Kelowna vs St. Petersburg: which should you move to?
Kelowna or St. Petersburg? 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.
Kelowna
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St. Petersburg
The two housing bills are in different currencies, and held against local pay they are far apart. Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $5,262 CAD a month on Kelowna's single-family benchmark, roughly 74% of the metro's 2020 median household income, and about $2,742 USD on Zillow's typical value for the City of St. Petersburg, roughly 45% of the city's 2024 median, on houses that cost 12.6 and about 4.9 times those incomes. The tax sits in opposite places: a Kelowna earner pays about $20,500 CAD of $100,000 in federal and provincial income tax, while Florida levies none and collects about $6,248 a year, an effective 1.76%, on St. Petersburg's homesteaded value, with a $390 a month homeowners policy on top that covers wind and not flood. The two have more in common than the map suggests: both lost residents in their latest year, and both are waterside cities whose worst recent disaster came from the landscape around them, fire in Kelowna in 2023 and Helene's record surge in St. Petersburg in 2024. They part on work: Kelowna's metro unemployment was 9.3% in July 2026, the highest in Canada, against 4.8% across Tampa Bay. Choose Kelowna if your income or equity comes with you and you want a dry 20.0 C July and coverage that comes with residency. Choose St. Petersburg to buy a house on a salary in a warm city inside a large job market, if you will buy above the surge and insure against water as well as wind.
Kelowna prices are in CAD and St. Petersburg prices are in USD. The tables leave them in their own currency and compare ratios and rates instead; a conversion would be stale by the time you read it.
| Measure | Kelowna | St. Petersburg | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| City population | 166,278 (2026) | 264,033 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
| Metro population | 222,162 (2021) | 3,418,895 (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. | 13.5% (2016-2021) | 2.2% (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 | Kelowna | St. Petersburg | 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. | $1,072,400 (July 2026) | $355,759 (June 2026) | Not directly comparable |
| Detached house benchmark Kelowna and St. Petersburg publish a single house index rather than a composite, so the two rows repeat. | $1,072,400 | $355,759 | Not directly comparable |
| Apartment or condominium benchmark | $490,700 | Not published | Not directly comparable |
| Two-bedroom rent | $2,132/mo (average, October 2025) | $2,058/mo (median, June 2026) | Not directly comparable |
| One-bedroom rent | $1,600/mo | $1,770/mo | Not directly comparable |
| 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. | 30.1% of a year's income | 33.8% of a year's income | Kelowna |
| Mortgage payment on the benchmark, 20% down 25 years in Kelowna against 30 in St. Petersburg, each compounding the way its own country's lenders do. The rates are not a spread you can shop: they are what each market charges. | $4,672/mo at 4.34% | $1,831/mo at 6.67% | Not directly comparable |
| Price to household income Benchmark price divided by the median household income below. A ratio is comparable across currencies; the dollars are not. | 12.6× | 4.9× | St. Petersburg |
| 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. | $5,104/yr (0.476%, 2026) | $6,248/yr (1.756%, 2025) | Kelowna |
| 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. | $19,448 (buyer pays) | $2,490 (seller pays) | St. Petersburg |
| Rent control A cap protects a sitting tenant and does nothing for the next lease, so neither column is simply better. | 2.3% guideline (2026) | Forbidden by state law | Not directly comparable |
Kelowna: The 2026 Class 1 residential total of $4.7595 per $1,000 of taxable value: municipal $2.9615 plus the regional district, hospital, school, BC Assessment and MFA levies, before the Home Owner Grant, and before parcel taxes and utility user fees. St. Petersburg: About 1.76% of what you pay for the house, which is lower than the 19.9197 mills St. Petersburg is charged, and the difference is Florida's homestead exemption rather than any assessment lag. The state assesses at full market value and a purchase resets the assessment to the price. What there is instead is an exemption: $25,000 of taxable value comes off for every taxing authority and a second slice comes off for all of them except the Pinellas County school board, which levies 6.2930 of the 19.9197. That second slice was $25,000 through the 2024 tax roll and has been adjusted for inflation every 1 January since, under the 2024 amendment to Article VII section 6 of the state constitution, so it is now somewhat more than $25,000. The figures here use the base amount, because the Department of Revenue sends the adjusted figure to the county property appraisers rather than publishing it. The difference is worth a few dollars a year on a bill, and the county property appraiser can tell you the amount in force. A homesteaded buyer's first-year bill is therefore about $6,248 on the $355,759 typical home value here. That 19.9197 is the figure Pinellas County publishes for this taxing district rather than a total assembled here, and St. Petersburg's own council sets 6.4525 of it. The exemption is not automatic: you file for it with the county property appraiser by 1 March of the year after you buy. 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 | Kelowna | St. Petersburg | 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. | 103.7 (2025) | Not published | Not directly comparable |
| Violent crime per 100,000 Canada counts every violent Criminal Code incident; the FBI counts four offences. The Canadian figure is always the larger one for that reason alone. | 1,872 (2025) | 502 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
| Property crime per 100,000 | 4,749 (2025) | 2,059 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
| 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. | 4 (2025) | 9 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
The Kelowna CMA's Crime Severity Index has fallen four years running, from 126.03 in 2022 to 119.56 in 2023, 107.49 in 2024 and 103.68 in 2025, and its rank among CMAs dropped from second in 2022 to ninth in 2025. Most of the decline is in non-violent crime (128.98 in 2021 to 105.25 in 2025); the violent index has barely moved (104.48 to 101.94), and a May 2026 City of Kelowna citizen survey found one in four residents feel unsafe.
What the rates cover: Police-reported total violent Criminal Code violations per 100,000, Kelowna CMA, table 35-10-0177-01. 2024: 1,897.16; 2021: 1,947.46.
Homicides: Kelowna CMA homicide victims, table 35-10-0071-01, rate 1.58 per 100,000. 2024: 2 (0.80); 2023: 5 (2.04); 2022: 8 (3.36).
Down, and clearly so in 2025. On the FBI CDE's annual totals violent offenses were 1,622 in 2022, 1,519 in 2023, 1,642 in 2024 and 1,325 in 2025, about 618, 573, 618 and 502 per 100,000 on each year's Vintage 2025 population, so 2025 was 19% below 2024 after three flat years. Property offenses fell from 7,052 in 2023 to 6,528 in 2024 and 5,437 in 2025, down 17% in the last year, with motor vehicle theft more than halved from 917 in 2023 to 407. The department's own figures agree in direction and nearly in count: it reported overall crime down 16% in 2025, 175 robberies against a five-year average of 224, and 406 auto thefts against an average of 735 (Patch). The CDE counts were read on 1 October 2026 from a feed last refreshed on 15 September and can still be revised.
What the rates cover: Computed: 1,325 violent offenses (murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault) in the FBI Crime Data Explorer's summarized data for the St. Petersburg Police Department (ORI FL0521400) in calendar 2025, divided by the 264,033 Vintage 2025 city population. On the CDE's own agency population of 269,098 the rate is 492. That is close to Boston's 507 and Jacksonville's 514, above Tampa's 375.5 (on the Tampa Police Department's own counts) and Miami's 359, and almost four times Port St. Lucie's 130. The department reports to the CDE as annual totals rather than month by month, and the CDE carries a full year for each of 2022 to 2025 and nothing for 2021.
Homicides: 9 murders and nonnegligent manslaughters in 2025 in the FBI CDE, about 3.4 per 100,000 on the city population, against Tampa's 17 (4.1), Orlando's 10 (3.0) and Port St. Lucie's 4 (1.5). The department's own count, announced in January 2026, is 10 homicides, which it called the fewest since 1967, when the city had six, and 44% fewer than the 18 of 2024 (Patch, reporting the St. Petersburg Police Department). The CDE series is 16 in 2022, 13 in 2023, 18 in 2024 and 9 in 2025.
Winters, summers and what the weather can do to a house
| Measure | Kelowna | St. Petersburg | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| January mean | -2.6 °C | 16.8 °C | Not directly comparable |
| July mean | 20.0 °C | 28.8 °C | Not directly comparable |
| Precipitation a year | 387 mm | 1,185 mm | Not directly comparable |
| Snowfall a year | 89 cm | 0 cm | Not directly comparable |
| Sunshine a year | 1,949 hours | Not published | Not directly comparable |
Temperatures are Environment Canada 1991-2020 normals for the composite KELOWNA station (climate ID 1123939, airport site at 49 57 N 119 22 W, 433 m). The 1991-2020 tables for that station publish precipitation only for September, so precipitation, snowfall and sunshine are the 1981-2010 normals for KELOWNA A (climate ID 1123970). Summers are dry and hot (20.0 C July mean), winters cloudy and mild for the interior.
Hazards: Wildfire and summer smoke are the defining hazard: the August 2023 McDougall Creek fire jumped Okanagan Lake, put about 35,000 people under evacuation order, destroyed or damaged 189 structures and caused about $480 million in insured losses; most summers bring days of smoke from fires elsewhere in the interior. Spring freshet flooding along Okanagan Lake and Mill Creek (2017) and heat (June 2021 heat dome) are the others.
NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 normals for St. Petersburg Albert Whitted Airport (station USW00092806), the downtown waterfront airport about a mile east of the city's center, which is the station the brief names and has full temperature and precipitation normals: January mean 62.2F, July mean 83.8F, annual mean 74.7F, 46.65 in of precipitation. The airport's normals carry no snowfall, so the 0.0 in of snow stored here is the normal at the St. Petersburg cooperative station (USC00087886), at the same coordinates in NCEI's listing. August is the warmest month by two tenths of a degree at 84.0F, with a mean high of 89.8F; January's mean low is 55.3F. August (8.39 in) and July (7.49 in) are the wettest months, and June through September bring 29.33 in, 63% of the year; November (1.46 in) is the driest. The normals count 70.9 days a year at 90F or above, none at 100F and 0.1 nights at or below freezing. Converted here to 16.8 C, 28.8 C, 1,185 mm and 0 cm. The other stations bracket it: the cooperative station averages 62.1F in January and 83.9F in July with 52.48 in a year, and St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport (USW00012873), about 10 miles north and away from the bay, 61.6F and 83.1F with 53.62 in and 94.1 days at 90F. St. Petersburg's year is almost Tampa's (Tampa International's 62.0F and 83.8F); its January is level with Port St. Lucie's (62.3F), warmer than Orlando's (60.6F) and six degrees colder than Miami's (68.6F). Sunshine is not stored: Current Results' US city table, the source and 1961-1990 basis of the other US profiles' sunshine hours, lists Tampa (2,927 hours, at Tampa International) and no St. Petersburg station, and the 1991-2020 normals do not include sunshine; the city's nickname, the Sunshine City, rests on a Guinness record of 768 consecutive sunny days from 1967 to 1969 (Wikipedia), not on a measured annual total.
Hazards: Storm surge is the defining hazard, and 2024 showed how much of the city sits low. Hurricane Helene passed offshore on 26 September 2024 on its way to a Big Bend landfall, and the National Ocean Service tide gauge at St. Petersburg, the longest record in Tampa Bay, dating to 1947, measured 6.31 ft above mean higher high water, far above its previous record of 3.97 ft in Hurricane Elena in 1985 (National Hurricane Center). Twelve people drowned in the surge in Pinellas County, two of them in St. Petersburg and nine on the barrier islands from St. Pete Beach to Indian Rocks Beach, and Helene destroyed at least 419 homes in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties and did major damage to at least 18,512 structures (NHC). Albert Whitted recorded a gust of 82 mph that day. Two weeks later, on 9 October, Hurricane Milton came ashore at Siesta Key, about 35 miles south, as a Category 3; its track spared the bay a surge but not the rain or the wind. Albert Whitted measured 18.54 in (471 mm) on 9 October, the wettest day in its record since 2010, and the NHC gives the airport 18.88 in for the storm and a gust of 88 kt (101 mph); a volunteer gauge near the city recorded 20.40 in, the highest storm total anywhere in Milton's path. Milton tore most of the fabric roof off Tropicana Field (NHC) and toppled a construction crane onto a downtown office building that housed the Tampa Bay Times (Bay News 9). The Rays played the 2025 season at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa and returned on 6 April 2026 after repairs (Wikipedia). Wikipedia notes that neither storm made landfall in the city and that the last hurricane to strike it directly was in 1921. Heat is long rather than extreme: 70.9 days a year at 90F or above on the normals and none at 100F (37.8 C); Albert Whitted recorded 128 such days in 2024, the most in its record since 2010, and 94 in 2026 through 28 September. Frost is almost unknown on the waterfront: one night at 32F (0 C), on 18 January 2018, since 2010, and a lowest reading of 36F in 2026 on 1 February.
What people earn and what the government takes
| Measure | Kelowna | St. Petersburg | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median household income | $85,000 CAD (2020) | $73,048 USD (2024) | Not directly comparable |
| Unemployment rate Statistics Canada and the Bureau of Labor Statistics define unemployment slightly differently; the Canadian measure runs about a point higher on the same labour market. | 9.3% (July 2026) | 4.8% (July 2026) | Not directly comparable |
| Sales tax | 12% | 7% | St. Petersburg |
| 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. | 53.5% | 37% | St. Petersburg |
| 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. | $20,500 CAD | $13,449 USD | Not directly comparable |
Health care, retail and construction together account for about 41% of regional jobs, and tourism output reached $2.4 billion with 12,630 jobs in 2022. The Okanagan tech sector counted 787 companies and 32,645 jobs with a $4.98 billion economic impact in 2023 (Accelerate Okanagan/KPMG), but the CMA has carried the highest unemployment rate in Canada through spring and summer 2026 as the labour force has grown faster than jobs.
Main sectors: Health care and social assistance, Retail trade, Construction and real estate, Tourism and hospitality, Technology.
BC also levies a speculation and vacancy tax and an additional property transfer tax for foreign buyers in the Central Okanagan; MSP premiums were abolished in 2020, replaced by an employer health tax.
BLS counted 1,559,600 nonfarm jobs in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater MSA in August 2026 (not seasonally adjusted, preliminary), up 14,200 or 0.9% on the year. Private education and health services added the most (+9,700, or 3.8%, to 264,400), then professional and business services (+6,000, or 2.1%, to 288,800) and construction (+1,600, to 99,600), while information lost 1,700 (-5.6%, to 28,600) and federal employment 1,000 (to 30,900). The city's own employment picture is a headquarters town's: the ten principal private employers in its 2025 financial report, led by Raymond James (4,800), Johns Hopkins All Children's (2,800), Power Design and Jabil (1,700 each), employ 17,837, or 12.5% of the 147,705 people working in the city, against 20,300 for the 2016 list, which then included HSN, FIS and Bayfront Medical. Much of the commercial activity is in the Gateway area in the city's north, which it shares with Pinellas Park (Wikipedia). Unlike Port St. Lucie, most residents work in their own county: 14% of the city's workers (20,739 of 144,736) worked outside Pinellas County in 2024, 21.3% worked from home, and the mean commute for the rest was 25 minutes, with 5% spending an hour or more (ACS 2024 1-year, B08007, B08013, B08301 and B08303).
Main sectors: Finance and insurance: Raymond James, headquartered in the city and its largest private employer with 4,800 staff, Franklin Templeton (1,200) and the credit union service organization PSCU (800), in a metro with 142,400 financial activities jobs in August 2026, Health care: Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital (2,800 staff), BayCare's St. Anthony's Hospital (1,437), HCA (1,350) and Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital, in a metro sector (private education and health services, 264,400 jobs) that added 9,700 jobs over the year, Manufacturing and engineering: Jabil, the electronics manufacturer headquartered in the city (1,700), Catalent Pharma Solutions (800) and Power Design, an electrical contractor (1,700), Utilities: Duke Energy Florida, headquartered in the city (1,250 staff), Tourism, arts and sports: the Dali Museum, the Pier, seven miles of public waterfront parks, the Rays at Tropicana Field and the IndyCar Grand Prix on downtown streets (leisure and hospitality, 167,300 metro jobs).
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, with the Save Our Homes limit on how fast its assessment can rise (Florida Department of Revenue). A St. Petersburg home paid 19.9197 mills for 2025 on the Pinellas County Tax Collector's published total, of which the city's own rate is 6.4525; a little above Tampa's 19.8428 in the same layer. On 17 September 2026 the City Council voted 6 to 2 to keep the city rate at 6.4525 mills for fiscal 2027, the rate it has levied since fiscal 2025, which is above the 6.3854-mill rolled-back rate and so needed a two-thirds vote; rising taxable values, about $39.3 billion, bring the city about $14.8 million more (St Pete Catalyst). Zillow's typical home value for the city was $355,759 in June 2026, down 3.9% on the year, and its typical rent $2,058; the bills, insurance and flood exposure that follow from them belong to the housing layer.
Whether you need a car
| Measure | Kelowna | St. Petersburg | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| System | Kelowna Regional Transit System (BC Transit, operated with the City of Kelowna, West Kelowna, Lake Country, Peachland and the regional district) | Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (PSTA), the countywide agency formed in 1984 from the St. Petersburg Municipal Transit System and the Central Pinellas Transit Authority: more than 34 bus routes including two express routes to Tampa, the Central Avenue and Suncoast Beach trolleys, and the SunRunner, Tampa Bay's first bus rapid transit line, which opened on 21 October 2022 from downtown St. Petersburg along First Avenues North and South to St. Pete Beach every 15 minutes (Wikipedia). The Cross-Bay Ferry between downtown St. Petersburg and downtown Tampa ran seasonally for eight seasons until its operator's contract ended after 2025, and PSTA bought two vessels in June 2026 to restart it (Wikipedia). There is no passenger rail: CSX's freight branch ends at a small yard northwest of downtown, the line into downtown having been abandoned in 2008. | Not directly comparable |
| Commute by public transit | 4.0% (2021) | 2.1% (2024) | Kelowna |
| Walk or cycle to work | 9.1% (2021) | 2.9% (2024) | Kelowna |
| Airport | Kelowna International Airport (YLW), city-owned; 2,315,432 passengers in 2025, up 8.5% on 2.13 million in 2024, ninth busiest airport in Canada. | St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport (PIE), owned by Pinellas County about 9 miles north of downtown, handled a record 2,794,067 passengers in 2025, 13.6% more than 2024's 2,458,674, almost all of them on Allegiant Air, which uses it as an operating base (Wikipedia). Most of the city's air travel goes through Tampa International Airport (TPA), about 16 miles to the northeast across the Howard Frankland Bridge, which handled 24,811,007 passengers in 2025 (TPA, as in Tampa's profile). Albert Whitted Airport on the downtown waterfront serves general aviation. | Not directly comparable |
6.45 million rides in 2024 (up 330,000 on 2023), forecast 6.6 million for 2025 on about 219,000 service hours; more than 15,000 additional hours started January 2026 and another 12,380 are approved for 2027.
PSTA carried 10,441,618 unlinked trips in 2025 on the National Transit Database's monthly ridership file (Federal Transit Administration), 8,888,290 of them on its buses and 769,551 on the SunRunner, with the rest on vanpools, demand-response service and a ferry. That is a little below the 11.94 million HART carried in Hillsborough (Tampa's profile, from APTA) for a county with less than two-thirds of Hillsborough's population, and well below PSTA's own peak of 14.6 million in 2014; ridership fell to 9.1 million in 2022 and has recovered to about 10.4 to 10.5 million in each of 2024 and 2025. The SunRunner carried 1,036,048 trips in 2023, its first full year, and 769,551 in 2025.
Health care, schools and what each city is like
Health care
Care is publicly funded through the BC Medical Services Plan (no premiums since 2020) and delivered by Interior Health; Kelowna General Hospital is the interior's tertiary referral hospital with cardiac surgery and cancer care on site (BC Cancer Kelowna). Access is the problem rather than cost: KGH closed its pediatric unit for at least six weeks in May 2025 and curtailed neurology in January 2026 for lack of specialists, obstetricians warned of a collapse in primary maternity coverage, and finding a family doctor typically means a long wait on the provincial Health Connect Registry.
Education
UBC Okanagan (opened 2005, now roughly 12,000 students, with a record domestic intake of more than 3,000 new students in September 2025) and Okanagan College (about 5,200 FTE students across the valley) are the post-secondary anchors. Public schooling is School District 23 Central Okanagan, one of BC's fastest-growing districts, with French immersion and a few independent schools; there is no magnet or charter system.
Living there
Kelowna is a lake-and-orchard city of about 166,000 stretched along the east shore of Okanagan Lake, with a compact downtown, sprawling hillside subdivisions and a single bridge to West Kelowna that jams every afternoon. Summers are hot and dry and built around the beach, boats and the wineries; they also come with wildfire smoke, and the 2023 McDougall Creek fire is still a fresh memory. Housing costs are high for local wages, the unemployment rate led the country in 2026, and crime severity, though falling since 2022, is still well above the national figure.
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 (2,509,782 of 23,038,464), against 8.2% nationally, on the ACS 2024 1-year estimates; the City of St. Petersburg's was 7.3% (19,374 of 263,881), below Port St. Lucie's 9.9%, Pinellas County's 9.0% and the metro's 10.0%. The city is the county's hospital center. Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital, the city's oldest, on the site of a five-room hospital of 1910, is Pinellas County's only Level II trauma center and has a Level III regional perinatal intensive care center and the Bayflite helicopter program (Wikipedia). Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital, founded in 1926 and part of Johns Hopkins Medicine since 2011, has 259 beds and a Level I pediatric trauma center (Wikipedia). BayCare's St. Anthony's Hospital and HCA's hospitals are also among the city's ten largest private employers (City of St. Petersburg). This file did not verify a wait time figure for primary or specialist care.
Education
Pinellas County Schools, the countywide district, is shrinking: it reported more than 3,000 fewer students in 2025-26 than a year earlier (Bay News 9), its schools were 68% full against 87% ten years before, and in February 2026 the board voted to close two schools, Cross Bayou Elementary in Pinellas Park and Disston Academy in Gulfport, at the end of the 2025-26 year and to merge others (FOX 13). In higher education the city has the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, a downtown campus of about 6,500 students; Eckerd College, a private liberal arts college founded in 1958; St. Petersburg College, founded in 1927, a state college with four of its eleven campuses and centers in the city; and the Poynter Institute, the journalism school that owns the Tampa Bay Times (Wikipedia). Stetson University's law school is next door in Gulfport.
Living there
St. Petersburg is the smaller and older half of Tampa Bay's urban core: a city of 264,033 on the southern tip of the Pinellas peninsula, with more water than land inside its limits, connected to Tampa by the Gandy and Howard Frankland bridges and to Bradenton by the Sunshine Skyway. It was a railroad town before it was a resort (the Orange Belt Railway arrived in 1888 and the town was incorporated in 1892) and a retirement town for most of the twentieth century; its median age is still 43.0, the second-oldest of the Florida cities here after Port St. Lucie, though Wikipedia notes a younger turn since the Great Recession. Downtown is the draw, with the Dali Museum, the rebuilt Pier, seven miles of public waterfront parks, more than 600 murals and the Rays at Tropicana Field, who returned in April 2026 after Hurricane Milton tore off the roof but will leave: Hillsborough County voted 5 to 2 on 28 August 2026 to put $796 million toward a $2.3 billion stadium in Tampa for 2029 (WUSF). Its economy is a set of headquarters (Raymond James, Jabil, Duke Energy Florida) and hospitals (Johns Hopkins All Children's, Bayfront). The numbers set it apart from its Florida neighbors. It grew only 2.2% from 2020 to 2025 and lost residents in the year of the 2024 storms, in a county that is now losing people. Its median household income, $73,048, is $11,066 below Tampa's; its violent crime rate, 502 per 100,000 in 2025, is higher than Tampa's but falling, and its nine homicides were the fewest the police department has counted since 1967. It has the highest transit share of the Florida cities here outside Miami, at 2.1%. And it learned in 2024 what living in Tampa Bay costs: a record surge from Helene, which drowned twelve people in the county, and 18 inches of rain from Milton two weeks later.
Where each city wins, and where it loses
Kelowna's figures are in Canadian dollars and St. Petersburg's in US dollars. Kelowna's single-family benchmark for the Central Okanagan was $1,072,400 CAD in July 2026, 2.3% above a year earlier. St. Petersburg's figure is Zillow's typical home value for the city across all homes, $355,759 USD in June 2026, 3.9% below a year earlier, which is the city's row in this site's Tampa Bay table; it is an index across every home, condominiums included, rather than a modeled single-family benchmark, so the two are built differently. Held against pay, Kelowna's house is 12.6 times the metro's 2020 median household income of $85,000 CAD and St. Petersburg's value about 4.9 times the city's 2024 median of $73,048 USD, a figure with a margin of error of $4,441. At 20% down, Kelowna's mortgage at 4.34% is $4,672 CAD a month over 25 years, and the $284,607 loan on St. Petersburg's value at 6.67%, Freddie Mac's August rate, $1,831 USD over 30. Property tax is 0.48% of price in Kelowna, $5,104 CAD a year, against about $6,248 USD for a homesteaded owner in St. Petersburg, where a City address pays 19.9197 mills for 2025 on the Pinellas County Tax Collector's published total, the City's own 6.4525 among them beside the county, the school board, emergency medical services, the Juvenile Welfare Board, the water management district and the transit district: an effective 1.76% after Florida's homestead exemption, and about $7,087 without one. With insurance at $165 CAD and $390 USD a month, the St. Petersburg figure this site's estimate for a coastal Tampa Bay address, inside the $3,900 to $5,500 a year published for a St. Petersburg house with wind cover and with no flood cover in it, the owners carry about $5,262 CAD and $2,742 USD, roughly 74% and 45% of local median income. A two-bedroom averaged $2,132 CAD in October 2025, about 30% of Kelowna's median income. Zillow's observed rent index for St. Petersburg, across all homes, was $2,058 USD in June 2026, about 34%. Only British Columbia caps the increase on an existing tenancy, at 2.3% for 2026; Florida forbids rent control outright.
Homicide is the one count that crosses the border intact, with a caveat about territory: Kelowna's figures cover the metro and St. Petersburg's a city of 264,033. The Kelowna metro recorded 4 homicide victims in 2025, 1.58 per 100,000. St. Petersburg recorded 9 in the FBI's Crime Data Explorer, about 3.4 per 100,000; the police department's own count is 10, which it called the fewest since 1967, after 18 in 2024. The other rates are different instruments. Statistics Canada put the Kelowna metro's 2025 Crime Severity Index at 103.68 against a national 75.0, ninth highest of 41 metros; American cities have no equivalent. Kelowna's violent rate of 1,872 per 100,000 counts every violent Criminal Code violation, common assault and uttering threats included. St. Petersburg's 502 is 1,325 offenses of murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault reported by the St. Petersburg Police Department, divided by the Census estimate. Property crime, 4,749 per 100,000 against 2,059, is defined differently too. Both are moving down. Kelowna's index has dropped four years running from 126.03 in 2022, though a May 2026 city survey found one resident in four feels unsafe. St. Petersburg's violent offenses fell 19% in 2025 after three flat years, its property offenses 17%, and its motor vehicle thefts more than halved from 917 in 2023 to 407. The St. Petersburg counts, read on 1 October 2026, can still be revised.
Kelowna is dry and St. Petersburg is not. St. Petersburg gets 1,185 mm of precipitation a year, 63% of it from June to September, against Kelowna's 386.9 mm on its 1981-2010 normals. January averages 16.8 C at Albert Whitted Airport on St. Petersburg's downtown waterfront, with one night at 0 C since 2010, and -2.6 C at Kelowna's airport, with 89 cm of snow a year against none. July averages 28.8 C in St. Petersburg and 20.0 C in Kelowna; St. Petersburg's August is warmer still, and its normals count 70.9 days a year at or above 32.2 C (90F) and none at 37.8 C (100F), though the airport recorded 128 such days in 2024, the most in its record since 2010. Kelowna records 1,948.9 hours of sunshine; this site stores no sunshine figure for St. Petersburg, whose nickname, the Sunshine City, rests on a run of sunny days from 1967 to 1969 rather than a measured total. The defining hazards are fire and water. Kelowna's is fire: the August 2023 McDougall Creek fire jumped Okanagan Lake, put about 35,000 people under evacuation order and caused about $480 million in insured losses, and most summers bring days of smoke. St. Petersburg's is storm surge. Hurricane Helene passed offshore on 26 September 2024 and the tide gauge at St. Petersburg, the longest record in Tampa Bay, measured 6.31 ft above mean higher high water against a previous record of 3.97 ft; twelve people drowned in Pinellas County, two of them in the city. Two weeks later Milton came ashore at Siesta Key, about 35 miles south, dropped 18.54 in (471 mm) on Albert Whitted in a day and tore most of the roof off Tropicana Field. Neither storm made landfall in the city, and the last to strike it directly was in 1921.
The labor markets are the widest gap in the pair. The Kelowna metro's unemployment rate was 9.3% in July 2026 on a three-month average, the highest of any Canadian metro for a fourth straight month; its labor force has grown faster than its employers hire, in a market where health care, retail and construction are about 41% of regional jobs. The Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metro was at 4.8%, not seasonally adjusted, up from 4.1% a year earlier, against 4.4% for the US, and the City of St. Petersburg's own rate was 4.2%; the two are built differently, but the gap is too wide for that to close it. BLS counted 1,559,600 nonfarm jobs across Tampa Bay in August 2026, 14,200 or 0.9% more than a year earlier, led by private education and health services, with 142,400 in financial activities. St. Petersburg itself is a headquarters town: Raymond James, its largest private employer with 4,800 staff, Jabil, Duke Energy Florida and Franklin Templeton, beside Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital with 2,800. Median household income was $85,000 CAD in the Kelowna metro in 2020 and $73,048 USD in the City of St. Petersburg in 2024, $11,066 below Tampa's across the bay. British Columbia levies a provincial income tax, so $100,000 pays about $20,500 CAD before about $4,900 of CPP and EI, with a top combined rate of 53.5% and 12% on purchases. Florida levies none, so the same salary pays $13,449 USD in federal tax for 2025; the top rate is the federal 37% and sales tax is 7% in Pinellas County, the state's 6% and the Penny for Pinellas. Property tax carries more of the load instead, about $6,248 a year on St. Petersburg's typical value against $5,104 CAD on Kelowna's benchmark, at 1.76% of value against 0.48%.
Neither city lets most households give up the car, and Kelowna's commuters use the alternatives more. In the 2021 census 4.0% of Kelowna commuters took transit and 9.1% walked or cycled, counted in a pandemic year, and 84.3% went by car, truck or van. In St. Petersburg in 2024, 2.1% took transit, the highest share of the Florida cities this site compares outside Miami, 2.9% walked or cycled, 65.6% drove alone and 21.3% worked from home. The Kelowna Regional Transit System carried 6.45 million rides in 2024 on about 219,000 service hours. The Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority carried 10,441,618 trips across a county of 948,563 in 2025, 769,551 of them on the SunRunner, a bus rapid transit line every 15 minutes from downtown St. Petersburg to St. Pete Beach. There is no passenger rail in either. St. Petersburg's links to Tampa are the Gandy and Howard Frankland bridges, and the seasonal Cross-Bay Ferry stopped after 2025, though PSTA bought two vessels in June 2026 to restart it; Kelowna's choke point is the single bridge to West Kelowna, which jams every afternoon. YLW, owned by the City of Kelowna, handled 2,315,432 passengers in 2025, with most long trips connecting through Vancouver or Calgary. St. Pete-Clearwater International, about 9 miles north of downtown St. Petersburg, handled a record 2,794,067, almost all on Allegiant, and most of the city's flights go through Tampa International, about 16 miles away, which handled 24,811,007.
Health care is where the border shows most. In Kelowna, BC's Medical Services Plan pays for physician and hospital care with nothing due at the point of use and has charged no premiums since 2020, and Kelowna General is the interior's tertiary referral hospital. Access is the problem: the pediatric unit closed for at least six weeks in May 2025, neurology was curtailed in January 2026, and a family doctor means a wait on the Health Connect Registry. In St. Petersburg care is bought through an employer or marketplace plan, Medicare or Medicaid, and Florida is one of ten states that have not expanded Medicaid. Its uninsured rate was 10.9% in 2024, against 8.2% nationally; the City of St. Petersburg's was 7.3%, below both. The city is Pinellas County's hospital center: Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital is the county's only Level II trauma center, and Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital, with 259 beds, has a Level I pediatric trauma center, the specialty Kelowna General had to close for weeks. This site verified no wait time for either city. Kelowna's schools are School District 23 Central Okanagan, with French immersion and no magnet or charter system. Pinellas County Schools, the countywide district, reported more than 3,000 fewer students in 2025-26 than a year earlier, its schools were 68% full against 87% ten years before, and in February 2026 its board voted to close two schools. St. Petersburg has the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, a downtown campus of about 6,500 students, Eckerd College and four of St. Petersburg College's campuses and centers.
What people underestimate is that both cities are losing people, and what the St. Petersburg figure leaves out. Kelowna was estimated at 166,278 people in July 2026, against 167,659 a year earlier, its first annual decline since at least 2001, yet its single-family benchmark stood 2.3% above a year before; with nearly one worker in ten out of work, that price is being paid with income or equity from elsewhere. The City of St. Petersburg lost 1,822 residents, 0.7%, in 2024-25, the year that took in Helene and Milton, in a county where deaths have outnumbered births every year since 2020, and its typical value fell 3.9%. A Kelowna buyer pays $19,448 CAD in BC property transfer tax on the benchmark; Florida taxes the loan instead, about $1,565 in documentary stamp and intangible tax on a $284,607 mortgage, and the seller pays 0.7% on the deed, about $2,490 on the typical value. But the St. Petersburg carry buys no flood insurance, and flood is what Helene did there: the City assessed 13,494 parcels for damage afterward and recorded 5,189 with major damage and 146 destroyed, parcels rather than homes. On a damaged or renovated house, FEMA's substantial improvement rule decides what may be built: if the cost of the work reaches half the structure's market value before it starts, or the structure has sustained that much damage, the whole building has to be brought up to current flood standards, which near the bay can mean elevating it. The $6,248 assumes a homestead filed by 1 March of the year after the purchase; without one the same house owes about $7,087, and Save Our Homes resets a house's assessment to market value the January after a sale, so the seller's bill is no guide. A condominium adds an association fee this site estimates at $700 a month. Kelowna's 4.34% renews after a five-year term, while the St. Petersburg 6.67% holds for thirty years; at 7.03%, Freddie Mac's rate of 24 September 2026, the carry would be about $2,810.
Better here
- BC's Medical Services Plan covers physician and hospital care with nothing due at the point of use and has charged no premiums since 2020, where Florida has not expanded Medicaid and its uninsured rate was 10.9% in 2024.
- July averages 20.0 C and dry on the 1991-2020 normals, against 28.8 C in St. Petersburg, where the normals count 70.9 days a year at or above 32.2 C (90F), and there is no hurricane season.
- Property tax is 0.48% of price, $5,104 CAD a year on the benchmark, against an effective 1.76% on St. Petersburg's homesteaded typical value.
- A two-bedroom averaged $2,132 CAD in October 2025, about 30% of median household income, against about 34% on Zillow's St. Petersburg rent index, and BC caps an existing tenancy at 2.3% for 2026.
- Transit carried 4.0% of commuters in the 2021 census and 9.1% walked or cycled, against 2.1% and 2.9% in St. Petersburg in 2024.
- There were 4 homicide victims in the metro in 2025, 1.58 per 100,000, against 9 in St. Petersburg at about 3.4.
Worse here
- Metro unemployment was 9.3% in July 2026, the highest of any Canadian metro for a fourth straight month, against 4.8% in the Tampa-St. Petersburg metro on an unadjusted count.
- The single-family benchmark of $1,072,400 CAD in July 2026 is 12.6 times the metro's 2020 median household income, against about 4.9 times for Zillow's typical value in St. Petersburg.
- Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $5,262 CAD a month on the benchmark, roughly 74% of the 2020 metro median, and the buyer pays $19,448 in property transfer tax at closing.
- The August 2023 McDougall Creek fire put about 35,000 people under evacuation order and caused about $480 million in insured losses, and smoke arrives most summers.
- Income tax on $100,000 is about $20,500 CAD for 2025 against $13,449 USD of federal tax in St. Petersburg, sales tax is 12% against 7%, and the top combined rate is 53.5% against 37%.
- January averages -2.6 C with 89 cm of snow on its 1981-2010 normals, against 16.8 C and no snow in St. Petersburg.
Choose Kelowna if
- you already earn in Canadian dollars, or carry remote income or a pension, and do not need a local employer
- you want a dry 20.0 C July on a lake rather than a humid summer and a hurricane season
- you want health coverage that comes with residency rather than with an employer, a premium or a deductible
- you plan to rent for a while and want a legal cap on increases
The Kelowna guide · Neighbourhoods · Kelowna rent vs buy · Kelowna mortgage calculator
Better here
- Unemployment in the Tampa-St. Petersburg metro was 4.8% in July 2026, not seasonally adjusted, against 9.3% in the Kelowna metro, in a labor market of 1,559,600 jobs.
- Zillow's typical value of $355,759 USD in June 2026 is about 4.9 times the city's 2024 median household income, against 12.6 times for Kelowna's benchmark.
- Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $2,742 USD a month on that value, roughly 45% of local median income against about 74% in Kelowna.
- Florida levies no income tax, so $100,000 pays $13,449 USD in federal tax for 2025 and $13,170 for 2026, against about $20,500 CAD in Kelowna.
- January averages 16.8 C with no snow on the normals, against -2.6 C and 89 cm in Kelowna.
- Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital has a Level I pediatric trauma center and Bayfront is the county's Level II trauma center.
Worse here
- Property tax on the typical value is about $6,248 a year with a homestead, an effective 1.76%, and about $7,087 without one.
- Hurricane Helene pushed the bay a record 6.31 ft above mean higher high water in September 2024, the City recorded 5,189 parcels with major damage, and the $390 a month of insurance excludes flood.
- Florida is one of ten states that have not expanded Medicaid, and its uninsured rate was 10.9% in 2024 against 8.2% nationally.
- Zillow's rent index for the city was $2,058 USD in June 2026, about 34% of a median household income of $73,048, and Florida forbids rent control.
- Only 2.1% of workers commuted by transit in 2024, 65.6% drove alone, and there is no passenger rail.
- The normals count 70.9 days a year at or above 32.2 C (90F), and the airport recorded 128 in 2024, in humid air.
Choose St. Petersburg if
- you need a job where you live, in a metro at 4.8% unemployment rather than 9.3%
- you want to buy a house on a salary, at under five times what households around you earn
- you have employer health insurance you trust and want a winter without snow
- you will buy on elevation and flood zone first and carry flood insurance as well as wind
The St. Petersburg guide · Neighborhoods · St. Petersburg rent vs buy · St. Petersburg mortgage calculator
Kelowna or St. Petersburg, in short
Is Kelowna or St. Petersburg cheaper to live in?
St. Petersburg, to own, once each bill is held against its own city's pay, because the currencies do not convert here; renting is closer. A Kelowna owner pays about $5,262 CAD a month on mortgage, property tax and insurance, roughly 74% of the metro's 2020 median household income of $85,000 CAD, on a single-family benchmark 12.6 times that income. A St. Petersburg owner pays about $2,742 USD on Zillow's typical value of $355,759, roughly 45% of the city's 2024 median of $73,048 USD, despite a 6.67% mortgage rate against 4.34%, a homesteaded property tax of about $6,248 a year and $390 a month of insurance; no flood policy is in the figure. A two-bedroom averaged $2,132 CAD in Kelowna in October 2025, about 30% of median income, against Zillow's St. Petersburg rent index of $2,058 USD in June 2026, about 34%. The Kelowna buyer also pays $19,448 CAD in property transfer tax at closing, against about $1,565 of Florida tax on a St. Petersburg buyer's loan, and its income tax is heavier, about $20,500 CAD on $100,000 against $13,449 USD, with 12% sales tax against 7%.
Is Kelowna or St. Petersburg safer?
Kelowna on homicide, the one count that crosses the border, with the caveat that its figure covers the metro: 4 victims in 2025, about 1.58 per 100,000, against 9 in the City of St. Petersburg in the FBI's file, about 3.4, and 10 on its police department's count, the fewest since 1967. The other rates are different instruments. Kelowna's violent rate of 1,872 per 100,000 counts common assault and uttering threats, while St. Petersburg's 502 is offenses of murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, divided by the Census estimate and still open to revision. Property crime, 4,749 per 100,000 against 2,059, is defined differently as well. Statistics Canada put the Kelowna metro's Crime Severity Index at 103.68 in 2025, ninth highest of 41 metros and above the national 75.0, though it has dropped four years running; American cities have no equivalent. St. Petersburg's violent offenses fell 19% in 2025 and its vehicle thefts have more than halved since 2023.
Which has the better climate, Kelowna or St. Petersburg?
St. Petersburg has the easier winter and Kelowna the easier summer. January averages 16.8 C on St. Petersburg's waterfront with no snow, against -2.6 C in Kelowna and 89 cm on its 1981-2010 normals. July reverses it: 28.8 C and humid in St. Petersburg, with 70.9 days a year at or above 32.2 C (90F) on the normals and 128 at the airport in 2024, against 20.0 C and dry in Kelowna. St. Petersburg gets 1,185 mm of precipitation a year against 386.9 mm, 63% of it in summer storms. The hazards differ. Kelowna gets wildfire and smoke, and in August 2023 a fire jumped Okanagan Lake and put about 35,000 people under evacuation order. St. Petersburg gets storm surge, which reached a record 6.31 ft above mean higher high water in Helene in 2024, and Milton's 18.54 in of rain in a day two weeks later.
What happens to my health care if I move from Kelowna to St. Petersburg?
Coverage stops coming with residency and starts coming with a job or a purchase. In Kelowna, BC's Medical Services Plan pays for physician and hospital care with nothing due at the point of use and no premium since 2020, and the problem is access: Kelowna General closed its pediatric unit for at least six weeks in May 2025, curtailed neurology in January 2026 for lack of specialists, and a family doctor usually means a wait on the Health Connect Registry. In St. Petersburg you need an employer or marketplace plan, Medicare or Medicaid, with the premium, deductible and copay that come with it. Florida is one of the ten states that have not expanded Medicaid, and its uninsured rate was 10.9% in 2024 against 8.2% nationally; the City of St. Petersburg's was 7.3%. The city has Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital, Pinellas County's only Level II trauma center, and Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital, with a Level I pediatric trauma center. This site verified no wait time figure for either city.
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.
- Census Profile, 2021 Census of Population: Kelowna, City (CY) and Kelowna (CMA), British Columbia (CSV download) · Statistics Canada · retrieved Supports: population.city (2021 count), Metro population, Five-year growth, Median household income, Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share
- Kelowna is now a shrinking city · Kelowna Daily Courier (citing BC Stats) · retrieved Supports: City population
- Table 35-10-0026-01 Crime severity index and weighted clearance rates, Canada, provinces, territories and Census Metropolitan Areas · Statistics Canada · retrieved Supports: Crime Severity Index, Crime trend
- Table 35-10-0177-01 Incident-based crime statistics, by detailed violations, Canada, provinces, territories, Census Metropolitan Areas and Canadian Forces Military Police · Statistics Canada · retrieved Supports: Violent crime rate, Property crime rate
- Table 35-10-0071-01 Number and rate of homicide victims, by Census Metropolitan Areas · Statistics Canada · retrieved Supports: Homicides
- Police-reported Crime Severity Index and crime rate, by census metropolitan area, 2025 (The Daily, table 4) · Statistics Canada · retrieved Supports: Crime Severity Index, Crime trend
- Crime falls in Metro Kelowna, but region still ranks 9th highest in Canada · Castanet · retrieved Supports: Crime trend
- Crime on the decline in Kelowna: Statistics Canada · Kelowna Capital News · retrieved Supports: Crime trend
- Canadian Climate Normals 1991-2020: KELOWNA (climate ID 1123939) · Environment and Climate Change Canada · retrieved Supports: January mean, July mean
- Canadian Climate Normals 1981-2010: KELOWNA A (climate ID 1123970) · Environment and Climate Change Canada · retrieved Supports: Annual precipitation, Annual snowfall, Sunshine hours
- August 2023: McDougall Creek wildfire causes devastation in West Kelowna · Kelowna Capital News · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Kelowna's unemployment rate climbs for fifth straight month, worst in Canada · Kelowna Capital News · retrieved Supports: Unemployment rate
- Labour Force Survey, July 2026 · Statistics Canada, The Daily · retrieved Supports: Unemployment rate
- Okanagan Tech Sector Economic Impact Hits $4.98 Billion · Accelerate Okanagan · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
- Economic profile: Kelowna, British Columbia · Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
- BC 2026 & 2025 Tax Rates & Tax Brackets · TaxTips.ca · retrieved Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000
- Transit service hours continue to increase as Kelowna sees record ridership · Castanet · retrieved Supports: Transit ridership
- Kelowna International Airport (YLW): Winter 2025/2026 Update · Tourism Kelowna · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- Kelowna International Airport welcomed 2.3 million passengers in 2025 · City of Kelowna · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- Pediatric unit at Kelowna hospital to close for at least 6 weeks amid doctor shortage · CBC News · retrieved Supports: Health care
- Kelowna General Hospital doctors warn of 'collapse' of primary maternity care coverage · CBC News · retrieved Supports: Health care
- UBC Okanagan kicks off milestone year with record domestic enrolment · UBC Okanagan News · 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, Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend, Character, St. Petersburg city 258,358 (April 2020 base), 262,655 (2022), 264,921 (2023), 265,855 (2024) and 264,033 (2025); Pinellas County 948,563; Clearwater 114,364; national and Florida ranks and the 92 cities of 250,000 or more
- 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, Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater MSA 3,175,282 (April 2020 base) and 3,418,895 (2025) and its components of change; Pinellas County's 2024-25 loss of 11,834, its births, deaths and migration
- 2024 Gazetteer Files: Places (national) · US Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: point, City population, Climate normals, Airport passengers, Character, St. Petersburg city: 61.804 sq mi of land, 73.661 sq mi of water, internal point 27.762727, -82.644131
- St. Petersburg, Florida (history, geography, economy, arts, education, transportation) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Climate normals, Climate hazards, Main sectors, Labour market, Transit system, Education, Character
- Crime Data Explorer summarized agency data, St. Petersburg Police Department (FL0521400): violent crime, property crime, homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and arson, 2021-2025 · FBI · retrieved Supports: Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend, Character
- St. Pete Crime Rates Declined In 2025: Police · Patch · retrieved Supports: Homicides, Crime trend, Character, 10 homicides in 2025 against 18 in 2024, the fewest since 1967; overall crime down 16%; 175 robberies and 406 auto thefts against five-year averages of 224 and 735
- US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USW00092806 St. Petersburg Albert Whitted Airport (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: January mean, July mean, Annual precipitation, Climate normals, Climate hazards, January 62.2F, July 83.8F and August 84.0F and the monthly highs, lows and rain from the monthly series, which carries no snowfall normal for this station, and annual mean 74.7F, precipitation 46.65 in, 70.9 days at 90F, 0.0 at 100F and 0.1 nights at freezing from dataset=normals-annualseasonal-1991-2020 for the same station
- US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USC00087886 St. Petersburg (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 62.1F, July 83.9F, 52.48 in of precipitation
- US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USW00012873 St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate normals, January 61.6F, July 83.1F, 53.62 in of precipitation, 94.1 days at 90F
- NCEI data search, normals-monthly-1991-2020 stations within 28.0N to 27.6N and 82.85W to 82.45W · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate normals, the stations with 1991-2020 normals in and around the city, including USW00092806 and USC00087886 at 27.7628N, 82.6261W
- Global Historical Climatology Network daily summaries, St. Petersburg Albert Whitted Airport (USW00092806), 2010-2026 · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, 18.54 in on 9 October 2024 and a 101.1 mph gust; an 82.1 mph gust on 26 September 2024; 128 days at or above 90F in 2024 and 94 in 2026 through 28 September; 32F on 18 January 2018, the only reading at or below freezing since 2010; 36F on 1 February 2026
- Average Annual Sunshine in US Cities · Current Results (NCDC Comparative Climatic Data, 1961-1990) · retrieved Supports: Sunshine hours, Climate normals, Tampa 2,927 hours; no St. Petersburg station
- Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Helene (AL092024) · NOAA National Hurricane Center · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, Character, 6.31 ft above MHHW at the St. Petersburg tide gauge (record since 1947; previous record 3.97 ft in Elena, 1985); 12 drowned in Pinellas County, 2 in St. Petersburg; at least 419 homes destroyed and 18,512 structures with major damage in Pinellas and Hillsborough
- Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Milton (AL142024) · NOAA National Hurricane Center · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, Character, Landfall at Siesta Key as a Category 3; Albert Whitted storm total 18.88 in and gust 88 kt; maximum storm total 20.40 in at a CoCoRaHS site near St. Petersburg; Tropicana Field's fabric roof ripped off
- Tropicana Field roof damaged by Hurricane Milton, downtown St. Pete crane snapped · Bay News 9 · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Tropicana Field (Milton damage, 2025 season at Steinbrenner Field, return on 6 April 2026) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, Character
- A new Rays stadium in Tampa gets clinching Hillsborough County approval · WUSF · retrieved Supports: Character
- ACS 2024 1-year tables B19013, B25003 and B08301 for St. Petersburg, Tampa and Port St. Lucie cities, Pinellas County, the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater MSA, Florida and the US · 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 tables B08007 (place of work), B08013 (aggregate travel time) and B08303 (travel time to work) for St. Petersburg city and Pinellas County · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Labour market
- ACS 2024 1-year table B01002 (median age) for St. Petersburg, Tampa, Port St. Lucie, Jacksonville, Miami and Orlando cities, the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater MSA and the US · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Median household income, Character
- ACS 2024 1-year table B27001 (health insurance coverage) for St. Petersburg city, Pinellas County, the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater MSA, Florida and the US · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Health care
- Local Area Unemployment Statistics, Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL MSA (LAUMT124530000000003), St. Petersburg city (LAUCT126300000000003) and Pinellas County (LAUCN121030000000003), not seasonally adjusted · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved Supports: Unemployment rate
- Current Employment Statistics, Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL MSA: total nonfarm (SMU12453000000000001), construction (SMU12453002000000001), supersectors (SMU1245300xx00000001), retail trade and federal government (SMU12453009091000001) · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
- FY2025 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, Statistical Section: Principal Employers · City of St. Petersburg (filed with the Florida Auditor General) · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market, Health care, Character, Raymond James & Associates 4,800, All Children's Health 2,800, Power Design 1,700, Jabil Circuit 1,700, St. Anthony's Hospital 1,437, HCA Hospital 1,350, Duke Energy 1,250, Franklin Templeton 1,200, Catalent 800, PSCU 800; 17,837 or 12.45% of 147,705; the 2016 list of 20,300
- Discretionary Sales Surtax Information for Calendar Year 2026 (DR-15DSS) · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: Sales tax, Pinellas 1%, February 1, 1990 to December 31, 2029
- Penny for Pinellas: frequently asked questions · Penny for Pinellas (Pinellas County) · retrieved Supports: Sales tax, first approved in 1989 and in effect from 1990; renewed on November 7, 2017 for 2020-2029 with 83% support; tourists and seasonal visitors estimated to pay a third
- Florida Tax Rates & Rankings · Tax Foundation · retrieved Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000, Tax notes
- 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
- Millage rates levied for 2025 taxes · Pinellas County Tax Collector · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, St Petersburg real estate total 19.9197 mills, of which the city 6.4525 (as carried in lib/metro-tampa/market.ts)
- St. Pete keeps property tax rate unchanged · St Pete Catalyst · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, 6.4525 mills for fiscal 2027 adopted 6-2 on 17 September 2026, above the 6.3854 rolled-back rate
- St. Pete holds property tax rate steady · St Pete Catalyst · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, taxable values of about $39.3 billion; ad valorem revenue up about $14.8 million; 6.4525 mills since fiscal 2025
- Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI) and Observed Rent Index (ZORI), city files, June 2026 · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, St. Petersburg $355,759, down 3.9% year over year, and rent $2,058, as carried in lib/metro-tampa/market.ts
- Monthly Module Adjusted Data Release, complete monthly ridership with adjustments and estimates (Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority, NTD 40027) · Federal Transit Administration, National Transit Database (via data.transportation.gov) · retrieved Supports: Transit ridership, Transit system
- Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (history, routes, SunRunner, Cross-Bay Ferry) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Transit system
- St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport (location, owner, airlines, annual passenger traffic 2024 and 2025) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- Status of State Medicaid Expansion Decisions · KFF · retrieved Supports: Health care
- Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Health care, Main sectors
- Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Health care, Main sectors
- Pinellas County School Board considers closing schools due to low enrollment · Bay News 9 · retrieved Supports: Education
- Pinellas County Schools move forward with closures, consolidations as enrollment declines district wide · FOX 13 · retrieved Supports: Education
- July 2026 statistics: Association of Interior REALTORS® monthly news release · Association of Interior REALTORS® · retrieved Supports: Central Okanagan single-family benchmark of $1,072,400, up about 2.3% year over year, Central Okanagan townhouse benchmark of $709,500, down 2.4% year over year, Central Okanagan condominium benchmark of $490,700, down 2.0% year over year, 1,496 residential sales and 9,630 active listings across the association's region in July 2026
- Rental Market Survey: Kelowna (CY), average rent and vacancy by bedroom type, October 2025 · Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation · retrieved Supports: City of Kelowna one-bedroom average rent of $1,600 with a 9.1% vacancy rate, City of Kelowna two-bedroom average rent of $2,132 with a 5.5% vacancy rate, City of Kelowna three-bedroom-plus average rent of $2,780, City of Kelowna overall purpose-built vacancy rate of 6.9% across 9,159 units, Kelowna CMA vacancy rate of 6.3%, and 7.5% in the Rutland survey zone
- Schedule 702: 2026 tax rates by municipality and property class · Province of British Columbia, Ministry of Municipal Affairs · retrieved Supports: Kelowna's 2026 Class 1 residential total rate of $4.7595 per $1,000 of taxable value, The municipal share of $2.9615, the school levy of $1.3110, the regional district levy of $0.2437 and the hospital levy of $0.2050
- Home owner grant · Province of British Columbia · retrieved Supports: The grant of up to $770 on an eligible principal residence outside the northern and rural area
- Premium information for homeowner and small rental loans · Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation · retrieved Supports: Mortgage default insurance premium rates by loan-to-value
- Regulations amending the Insurable Housing Loan Regulations and the Eligible Mortgage Loan Regulations (SOR/2025-55) · Canada Gazette, Part II · retrieved Supports: The $1.5 million insured price cap, 30-year amortization for first-time buyers and new builds
- Minimum qualifying rate for uninsured mortgages · Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions · retrieved Supports: The qualifying rate of the contract rate plus two points, or 5.25%
- Interest rates charged for new and existing lending by chartered banks · Bank of Canada · retrieved Supports: The default mortgage rate of 4.34%, uninsured five-year-plus fixed, funds advanced May 2026
- Property transfer tax · Province of British Columbia · retrieved Supports: Transfer tax brackets, First-time buyer and new build exemptions
- Rent increases · Province of British Columbia · retrieved Supports: 2026 rent increase guideline of 2.3%
- Final 2025 millage rates by taxing district · Hillsborough County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: Published totals of 19.8428 for Tampa, 19.5319 for Temple Terrace, 18.2926 for Plant City and 18.2515 for the unincorporated county, Every component behind them, including the 0.5583 library services levy Temple Terrace and Plant City are outside and the 0.5000 transit authority levy Plant City is outside, A county General Purpose MSTU of 4.6163 paid in the unincorporated area in place of a municipal rate
- Table 1: Comparison of Taxes Levied, county and municipal governments, fiscal years 2024-25 and 2025-26 · Florida Department of Revenue, Property Tax Oversight · retrieved Supports: Independent confirmation of each municipality's own adopted 2025-26 levy in both counties
- Annual estimates of the resident population for incorporated places, 2020 to 2024 · United States Census Bureau, Population Estimates Program · retrieved Supports: 2020 census counts and 2024 estimates for each municipality, Tampa at 414,547 and St. Petersburg at 267,102; Indian Shores at 1,190
- Hurricane Helene storm surge and Pinellas County flooding, September 2024 · Latent Insurance, on National Weather Service and Pinellas County data · retrieved Supports: The largest storm surge on record for St. Petersburg, over six feet in the city and more than seven on the barrier islands, Thousands of Pinellas homes flooded, many of which had never flooded before, St. Petersburg single-family homeowners insurance of roughly $3,900 to $5,500 a year with wind coverage, and higher on the barrier islands
- Home insurance in Tampa, Florida: 2026 rates · InsuranceQuotes · retrieved Supports: Tampa homeowners insurance averaging about $2,400 a year in 2026, A Tampa Bay range of roughly $3,285 to $5,100 across Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco
- Primary Mortgage Market Survey · Freddie Mac · retrieved Supports: 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaging 6.67%
- Documentary stamp tax · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: 70 cents per $100 on a deed, in every county except Miami-Dade, which charges 60 cents plus a 45-cent surtax, 35 cents per $100 on a promissory note or other written obligation to pay money
- Governmental leasehold intangible personal property tax and the non-recurring intangible tax on mortgages · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: A non-recurring intangible tax of 2 mills: 0.2%, on the obligation secured by a mortgage on Florida real property
- Property tax exemptions and additional benefits · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: A $25,000 homestead exemption applying to all taxing authorities and a second slice, $25,000 in the 2024 base year and adjusted for inflation each 1 January since, applying to all but the school district, The Save Our Homes assessment limitation of 3% or the change in CPI, whichever is lower, Portability of up to $500,000 of accrued Save Our Homes benefit to a new homestead, The 1 March filing deadline
- Chapter 2023-17, Laws of Florida: preemption of rent control · The Florida Senate · retrieved Supports: The repeal of the referendum exception that had allowed a local rent control ordinance in a declared housing emergency
- 2025 Gazetteer files: places, Florida · United States Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: A land area of 61.806 square miles and a water area of 73.659 square miles for St. Petersburg city
- Helene_Damage_Assessment_Data, one point per parcel assessed after Hurricane Helene · City of St. Petersburg, ArcGIS Online · retrieved Supports: 13,494 parcels assessed after Hurricane Helene, 5,189 of them recorded as major damage and 146 as destroyed, A record per parcel rather than per home, with no description published for the layer
- Substantial improvement · Federal Emergency Management Agency · retrieved Supports: Substantial improvement is any reconstruction, rehabilitation, addition or other improvement whose cost equals or exceeds 50 percent of the market value of the structure before the start of construction, The category also covers structures that have sustained substantial damage, whatever repair work is actually carried out