $5,000 minimum for Austin Community College, The same exemptions in the 2025 listing, dated 25 July 2025
- Property tax rates · City of Austin Budget Office · retrieved Supports: A fiscal 2026 rate of 0.524017 per $100, maintenance and operations 0.410282 and debt service 0.113735, A fiscal 2027 rate of 0.579948 per $100, adopted on 12 August 2026
- Ordinance No. 20251120-006, reducing the fiscal 2025-2026 tax rate to the voter-approval rate · City of Austin · retrieved Supports: The Council adopted a rate above the voter-approval rate on 13 August 2025, which triggered an automatic election, Proposition Q did not win a majority at the 4 November 2025 election, The rate reduced to the voter-approval rate of $0.524017 per $100 under Tax Code section 26.07(e), effective 1 December 2025
- Notice about tax year 2026 property tax rates and impact statement · Austin Independent School District · retrieved Supports: A 2025 rate of 0.9252 per $100, maintenance and operations 0.8022 and debt service 0.1230, A proposed 2026 rate of 0.9184, maintenance and operations 0.7954 and debt service 0.1230
- Austin ISD claims victory in tax rate election · KUT News · retrieved Supports: Austin ISD's Proposition A passed on 5 November 2024 with about 58% of the vote, raising the district's rate 9.1 cents, from 0.8595 to 0.9505 per $100
- Travis County Prop A, affordable child care passes with majority of vote in 2024 election, unofficial results show · Community Impact · retrieved Supports: Travis County's Proposition A, a tax rate increase of 2.5 cents per $100 to fund child care, passed on 5 November 2024 with 59.43% of the vote, 321,043 to 219,141
- Truth-in-taxation rate table, all Travis County taxing units, 2022 to 2026 · Travis County Tax Assessor-Collector · retrieved Supports: Travis Central Health: a 2026 total rate of 0.132863 per $100, maintenance and operations 0.123603 and debt service 0.00926, against a no-new-revenue rate of 0.118633 and a voter-approval rate of 0.135195; a 2025 total rate of 0.118023, Travis County: a 2024 total rate of 0.344445 per $100 against a voter-approval rate of 0.319445, the 2.5 cents voters approved, Austin ISD: total rates of 0.8595 for 2023 and 0.9505 for 2024, and for 2026 a no-new-revenue and voter-approval rate but no total rate
- ACC approves new property tax rate for fiscal year 2025-26 · Austin Community College District · retrieved Supports: A 2025 rate of 0.1034 per $100
- Central Health board approves fiscal year 2027 tax rate and budget · Central Health (Travis County Healthcare District) · retrieved Supports: The Board of Managers adopted the fiscal 2027 tax rate on Wednesday, 9 September 2026, in a release dated 10 September; the rate itself is in the county's rate table above
- Fiscal year 2027 tax rate impact statement · Travis County · retrieved Supports: A county tax of $1,653.72 in 2025 on a $550,000 homestead after the 20% exemption, the same arithmetic as here, The 2025 rate set with the disaster calculation after the July 2025 floods, which the county said would come out for fiscal 2027
- Valuing property: the homestead cap and the circuit breaker limitation · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: A residence homestead's appraised value may not rise more than 10% a year, from the year after the owner first qualifies, A 20% annual limit on the appraised value of non-homestead property valued at $5 million or less, the circuit breaker, which expires on 31 December 2026
- Tax Code, Section 41.44: notice of protest · Texas Legislature · retrieved Supports: A protest must be filed by 15 May or the 30th day after the appraisal notice is delivered, whichever is later
- 2025 annual report · Travis Central Appraisal District · retrieved Supports: 210,038 property value appeals filed in 2025, A districtwide single-family median level of appraisal of 1.00
- School district property value study, 2024 final findings, Austin ISD · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: Austin ISD's local value found within the confidence interval of the state's estimate, so the appraisal district's values stand as market value
- 2026 market values on their way · Travis Central Appraisal District · retrieved Supports: A median residence homestead market value of $493,449 in Travis County for 2026, against $519,677 in 2025
- Annexation · City of Austin Planning Department · retrieved Supports: The City collects no property tax in limited-purpose areas, On full-purpose annexation an area's emergency services district tax may be eliminated
- Senate Bill 2, 86th Legislature: the Texas Property Tax Reform and Transparency Act of 2019 · Texas Legislature Online · retrieved Supports: The enrolled bill summary names Senate Bill 2 of 2019, by Bettencourt et al., the Texas Property Tax Reform and Transparency Act of 2019, with provisions taking effect from 1 January 2020 to 1 January 2022
- Property tax process post-Senate Bill 2 (2019): explanatory Q&A · Texas Municipal League · retrieved Supports: S.B. 2 lowers the multiplier in a city's voter-approval rate from 8 percent to 3.5 percent more maintenance and operations revenue, for nearly every Texas city, A city that adopts a rate above the 3.5 percent voter-approval rate must hold an automatic election on the November uniform election date, where before voters had to petition for one
- Truth in taxation · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: The voter-approval rate gives taxing units other than school districts and special taxing units about the previous year's operating revenue plus an extra 3.5 percent
- Geologic wonders of Texas: Central Texas · Bureau of Economic Geology, The University of Texas at Austin · retrieved Supports: In Austin the Balcones escarpment generally parallels MoPac (Loop 1): west of it the city is hilly and east of it relatively flat, Hard Lower Cretaceous limestones and dolostones form the hills to the west, and younger Upper Cretaceous rocks including clays the flatter ground to the east
- Houston Black: Texas state soil · Soil Science Society of America, with USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service figures · retrieved Supports: Houston Black, a smectite clay that shrinks when dry and swells when wet, is found in the Blackland Prairie along the route of Interstate 35 from north of Dallas to just south of San Antonio, Construction on it is often plagued by cracking from the shrinking and swelling, and building foundations need reinforcing
- Floodplain management · City of Austin Watershed Protection Department · retrieved Supports: NOAA's Atlas 14 rainfall study of 2018 found Central Texas getting heavier rain than previously thought, and the City is updating its floodplain maps from it, In November 2019 the City based its development regulations on the current FEMA 500-year floodplain instead of the 100-year floodplain, pending completion of the updated maps; the maps are on ATXFloodPro
- Flood zones · Federal Emergency Management Agency · retrieved Supports: The Special Flood Hazard Area is the land flooded by the 1-percent-annual-chance flood, the base or 100-year flood; the ground between it and the 500-year flood is a moderate-risk zone
- Understanding flood risk: real estate, lending and insurance professionals · Federal Emergency Management Agency · retrieved Supports: Federally regulated or insured lenders must require flood insurance for every building in a Special Flood Hazard Area with a federally backed loan
- Primary Mortgage Market Survey, 24 September 2026 · Freddie Mac · retrieved Supports: A 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaging 7.03%, up from 6.95% the week before and 6.30% a year earlier
- Texas homeowners insurance market overview · Texas Department of Insurance · retrieved Supports: A statewide average homeowners premium of $3,489 a year, from the Texas Statistical Plan for Residential Risks, Hail as the largest cause of paid homeowners losses in every year from 2016 to 2025 except 2021
- Texas homeowners insurance · NerdWallet · retrieved Supports: An average Austin premium of $4,250 a year and a Texas average of $5,910, for $500,000 of dwelling cover
- How much is homeowners insurance in Austin, TX? · Insure.com · retrieved Supports: An average Austin premium of $2,698 a year for $300,000 of dwelling cover, $100,000 of liability and a $1,000 deductible, updated 27 May 2026
- Renters insurance in Texas · NerdWallet · retrieved Supports: An average Austin renters premium of $136 a year for $30,000 of personal property
- Monthly homeowners' or condominium association fee, table B25143, 2024 American Community Survey 1-year estimates, Austin city · United States Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: A median monthly association fee of $76 among Austin owner-occupied units that pay one, 88,975 of 199,801 owner-occupied units, or 44.5%, paying such a fee, from table B25142
- City of Austin utility rates and fees, effective 1 July 2026 · City of Austin · retrieved Supports: A residential solid waste charge of $23.80 a month plus $4.70 to $40.30 by cart size, Clean Community fees of $5.45 and $4.80 a month, charged to every residential customer, A transportation user fee of $21.80 a month for a single-family home
- Homebuyer resources: Down Payment Assistance · City of Austin Housing Department · retrieved Supports: Up to $40,000 in assistance for first-time buyers at or below 80% of median family income, A sales price of no more than $440,000, on a home inside Austin's full-purpose city limits
- Conforming loan limit values for 2026, by county · Federal Housing Finance Agency · retrieved Supports: A baseline one-unit conforming loan limit of $832,750 for 2026, which is the limit in Travis County
- 2025 Gazetteer files: places, Texas · United States Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: A land area of 325.013 square miles for Austin city, against 319.937 in the 2020 file
- Tallahassee home prices outpace state as sales slow in June · Tallahassee Reports · retrieved Supports: A median sale price for an existing single-family home in the Tallahassee MSA of $364,950 in June 2026, up 5.8% from June 2025, A year-to-date median of $340,000, up 1.5%, and 364 closed sales in June, down 6.2% from a year earlier, Florida Realtors' statistics compiled from local multiple listing services, June 2026 data released on 17 July 2026; the Tallahassee MSA is Gadsden, Jefferson, Leon and Wakulla counties, A statewide single-family median of $432,000 in June 2026
- Tallahassee MSA median single-family sales price up 4.4% in May · Tallahassee Reports · retrieved Supports: A Tallahassee MSA single-family median of $355,000 in May 2026 against $340,000 in May 2025, up 4.4%
- Tallahassee MSA residential sales prices trending down · Tallahassee Reports · retrieved Supports: Leon County accounting for almost 90% of the MSA's real estate transactions
- Florida market reports · Florida Realtors · retrieved Supports: Metropolitan Statistical Area reports, Tallahassee among them, published to members only
- FY26 budget, 1.4 millage rate · City of Tallahassee · retrieved Supports: A millage rate of 4.4072, a decrease of 0.0128 mills against the prior year; the budget proposed at 4.4200 and adopted at 4.4072
- Tallahassee's $1.2B budget advances, with final vote set for September · WTXL · retrieved Supports: The City Commission setting the millage rate at 4.4072 mills, with public hearings on 9 and 23 September 2026 before the final vote, The City projecting that a property tax amendment, if voters pass it in November, would cost it $11.2 million in fiscal 2028 and $17.8 million in fiscal 2029
- Leon Commission OKs $420M budget with property tax increase, raises · Tallahassee Democrat (via Yahoo News) · retrieved Supports: The County Commission voting 6-1 for a property tax rate of 8.3144 per $1,000 of assessed value, unchanged for the 15th consecutive year, and the EMS rate alongside it, at its final hearing on 22 September 2026, The unincorporated area's solid waste assessment going from $40 to $80 in the fiscal year starting 1 October
- Leon County School Board approves tentative 2026-27 budget in a 4-1 vote · WTXL · retrieved Supports: A tentative 5.343-mill tax rate, with the final public hearing on the millage and budget on 8 September 2026
- Additional homestead exemption adjustment, revised January 2025 · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: A CPI change of 2.9% and a maximum additional exemption of $25,722 for 2025, against the $25,000 base year of 2024
- Rent estimates summary, September 2026 · Apartment List · retrieved Supports: For the City of Tallahassee (FIPS 1270600), September 2026: $1,296 overall, $1,100 for one bedroom and $1,309 for two, with rents down 0.31% on the month and 0.43% on the year, For Leon County: $1,290 overall, $1,106 for one bedroom and $1,288 for two
- Median household income, median home value, median gross rent and tenure, tables B19013, B25077, B25064 and B25003, 2024 American Community Survey 1-year estimates · United States Census Bureau, via the Census Reporter API · retrieved Supports: A median household income of $56,511 in Tallahassee city, against $63,548 in Leon County and $77,735 for Florida, A median owner-occupied home value of $294,500 in Tallahassee city, 39,706 of Tallahassee's 89,217 occupied homes owner-occupied, and a median gross rent of $1,369 against $1,812 for Florida
- Median gross rent by bedrooms, table B25031, 2024 American Community Survey 1-year estimates, Tallahassee city · United States Census Bureau, via the Census Reporter API · retrieved Supports: A median gross rent of $1,239 for one bedroom, $1,401 for two and $1,592 for three
- Monthly homeowners' association and condominium fee, tables B25142 and B25143, 2024 American Community Survey 1-year estimates, Tallahassee city · United States Census Bureau, via the Census Reporter API · retrieved Supports: 17,174 of 39,706 owner-occupied units paying a required homeowners' association or condominium fee, 6,936 of them less than $25 a month, A median monthly fee of $44 among them, and 1,906 paying $300 or more a month
- Utility rate pricing plans · City of Tallahassee Utilities · retrieved Supports: A stormwater charge of $11.00 per month; residential garbage at $28.19 per month for regular homes, $64.64 for premium service and $18.92 for an additional container, Residential electric: a customer charge of $10.29 single phase and an effective billing rate of $0.13583 per kWh (energy $0.09518 and fuel $0.04065), Residential gas: a customer charge of $12.93 per month and an effective billing rate of $1.42287 per CCF, Water: a minimum charge of $17.75 per month and a 50% surcharge outside the City; sewer: a customer charge of $26.09 per month and $0.83458 per cgal
- About your utility bill · City of Tallahassee Utilities · retrieved Supports: Stormwater and Fire Service lines on the City's utility bill
- Department: Electric and Gas Utility · City of Tallahassee (OpenGov) · retrieved Supports: The Electric Utility serving over 128,000 customers in a 221-square-mile service territory, Natural gas through 965 miles of underground mains serving over 34,000 customers in Leon, Gadsden and Wakulla counties
- Tallahassee sued over fire services fee charged through utility bills · Fire Law Blog · retrieved Supports: A Fire Services Fee imposed since 1999 as a flat monthly charge on City utility bills, at two monthly rates by geographic zone, the inner zone paying more, The City Commission's September 2025 decision to readopt the fee and approve a 9.98% increase, effective 1 October 2025
- Complaint, Inman-Johnson et al. v. City of Tallahassee, Second Judicial Circuit · Fire Law Blog (court filing) · retrieved Supports: Filed electronically on 17 November 2025, Resolution 25-R-45, adopted in September 2025, implementing a 9.98% increase in the Fire Services Fee charged monthly to each residential utility customer
- City commissioners move forward with revised fire service fee · WTXL · retrieved Supports: The increase costing approximately $2 extra per month for most residents
- Leon County residents now pay fire fee on property tax bill · WCTV · retrieved Supports: Residents outside the city limits paying the fire services fee on the property tax bill, about $230 depending on the zone, The City Commission raising the fee by 10% only on its own residents
- Property taxes: discounts for early payment · Leon County Tax Collector · retrieved Supports: A 4% discount if paid in November, 3% in December, 2% in January and 1% in February
- Property Insurance Stability Report, July 1, 2026 · Florida Office of Insurance Regulation · retrieved Supports: Average premiums for Leon County from data reported as of 31 March 2026: homeowners $2,538 with wind and $1,710 without; condominium unit owners $846 and $441, Actual charged premium varying by company, insured value, deductibles and policy terms
- Florida homeowners insurance · NerdWallet · retrieved Supports: An average Tallahassee premium of $2,640 a year, $220 a month, against $8,345 in Miami, updated 20 February 2026
- Renters insurance in Florida · NerdWallet · retrieved Supports: An average Tallahassee renters premium of $138 a year, $12 a month
- Flood prevention and preparedness information · City of Tallahassee, Stormwater Management · retrieved Supports: A substantially improved or damaged home, where the repairs or renovations equal or exceed 50% of the structure's market value, brought up to the NFIP and City flood ordinance requirements, elevated to at least 2 feet above the base flood elevation, Tallahassee citizens and businesses receiving up to a 25 percent discount on flood insurance
- CRS eligible communities, April 2025 · Federal Emergency Management Agency · retrieved Supports: The City of Tallahassee (community 120144) in Class 5 from 1 October 2022, a 25% discount in the special flood hazard area; Leon County also Class 5
- National Flood Hazard Layer, FIRM panels · Federal Emergency Management Agency · retrieved Supports: Leon County's countywide FIRM, DFIRM 12073C, with panels effective 18 August 2009
- Tropical cyclone report: Hurricane Hermine (AL092016) · National Hurricane Center · retrieved Supports: Landfall along the Florida Big Bend coast just east of St. Marks at 0530 UTC on 2 September 2016, About 65% of electric customers (75,000 in all) without power in the City of Tallahassee, the most significant damage to its system since Hurricane Kate in 1985
- Hurricane Hermine (2016) · National Weather Service Tallahassee · retrieved Supports: Approximately 80% of customers in Tallahassee losing power during the hurricane
- NWS Tallahassee newsletter, June 2024 · National Weather Service Tallahassee · retrieved Supports: Three tornadoes through Leon County on 10 May 2024, two of them EF-2 with maximum winds of 115 mph converging on Tallahassee, More than 400 broken utility poles, more than Hermine, Irma and Michael combined on the City's count, and two storm-related deaths
- Post tropical cyclone report, Hurricane Helene: impact narratives · National Weather Service Tallahassee · retrieved Supports: In Leon County at the peak, roughly 53,000 City of Tallahassee utility customers and 35,000 Talquin Electric customers without power, A mandatory evacuation of mobile and manufactured homes, and 3 homes destroyed and 27 with major damage
- Documentary stamp tax · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: 70 cents on each $100 of consideration on a deed in every county except Miami-Dade, 35 cents per $100 on a promissory note, capped at $2,450
- Rule 69O-186.003, Florida Administrative Code: title insurance rates · Florida Department of State, Florida Administrative Code · retrieved Supports: An owner's title insurance premium of $5.75 per $1,000 of liability to $100,000 and $5.00 per $1,000 from $100,000 to $1 million
- Section 627.701, Florida Statutes: liability of insureds; hurricane deductibles · The Florida Legislature · retrieved Supports: An insurer offering hurricane deductibles of $500, 2%, 5% and 10% of the policy dwelling limits
- Flood: Citizens' flood insurance requirements · Citizens Property Insurance Corporation · retrieved Supports: Under section 627.715, Florida Statutes, most new and renewing Citizens personal residential policies with wind coverage required to carry flood insurance by 1 January 2027
- FloodSmart · Federal Emergency Management Agency, National Flood Insurance Program · retrieved Supports: Most homeowners insurance not covering flood damage
- SB 4-D (2022): Building Safety, chapter 2022-269, Laws of Florida · The Florida Senate · retrieved Supports: Milestone inspections required of condominium and cooperative associations, and a prohibition on waiving or reducing reserves for certain items after a specified date
- Florida Hometown Heroes Housing Program · Florida Housing Finance Corporation · retrieved Supports: Down payment and closing cost assistance for first-time, income-qualified buyers in eligible occupations employed full time by a Florida-based employer, Up to 5% of the first mortgage, a maximum of $35,000 and a minimum of $10,000, as a 0%, non-amortizing, 30-year deferred second mortgage that is not forgivable