Tampa vs Houston: which should you move to?
Tampa or Houston? 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.
Houston
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Both cities price in US dollars and neither state taxes income, so the figures net directly, a single filer on $100,000 pays the same $13,449 in federal tax in each, and the tax story is the house. Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $2,906 a month on Tampa's typical home and about $2,578 on HAR's Greater Houston single-family median, a regional figure, a $328 gap that would be about $401 with Tampa's payment at Houston's September rate of 7.03% rather than August's 6.67%. Against local pay it runs the other way, roughly 41% of the City of Tampa's median household income against 48% of Houston's, because Tampa households earn about $20,000 more. Renting is clearly Houston's, $1,327 for a two-bedroom against $1,999. Tampa reports the lower crime, 17 homicides in 2025, about 4.1 per 100,000, against 270 at about 11.3, on counts built differently. Houston has a labor market more than twice the size. Both are Gulf flood cities and neither figure includes flood cover. Choose Tampa for a 16.7 C January, Tampa General and the lower crime. Choose Houston for the rent, for energy, engineering and medical work, and for two airports.
| Measure | Tampa | Houston | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| City population | 413,554 (2025) | 2,397,315 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
| Metro population | 3,418,895 (2025) | 7,904,627 (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. | 7.3% (2020-2025) | 4.2% (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 | Tampa | Houston | 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. | $380,283 (June 2026) | $330,000 (August 2026) | Houston |
| Detached house benchmark Tampa and Houston publish a single house index rather than a composite, so the two rows repeat. | $380,283 | $330,000 | Houston |
| Apartment or condominium benchmark | Not published | Not published | Not directly comparable |
| Two-bedroom rent | $1,999/mo (median, June 2026) | $1,327/mo (median, September 2026) | Houston |
| One-bedroom rent | $1,719/mo | $1,120/mo | Houston |
| 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. | 28.5% of a year's income | 24.7% of a year's income | Houston |
| Mortgage payment on the benchmark, 20% down 30-year amortization on American monthly compounding, the convention in both. | $1,957/mo at 6.67% | $1,762/mo at 7.03% | Houston |
| Price to household income Benchmark price divided by the median household income below. A ratio is comparable across currencies; the dollars are not. | 4.5× | 5.1× | Tampa |
| 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. | $6,712/yr (1.765%, 2025) | $4,392/yr (1.331%, 2025) | Houston |
| 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. | $2,662 (seller pays) | None | Houston |
| 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 |
Tampa: About 1.77% of what you pay for the house, which is lower than the 19.8428 mills Tampa 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 Hillsborough County school board, which levies 6.3400 of the 19.8428. 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 $6,712 on the $380,283 typical home value here. That 19.8428 is the figure Hillsborough County publishes for this taxing district rather than a total assembled here, and Tampa's own council sets 6.2076 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. Houston: About 1.33% of value for a homesteaded owner, worked out on the $330,000 Greater Houston median single-family sale price. A house in the City of Houston and Houston ISD, in Harris County, is taxed by eight units for 2025, which add to 2.12522 per $100 before any exemption. Each takes its own homestead exemption off the appraised value first: Houston ISD the state's $140,000 and a further 20% of its own, Houston City College 17%, and Harris County, the Flood Control District, the Port of Houston Authority, the Hospital District, the Department of Education and the City 20% each. So Harris County levies 0.38096 per $100 on $264,000 after a $66,000 exemption, $1,006; Harris County Flood Control District levies 0.04966 per $100 on $264,000 after a $66,000 exemption, $131; Port of Houston Authority levies 0.0059 per $100 on $264,000 after a $66,000 exemption, $16; Harris County Hospital District levies 0.18761 per $100 on $264,000 after a $66,000 exemption, $495; Harris County Department of Education levies 0.004798 per $100 on $264,000 after a $66,000 exemption, $13; City of Houston levies 0.51919 per $100 on $264,000 after a $66,000 exemption, $1,371; Houston ISD levies 0.8783 per $100 on $124,000 after a $206,000 exemption, $1,089; Houston City College levies 0.098802 per $100 on $273,900 after a $56,100 exemption, $271. The eight come to $4,391 a year, 1.33% of the price. Without a homestead, as a landlord or a buyer who never files, the same house owes $7,013. The median is the region's, and a typical home inside the city is cheaper: on $261,740, Zillow's August 2026 value for a typical City of Houston home, the same eight units come to $3,228, 1.23%, lower because the school district's flat exemption is a larger share of a cheaper house. These are the 2025 rates, the bills due by 31 January 2026. When these figures were retrieved the Harris County Tax Office's table already listed 2026 rates for the county, the Flood Control District, the Hospital District and the Port, but not yet for the City, Houston ISD or the college, so the calculators stay on 2025 until all eight are published.
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 | Tampa | Houston | 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 | 376 (2025) | 890 (2025) | Tampa |
| Property crime per 100,000 | 1,465 (2024) | 3,854 (2025) | Tampa |
| 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. | 17 (2025) | 270 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
Violent crime in the city fell from 2,031 offences in 2023 to 1,862 in 2024 and 1,553 in 2025 (TPD 2025 Annual Report), with homicides halving in 2025 to 17. Total crime fell 21.3% in 2025 and TPD reported a 22% mid-year drop the year before, so the direction over three years is clearly down, though the figures remain preliminary until certified under NIBRS.
What the rates cover: Computed: Tampa Police Department 2025 Annual Report counts 1,553 violent crimes (robbery, aggravated assault/battery, murder, sexual battery) in 2025, down from 1,862 in 2024 and 2,031 in 2023; divided by the 413,554 Vintage 2025 city population. FBI UCR-based 2024 figure for comparison: 1,817 offences, 445 per 100k. TPD notes Florida moved to NIBRS in 2022 and figures are preliminary until certified by FDLE and the FBI.
Homicides: City of Tampa, 2025: 17 homicides, a 52.8% drop from 36 in 2024 (FBI UCR 2024 count 36, 8.8 per 100k). Works out to about 4.1 per 100k in 2025. TPD calls it the lowest annual total in more than 50 years. One January 2026 FOX 13 report quoted 19; the 52.8% figure in TPD's annual report is consistent with 17.
On the FBI's definitions, violent offenses in Houston went from 28,850 in 2021 to 26,383 in 2022, 25,517 in 2023, 26,758 in 2024 and 21,345 in 2025, a 20% drop in the last year and 26% in four, and property offenses from 97,068 to a peak of 105,522 in 2022, then 104,829, 100,302 and 92,382, 12% below the peak. Motor vehicle theft rose from 15,694 in 2021 to 20,085 in 2023 and fell to 12,516 in 2025. In 2025 the CDE shows aggravated assaults down 19% (18,341 to 14,839), robberies down 24% (6,359 to 4,859), rapes down 20% (1,729 to 1,377) and murders down 18% (329 to 270). HPD's own year-end counts show the same direction: homicides down from 331 to 272, robberies from 6,438 to 4,987 and aggravated assaults from 18,590 to 15,378 (Major Cities Chiefs Association survey, as reported by the Houston Chronicle). The 2025 CDE counts were read on 30 September 2026 from a feed last refreshed on 15 September and can still be revised.
What the rates cover: Computed: 21,345 violent offenses (murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault) in the FBI Crime Data Explorer's summarized data for the Houston Police Department (ORI TXHPD0000) in calendar 2025, divided by the 2,397,315 Vintage 2025 city population. On the CDE's own agency population of 2,413,559 the rate is 884. HPD's year-end figures as reported to the Major Cities Chiefs Association and quoted by the Houston Chronicle run slightly higher than the CDE's: 272 homicides, 4,987 robberies and 15,378 aggravated assaults, against 270, 4,859 and 14,839. The Chronicle did not give HPD's rape count, so HPD's own total on the FBI definition could not be rebuilt.
Homicides: 270 murders and nonnegligent manslaughters in 2025 in the FBI CDE, against 329 in 2024, about 11.3 per 100,000 on the city population. HPD's own year-end count, obtained by the Houston Chronicle through an open records request, was 272 against 331 in 2024, a 17% drop; nothing fetched explains the gap of two cases in each year between the two series. The high point in the CDE series since 2021 is 474, in 2021.
Winters, summers and what the weather can do to a house
| Measure | Tampa | Houston | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| January mean | 16.7 °C | 12.1 °C | Not directly comparable |
| July mean | 28.8 °C | 29.5 °C | Not directly comparable |
| Precipitation a year | 1,176 mm | 1,317 mm | Not directly comparable |
| Snowfall a year | 0 cm | 0 cm | Not directly comparable |
| Sunshine a year | Not published | 2,578 hours | Not directly comparable |
NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 normals, Tampa International Airport (USW00012842): January mean 62.0 F, July mean 83.8 F (August is the warmest month at 84.0 F), annual precipitation 46.30 in, annual snow normal 0. About 30 of those inches (762 mm) fall June through September. Sunshine hours are not part of the 1991-2020 normals product and were not verified.
Hazards: Hurricanes and storm surge are the defining hazard: Helene's surge in September 2024 flooded coastal Tampa Bay neighborhoods, then Milton made landfall near Siesta Key on October 9, 2024 as a Category 3, and 2024 alone generated 10,261 NFIP flood claims and about $1.1 billion in payouts in Hillsborough County. Flood insurance is effectively required in much of the city and has grown costlier under NFIP Risk Rating 2.0; summer heat indices above 100 F and daily lightning storms are routine from June to September.
NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 normals for Houston Bush Intercontinental Airport (station USW00012960), inside the city about 23 miles north of downtown and the station where the National Weather Service keeps Houston's official record: January mean 53.8F, July mean 85.1F, annual mean 70.5F, 51.84 in of precipitation, 0.1 in of snow. August is the warmest month by a tenth of a degree at 85.2F, with a mean high of 94.9F; July's mean high is 94.5F and January's mean low is 43.7F. June (6.00 in) and October (5.46 in) are the wettest months and February (2.97 in) the driest, and rain is spread through the year with no dry season. The normals count 111.3 days a year at 90F or above, 7.0 at 100F or above and 10.1 nights at or below freezing. William P. Hobby Airport (USW00012918), about 7 miles southeast of downtown and nearer the Gulf, averages 55.0F in January and 84.8F in July with 55.62 in of rain, 2.9 days at 100F or above and 4.2 nights at or below freezing; its normals give no snowfall. Converted here to 12.1 C, 29.5 C, 1,317 mm and 0.3 cm. That precipitation is the most of any Texas city this site compares, 344 mm more than Dallas's at Love Field. Sunshine hours are the older 1961-1990 NCDC means (2,578 hours, 59% of possible, and 90 clear days), since the 1991-2020 normals do not include sunshine.
Hazards: Flooding is the defining hazard, from hurricanes, tropical storms and stalled rain alike. Hurricane Harvey made landfall near Port Aransas as a category 4 storm on 25 August 2017 and then stalled inland, and over four days 26 to 47 in (660 to 1,204 mm) of rain fell across Harris County, a maximum of 47.4 in at Clear Creek and I-45 and an average of 33.7 in (856 mm) over the county's 1,777 square miles, about 1 trillion gallons. The Harris County Flood Control District counted 154,170 homes flooded in the county, 68% of them outside the 100-year floodplain and 64% without flood insurance, 60,049 people rescued by government crews and 36 flood deaths in the county; statewide Harvey killed 68 people directly, the most from a landfalling hurricane in Texas since 1919. Bush Intercontinental recorded 31.26 in (794 mm) from 25 to 29 August, including 16.07 in (408 mm) on the 27th, the wettest day in its record since 1969, and Hobby 37.01 in (940 mm). NOAA puts Harvey's cost at $125 billion ($160 billion in 2024 dollars, second only to Katrina on its list). Harvey came after others: Tropical Storm Allison in June 2001 ($8.5 billion, 43 deaths), Hurricane Ike in September 2008 ($30.0 billion, 112 deaths), the Tax Day flood of 17 and 18 April 2016 ($2.7 billion, 8 deaths, with 9.92 in at Bush Intercontinental on the 18th) and Tropical Storm Imelda in September 2019 ($5.0 billion, 5 deaths). Wind and the power grid are the second hazard. On 16 May 2024 a derecho cut power to more than 900,000 customers in the Houston area and killed 8 people, and on 8 July 2024 Hurricane Beryl came ashore near Matagorda as a category 1 storm with 80 kt (92 mph) winds and crossed the western side of the metro, gusting to 72 kt (83 mph) at Bush Intercontinental and dropping 14.88 in (378 mm) at a gauge in western Houston. More than 2.2 million customers in the region lost power that afternoon (the National Hurricane Center cites media reports of 2.7 million across southeastern Texas), many of them for days in July heat. The NHC counted 11 direct deaths in Texas and 34 indirect ones, 14 of them from heat as the power stayed off, and NOAA puts the damage at $7.2 billion. Heat is the constant. The normals give only 7.0 days a year at or above 100F (37.8 C), far fewer than Dallas's 22.4, but 111.3 at or above 90F. Bush Intercontinental's record is 46 days of 100F in 2011, including 24 in a row from 1 to 24 August, and 45 in 2023, and its highest reading is 109F (42.8 C), on 4 September 2000, 27 August 2011 and 24 and 27 August 2023; 2026 had 9 such days through 21 September. Cold is rare and badly handled. Winter Storm Uri brought 1.0 in (2.5 cm) of snow to Bush Intercontinental on 15 February 2021 and a low of 13F (-10.6 C) on the 16th, above the station's record of 7F (-13.9 C) on 23 December 1989. ERCOT cut power across the state grid from 15 to 18 February and about 4.5 million customers lost it at the worst; Texas counted 246 deaths from the storm, 43 of them in Harris County, more than in any other county. On 20 and 21 January 2025 a Gulf Coast snowstorm left 1.4 in (3.6 cm) at the airport and a low of 20F (-6.7 C) on the 22nd.
What people earn and what the government takes
| Measure | Tampa | Houston | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median household income | $84,114 USD (2024) | $64,361 USD (2024) | Tampa |
| Unemployment rate | 4.7% (June 2026) | 5.1% (July 2026) | Tampa |
| Sales tax | 7.5% | 8.25% | Tampa |
| 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 1,583,300 nonfarm jobs in the MSA in December 2025, up 0.9% over the year, with education and health services (+4.2%) and leisure and hospitality (+2.0%) leading and the May 2025 mean hourly wage of $31.96 sitting below the US average of $33.54. The largest industries by employment in the metro in 2024 were health care and social assistance, retail trade, and professional, scientific and technical services (Census ACS via Data USA).
Main sectors: Health care and social assistance, Finance, insurance and professional services, Retail and leisure/hospitality, Port, logistics and defense (Port Tampa Bay, MacDill AFB), Higher education and research (USF, Moffitt).
Florida has no state income tax, estate tax or inheritance tax. Property tax is the main local levy; homesteaded owners get a $50,000 exemption and the Save Our Homes 3% annual assessment cap, which means long-time owners pay much less than a new buyer of the same house.
BLS counted 3,495,300 nonfarm jobs in the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands MSA in August 2026 (not seasonally adjusted, preliminary), up 44,700 or 1.3% on the year. Construction grew fastest (+5.5%, to 269,000), then professional and business services (+2.6%, to 581,300) and government (+1.9%), with education and health services and leisure and hospitality both up 1.3%, while information (-5.9%), financial activities (-1.2%), mining and logging (-0.5%, to 73,300) and manufacturing (-0.2%, to 240,400) shrank. Trade, transportation and utilities is the largest sector at 695,600 jobs, unchanged on the year. The seasonally adjusted series (SMS48264200000000001) was 3,510,100 in August 2026, 1.2% above August 2025. The Greater Houston Partnership counts 27 Fortune 500 headquarters in the region on the 2026 list, tied with Chicago for second among US metros behind New York and ahead of Dallas-Fort Worth's 24, with a 28th due when Expand Energy moves to Spring; ExxonMobil (No. 9) and Chevron (No. 21) lead them. Port Houston calls the Houston Ship Channel complex the nation's largest port for waterborne tonnage (309.5 million tons in 2023, USACE) and the fifth-ranked US container port by TEUs.
Main sectors: Energy: oil and gas producers, refiners, pipelines and oilfield services (ExxonMobil, Chevron, Phillips 66, ConocoPhillips, Enterprise Products Partners, Baker Hughes, Halliburton, Cheniere Energy), Trade, transportation and utilities, the metro's largest sector (the Port of Houston, the nation's largest port by waterborne tonnage; Sysco; United Airlines at Bush Intercontinental; CenterPoint Energy, NRG Energy), Professional and business services, including engineering and construction (KBR, Quanta Services, Comfort Systems USA, Waste Management), Health care and life sciences (the Texas Medical Center, Memorial Hermann, Houston Methodist, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Texas Children's Hospital), Petrochemicals and advanced manufacturing along the Houston Ship Channel (Westlake, NOV).
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. The City of Houston's own rate for tax year 2025 is 51.919 cents per $100 of taxable value, left unchanged by an 11-3 council vote on 15 October 2025 although the city controller warned it would open a $53 million gap in the $7 billion fiscal 2026 budget; the budget committee chair, who voted against, said there was still room under both the state's and the city's own revenue caps. On 10 June 2026 the council passed a $7.5 billion budget for fiscal 2027 by 15 to 1, closing a projected deficit of more than $200 million with no increase in the property tax rate and a new $5 monthly solid waste fee on residential water bills. The rate for tax year 2026 had not been published in anything fetched. The county, school district, METRO and other levies on the same bill belong to the housing layer.
Whether you need a car
| Measure | Tampa | Houston | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| System | HART (Hillsborough Area Regional Transit) buses, the TECO Line Streetcar between downtown and Ybor City, and HART's MetroRapid and on-demand HARTFlex services | METRO buses (more than 80 local routes plus Park & Ride commuter buses on the HOV and HOT lanes), three METRORail light rail lines on 22.7 miles of track (the Red Line, opened in 2004, and the Green and Purple lines, opened in 2015), the Silver Line bus rapid transit in Uptown, METRO curb2curb on-demand service and METROLift paratransit, across a service area of about 1,300 square miles | Not directly comparable |
| Commute by public transit | 1.2% (2024) | 3.4% (2024) | Houston |
| Walk or cycle to work | 3.4% (2024) | 2.9% (2024) | Tampa |
| Airport | Tampa International Airport (TPA), 24,811,007 passengers in calendar 2025 (+0.22% on 2024), 27th busiest US airport, 635 daily flights, Southwest the largest carrier at 24% (TPA Fact Sheet, June 2026). | George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH), about 23 miles north of downtown and a hub for United Airlines, handled 48,131,213 passengers in 2025, 0.6% fewer than the 48.4 million of 2024 (FAA figures as cited by Wikipedia; Houston Airports gave no per-airport total for 2025 in anything fetched), and a record 12.4 million international passengers, 2.5% more than in 2024. William P. Hobby Airport (HOU), about 7 miles southeast of downtown and an operating base for Southwest Airlines, handled 13,943,759, 4.5% fewer than 2024's 14.6 million; it kept Skytrax's 5-star rating for a fifth year, the only one in North America. Houston Airports puts the two together at 62 million passengers in 2025, below the record 63.1 million of 2024, and a record 562,809 metric tons of air cargo. | Not directly comparable |
HART carried about 11.94 million unlinked trips in 2025 (APTA Transit Ridership Report, Q4 2025). The 2.7-mile TECO Line Streetcar, fare-free since 2018, carried 1,323,715 riders in 2024, its record year.
METRO carried 77,996,900 unlinked trips in 2025, 63,315,900 of them by bus and 12,651,100 on light rail, and about 251,800 a weekday in the second quarter of 2026, 37,700 of them on light rail (APTA ridership reports, as cited by Wikipedia; APTA's PDFs refused the fetcher). METRO's own count for fiscal 2025 is 76.3 million boardings on bus and METRORail, 23.3 million riders on its HOV and HOT lanes and 1.9 million METROLift trips. The authority serves the City of Houston, much of unincorporated Harris County and 14 smaller cities, and is paid for by a 1% sales tax that voters created in 1978. Expansion has stalled: voters approved the METRONext plan in November 2019, including 16 miles of light rail extensions and 75 miles of bus rapid transit, but in June 2024 METRO indefinitely postponed the University Line, once the plan's cornerstone, and in February 2025 it adopted METRONow, which puts safety, cleanliness and reliability of the existing service first.
Health care, schools and what each city is like
Health care
Care is paid for through employer plans, ACA marketplace plans, Medicare and Medicaid; Florida has not expanded Medicaid, so low-income adults without children often fall into the coverage gap, and out-of-pocket costs depend entirely on the plan. Tampa General Hospital (the USF Health teaching hospital, ranked the top hospital in the Tampa Bay region by U.S. News for 11 straight years through 2026-2027, with OB-GYN ranked fifth nationally in 2025-2026), Moffitt Cancer Center (an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center), AdventHealth Tampa, St. Joseph's and the James A. Haley VA are the major hospitals; specialist waits are usually weeks rather than months but vary by insurer network.
Education
The University of South Florida (about 48,700 students across Tampa, St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee in 2025-26, an AAU member since 2023) and the private University of Tampa anchor higher education, with Hillsborough Community College for two-year programs. Schools are run by a single county district, Hillsborough County Public Schools, the seventh-largest in the US, whose 40-day enrollment fell 3.9% to 213,513 in 2025-26 as families took state vouchers and charters; it runs 42 magnet schools (about 17,500 students in 2024-25) with admission by lottery, so the school you get depends as much on the choice application as on the address.
Living there
Tampa is a flat, hot, car-first city where a 26-minute average commute hides the reality that I-275 and the Howard Frankland Bridge back up daily and transit carries about one commuter in a hundred. The walkable parts are concentrated: the Riverwalk, Hyde Park, Seminole Heights and Ybor City, with the streetcar linking downtown to Ybor for free. Flood zone and elevation now matter as much as school zone when picking a house, after Helene's surge in 2024 showed which streets go under; summers mean afternoon lightning storms and heat indices over 100 F from June into September.
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 Houston's rate was 23.3% (553,576 of 2,370,907), Harris County's 20.8% and the metro's 18.4%. The Texas Medical Center, south of downtown, calls itself the largest medical complex in the world: by its own count 10,000 patient beds, more than 120,000 employees, 10 million patient encounters and 750,000 emergency visits a year, and among its members the world's largest children's hospital and largest cancer hospital (Texas Children's and MD Anderson). Harris Health's Ben Taub Hospital in the medical center, licensed for 402 beds, is the county's public Level I trauma center and treats more than 80,000 emergency patients a year; in May 2024 Harris Health broke ground on a $1.6 billion, 12-story hospital on its Lyndon B. Johnson campus in northeast Houston, due to open in late 2028 as the first Level I trauma center in the county outside the medical center. This file did not verify a wait time figure for primary or specialist care.
Education
Houston ISD, the largest school district in Texas, has been run by a state-appointed board and superintendent, Mike Miles, since the Texas Education Agency took it over in 2023. It counted 168,810 students on its official snapshot of 31 October 2025, down 4.5% from 176,727 a year earlier, and just over 155,600 on 4 September 2026, nearly 10,000 fewer than in September 2025, and it is cutting staff and campus budgets as a result (Houston Chronicle). The Texas Tribune counts 21,000 students lost since the takeover began, a faster decline than any of its urban peers, and about $190 million in state funding with them. Under Miles the number of F-rated campuses fell from 56 to five, but voters rejected a $4.4 billion bond in 2024, the largest Texas school bond ever to fail, and in August 2026 Miles said the official end of the takeover may come at the end of the 2026-27 year. The University of Houston (48,950 students in fall 2025) and Rice University (8,880 in fall 2024) are both inside the city, and Houston Community College renamed itself Houston City College in 2025.
Living there
Houston is the fourth-largest city in the country and the energy capital of its fifth-largest metro, which added 126,720 people in 2024-25, more than any other. It spreads into four counties with 22.7 miles of light rail near the core, and 68.7% of its workers drive alone, though its 3.4% transit share is the highest of the Texas cities this site compares. Water is its hazard: Harvey flooded 154,170 homes in Harris County in 2017, most of them outside the mapped floodplain, and Beryl left more than two million customers without power in July heat in 2024. Summer is long and humid rather than extreme, with far fewer 100F days than Dallas but 111 days a year at 90F or above and 1,317 mm of rain. Texas takes no income tax, 23.3% of the city's residents have no health insurance, and the Texas Medical Center, the largest in the world by its own count, sits a few miles south of downtown. The open questions are fiscal and civic: the council held the property tax rate flat in October 2025 against its controller's warning and passed a fiscal 2027 budget that closes a deficit of more than $200 million without raising it, METRO has shelved the University Line that was once the cornerstone of its expansion plan, and Houston ISD, under state control since 2023, began 2026-27 with nearly 10,000 fewer students than the year before.
Where each city wins, and where it loses
Both cities price in US dollars, so the figures net directly, though the prices are different instruments. Tampa's is Zillow's typical home value for the city across all homes, $380,283 in June 2026, 2.1% below a year earlier. Houston's is the Houston Association of REALTORS' median sale price of single-family houses across Greater Houston, $330,000 in August, 1.5% below, a regional figure because HAR's city breakdown could not be read; Zillow's all-homes index for the City of Houston, the like-for-like figure, is $261,740. Against local pay the headlines are 4.5 times the City of Tampa's 2024 median household income of $84,114 and about 5.1 times Houston's $64,361. At 20% down, Tampa's $304,226 loan at 6.67%, Freddie Mac's August rate, costs $1,957 a month, and Houston's $264,000 loan at 7.03%, the rate for 24 September, about $1,762. A homesteaded Tampa buyer's first-year property tax is about $6,712, 1.77% of price, against $4,391 in Houston, 1.33%, and insurance is budgeted at $390 a month against $450, neither including flood. The three lines come to about $2,906 and $2,578, roughly 41% and 48% of local median income; at 7.03% Tampa's would be about $2,979. A median two-bedroom was $1,999 in Tampa in June 2026 and $1,327 in Houston in September, and a one-bedroom $1,719 against $1,120.
Tampa's reported figures are lower on every line, and the two sets are built differently enough to be held loosely. Tampa Police counted 1,553 violent crimes in 2025, about 375.5 per 100,000 on the city's 413,554 residents, a department count on its own categories that stays preliminary until certified under NIBRS; the FBI's 2024 file gave Tampa 445 per 100,000. Houston's 21,345 violent offenses are the FBI's count for 2025, 890 per 100,000 on the Census estimate of 2,397,315. Homicide is the cleaner line: 17 in Tampa, about 4.1 per 100,000 and the lowest in more than 50 years, after 36 in 2024, against 270 in Houston, about 11.3, and 272 on HPD's own year-end count. Property crime cannot be matched by year. Tampa's newest count is the FBI's for 2024, 5,988 offenses or 1,465 per 100,000; Houston's rate was 3,854 in 2025 on 92,382 offenses, after 100,302 in 2024, so Tampa's is lower on either year. Violent crime dropped 20% in Houston in 2025 and 26% in four years, and Tampa's count has dropped every year since 2023. The Houston counts were read on 30 September 2026 and can still be revised.
Tampa has the warmer winter and Houston the hotter, wetter summer. January averages 16.7 C at Tampa International against 12.1 C at Bush Intercontinental, and July 28.8 C against 29.5 C. Tampa gets 1,176 mm of rain a year, about 30 in (762 mm) of it from June to September, and no snow; Houston gets 1,317 mm spread through the year with no dry season, and 0.3 cm of snow. Tampa's routine summer risk is heat indices above 100 F, humidity included, with daily lightning storms; Bush Intercontinental's normals count 111.3 days a year at or above 90F and 7.0 when the air itself reaches 100F (37.8 C). The storms are alike in kind and differ in how the water comes. Helene's surge flooded coastal Tampa Bay neighborhoods in September 2024, Milton made landfall near Siesta Key as a Category 3 on 9 October, and Hillsborough County generated 10,261 flood insurance claims and about $1.1 billion in payouts that year. Houston's water is rain: Harvey stalled over Harris County in August 2017, 31.26 in (794 mm) fell at Bush Intercontinental in five days, and 154,170 homes in the county flooded. Houston also takes the rare hard freeze, as in February 2021, when Winter Storm Uri brought 13F (-10.6 C) and ERCOT cut power across the state grid.
Houston has the much larger labor market; Tampa has the higher city pay. On the same unadjusted basis, metro unemployment was 5.1% around Houston in July 2026, up from 4.8% a year earlier, and 4.7% in Tampa Bay in June, 0.7 points higher than a year earlier there; BLS publishes no seasonally adjusted rate for the Houston metro. Houston's 3,495,300 nonfarm jobs grew 1.3% in the year to August 2026, and Tampa Bay's 1,583,300 grew 0.9% in the year to December 2025. Tampa's mean hourly wage of $31.96 in May 2025 sat below the national $33.54. Houston's work leans on energy, from producers and refiners to oilfield services, on trade and transportation through the Port of Houston, and on the Texas Medical Center, with 27 Fortune 500 headquarters in the region on the 2026 list; Tampa's on health care, finance and insurance, the port and MacDill Air Force Base. Median household income was $84,114 in the City of Tampa and $64,361 in Houston in 2024, and $78,275 and $81,417 across the metros. Neither state taxes income, so $100,000 pays the same $13,449 in federal tax for 2025, and sales tax is 7.5% in Hillsborough against 8.25%. Property tax and insurance come to about $11,392 a year on Tampa's typical home and $9,791 on the Houston regional median, both before flood cover.
A car is assumed in both, and Houston has more transit. In 2024, 3.4% of Houston workers took transit and 2.9% walked or cycled, against 1.2% and 3.4% in the City of Tampa, where a mean commute of 26.1 minutes hides daily backups on I-275 and the Howard Frankland Bridge; 68.7% of Houston workers drove alone. The metro shares are 1.7% around Houston and 0.95% in Tampa Bay. METRO runs more than 80 local bus routes, Park & Ride commuter buses on the HOV and HOT lanes and three light rail lines on 22.7 miles of track, and carried 77,996,900 trips in 2025, 12,651,100 of them by light rail. HART carried about 11.94 million across Hillsborough County, and the fare-free TECO Line Streetcar, 2.7 miles from downtown to Ybor City, had a record 1,323,715 riders in 2024. Houston's expansion has stalled: in June 2024 METRO indefinitely postponed the University Line, once the cornerstone of the METRONext plan voters approved in 2019. The airports are further apart than the transit. Tampa International handled 24,811,007 passengers in 2025 on 635 daily flights, with Southwest the largest carrier; Bush Intercontinental, a United hub, handled 48,131,213 and Hobby 13,943,759 more.
Neither state has expanded Medicaid, so coverage in both runs through an employer or marketplace plan, Medicare or Medicaid, and Tampa's profile notes that low-income adults without children often fall into the gap. Texas had the highest uninsured rate of any state in 2024, 16.7%, and the City of Houston's was 23.3%. Both cities are medical centers. Tampa General, the USF Health teaching hospital, has been ranked the top hospital in the Tampa Bay region by U.S. News for 11 straight years through 2026-2027, and Moffitt is an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center. The Texas Medical Center, south of downtown Houston, counts 10,000 patient beds and more than 120,000 employees by its own figures, with MD Anderson, Texas Children's and Harris Health's Ben Taub, the county's public Level I trauma center. Tampa's profile puts specialist waits in weeks; Houston's verified none. Hillsborough County Public Schools enrolled 213,513 in 2025-26, 3.9% fewer than a year earlier as families took vouchers and charters, and admits to its 42 magnets by lottery. Houston ISD, the largest district in Texas, has been under a state-appointed board since 2023 and began 2026-27 with just over 155,600 students, nearly 10,000 fewer than a year before. USF has about 48,700 students; the University of Houston had 48,950 in fall 2025.
What people underestimate is that both are flood cities in which the flood policy is the line nobody prices, and that Houston's water mostly came from where the maps did not expect it. Tampa's risk is surge, priced by the elevation certificate on ground that runs from 9 ft (2.7 m) above the bay in the Channel District to 49 ft (14.9 m) in Seminole Heights, and its $390 insurance line prices the city as a coastal address. Houston's is rain overwhelming street drainage: the Flood Control District says a major flood strikes somewhere in Harris County about every two years, 68% of the homes Harvey flooded were outside the 100-year floodplain, and 64% had no flood insurance. Houston's $450 is an estimate between published averages of $5,391 and $9,095 a year, with no flood policy in it. No flood premium is recorded here for either city, so the only reliable figure is a quote on the address. The tax bills also reset on a sale in both. Florida ends the seller's Save Our Homes cap of 3% a year and assesses at the price, a Texas buyer starts at full value under the 10% homestead cap, and a Houston house in a municipal utility district, common in newer subdivisions on the city's edges, pays a levy the $4,391 leaves out.
Better here
- Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $2,906 a month, roughly 41% of local median income, and about $2,979 at September's 7.03%, against $2,578 and 48% on the Houston regional median.
- City median household income was $84,114 in 2024 against $64,361 in Houston, and sales tax is 7.5% against 8.25%.
- There were 17 homicides in 2025, about 4.1 per 100,000, against 270 and about 11.3 in Houston, and property crime was 1,465 per 100,000 in 2024 against Houston's 3,854 in 2025.
- January averages 16.7 C with no snow on the 1991-2020 normals, against 12.1 C in Houston, where Winter Storm Uri brought 13F (-10.6 C) in February 2021.
- Tampa General has been the region's top-ranked hospital for 11 straight years through 2026-2027, and Moffitt is an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center.
- Metro unemployment was 4.7% in June 2026 against 5.1% around Houston in July, both not seasonally adjusted.
Worse here
- Insurance is budgeted at $390 a month and excludes flood; Hillsborough County generated 10,261 flood claims and about $1.1 billion in payouts in 2024.
- A median two-bedroom rented for $1,999 in June 2026 against $1,327 in Houston in September, and a one-bedroom $1,719 against $1,120.
- A homesteaded buyer's first-year property tax is about $6,712, 1.77% of price, against $4,391 and 1.33% on the Houston regional median.
- Nonfarm jobs grew 0.9% to 1,583,300 in the year to December 2025, against 1.3% to 3,495,300 in the Houston metro in the year to August 2026.
- Only 1.2% of workers commuted by transit in 2024, against 3.4% in Houston, and HART carried about 11.94 million trips in 2025 against METRO's 77,996,900.
- Tampa International handled 24,811,007 passengers in 2025, against 48,131,213 at Bush Intercontinental and 13,943,759 at Hobby.
Choose Tampa if
- you want to own a house for about 41% of local median income a month rather than 48%, and will buy on elevation and flood zone first
- you want a January at 16.7 C rather than 12.1 C and will carry flood cover in either city
- you work in health care, insurance, the port or defense
- you would weigh a homicide rate of about 4.1 per 100,000 against about 11.3 above the rent
The Tampa guide · Neighborhoods · Tampa rent vs buy · Tampa mortgage calculator
Better here
- A median two-bedroom rented for $1,327 in September 2026, about 25% of the city's median household income, against $1,999 in Tampa in June, about 29%.
- Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $2,578 a month on HAR's August 2026 regional median, against about $2,906 on Tampa's typical home.
- The homestead exemptions take $140,000 and 20% off the school levy and 17% or 20% off the other seven, so the effective rate on the regional median is 1.33% for 2025 against 1.77% on Tampa's typical home.
- The metro had 3,495,300 nonfarm jobs in August 2026, 1.3% more than a year earlier, and the region counts 27 Fortune 500 headquarters on the 2026 list.
- Bush Intercontinental handled 48,131,213 passengers in 2025 and Hobby 13,943,759, against 24,811,007 at Tampa International.
- METRO carried 77,996,900 trips in 2025 against HART's 11.94 million, and 3.4% of workers commuted by transit in 2024 against 1.2% in Tampa.
Worse here
- Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about 48% of the city's 2024 median household income of $64,361, against 41% of Tampa's $84,114.
- There were 270 homicides in 2025, about 11.3 per 100,000, and violent crime was 890 per 100,000 on the FBI's counts, against 17 homicides and about 375.5 violent crimes per 100,000 in Tampa.
- Harvey flooded 154,170 homes in Harris County in 2017, 68% of them outside the 100-year floodplain, and Beryl left more than 2.2 million customers in the region without power in July 2024.
- Texas had the highest uninsured rate of any state in 2024, 16.7%, and the City of Houston's was 23.3%.
- Home insurance is budgeted at $450 a month against $390 in Tampa, with no flood policy in it, and the tax figure leaves out the utility districts that tax many newer subdivisions.
- Houston ISD has been run by a state-appointed board since 2023 and began 2026-27 with nearly 10,000 fewer students than a year before.
Choose Houston if
- you rent, and would pay about $1,327 for a two-bedroom rather than $1,999
- you work in energy, engineering, the port or the Texas Medical Center
- you fly often enough that a United hub and a second airport change how you travel
- you want a metro that added 126,720 people in 2024-25, more than any other in the country, and the work that came with them
The Houston guide · Neighborhoods · Houston rent vs buy · Houston mortgage calculator
Tampa or Houston, in short
Is Tampa or Houston cheaper to live in?
Houston in dollars, Tampa against what people there earn, and Houston clearly to rent. Both cities price in US dollars, so the figures net directly. Tampa's typical home was $380,283 in June 2026 on Zillow's all-homes index, and HAR's Greater Houston single-family median $330,000 in August, a regional figure; Zillow's index for the City of Houston itself is $261,740. The mortgage at 20% down is $1,957 against about $1,762, though Tampa's uses August's 6.67% rate and Houston's September's 7.03%. Property tax is about $6,712 a year against $4,391 and insurance $390 a month against $450, so the three lines come to about $2,906 in Tampa and $2,578 in Houston, or about $2,979 for Tampa at the same 7.03%, and roughly 41% and 48% of local median income. Neither includes flood cover. A median two-bedroom was $1,327 in Houston in September 2026 against $1,999 in Tampa in June. Neither state taxes income, and sales tax is 7.5% in Hillsborough against 8.25% in Houston.
Is Tampa or Houston safer?
Tampa, on the figures each city reports, which are not built the same way. Tampa Police counted 1,553 violent crimes in 2025, about 375.5 per 100,000, and 17 homicides, about 4.1 per 100,000 and the fewest in more than 50 years. Houston's FBI counts give 890 violent offenses per 100,000 and 270 homicides, about 11.3, with HPD's own year-end count at 272. Tampa's newest property figure is the FBI's for 2024, 1,465 per 100,000, against Houston's 3,854 in 2025. Tampa's counts are preliminary until certified under NIBRS, and the FBI's own 2024 file put its violent rate at 445, still about half Houston's; the Houston counts, read on 30 September 2026, can still be revised. Both are improving: Tampa's violent count has dropped every year since 2023, and Houston's violent offenses dropped 20% in 2025 and its homicides from 329 to 270.
Which has the better job market, Tampa or Houston?
Houston's is more than twice the size and growing faster; Tampa's unemployment rate is a little lower. On the same unadjusted basis, metro unemployment was 5.1% around Houston in July 2026 and 4.7% in Tampa Bay in June. Houston's 3,495,300 nonfarm jobs grew 1.3% in the year to August 2026, with construction up 5.5% and professional and business services 2.6%, and Tampa Bay's 1,583,300 grew 0.9% in the year to December 2025. Houston's work leans on energy, the port, engineering and the Texas Medical Center, with 27 Fortune 500 headquarters in the region; Tampa's on health care, finance and insurance, the port and MacDill Air Force Base, and its mean hourly wage of $31.96 in May 2025 was below the national $33.54. Median household income was $81,417 across the Houston metro in 2024 against $78,275 in Tampa Bay, though the City of Tampa's $84,114 is well above the City of Houston's $64,361.
How much do storms and flood risk change the comparison?
Enough to check before anything else, in both cities, and neither carry here includes flood insurance. In Tampa the risk is surge: Helene flooded coastal Tampa Bay neighborhoods in September 2024, Hillsborough County generated 10,261 flood insurance claims and about $1.1 billion in payouts that year, and flood cover is effectively required in much of the city, priced by the elevation certificate. In Houston it is rain and wind. Harvey flooded 154,170 homes in Harris County in 2017, 68% of them outside the 100-year floodplain and 64% without flood insurance, and the Flood Control District says a major flood strikes somewhere in the county about every two years; Beryl left more than 2.2 million customers in the region without power in July 2024. A mapped zone is therefore a weaker guide in Houston than it looks. No flood premium is recorded on this site for either city, so get a quote on the address before comparing.
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.
- Tampa, FL Population (2025), citing US Census Bureau PEP Vintage 2025 · Every City in the USA (compiling US Census Bureau) · retrieved Supports: City population, Five-year growth
- Resident Population in Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL (MSA), TMAPOP · FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (US Census Bureau data) · retrieved Supports: Metro population, Five-year growth
- Florida Metropolitan Statistical Areas, 2025 Estimate · Florida Office of Economic and Demographic Research · retrieved Supports: Metro population
- Tampa Police Department Annual Report 2025: Strength in Partnerships · City of Tampa · retrieved Supports: Violent crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend, Property crime rate
- Tampa crime drops in 2025, outpacing national trend: TPD · FOX 13 Tampa Bay · retrieved Supports: Crime trend
- Tampa police sees drop in homicides, violent crime for 2025 · WTSP 10 Tampa Bay · retrieved Supports: Homicides
- Tampa, St. Pete homicides, other crimes drop to lowest level in 50+ years · FOX 13 Tampa Bay · retrieved Supports: Homicides
- Tampa Police Release Mid-Year Crime Stats Showing Significant Reductions · City of Tampa · retrieved Supports: Crime trend
- Tampa, FL Crime Rates: Stats & Map (FBI UCR 2024 data) · AreaVibes · retrieved Supports: Property crime rate, Homicides, Violent crime rate
- US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USW00012842 Tampa International Airport (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: January mean, July mean, Annual precipitation, Annual snowfall
- Milton misses worst-case scenario, devastates Florida · Cotality (formerly CoreLogic) · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Flooding the zone · UF Warrington College of Business · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- FEMA Exercises Borrowing Authority for National Flood Insurance Program · FEMA · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Tampa, FL profile, ACS 2024 1-year · Census Reporter (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Median household income, Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share
- ACS 2024 1-year tables B08301 and B19013 for Tampa city and Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater MSA · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Median household income, Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share
- Unemployment Rate in Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL (MSA), TAMP312URN · FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (BLS LAUS data) · retrieved Supports: Unemployment rate
- What is the unemployment rate in the Tampa, FL area right now? · USAFacts (BLS data) · retrieved Supports: Unemployment rate
- Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL: Southeast Information Office · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved Supports: Labour market
- Occupational Employment and Wages in Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL, May 2025 · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved Supports: Labour market
- Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL · Data USA (Census ACS) · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
- TIP 25A01-12: Hillsborough County Surtax Rate Update · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: Sales tax
- 2025 Tax Brackets · Tax Foundation · retrieved Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000
- Hillsborough Area Regional Transit (citing APTA Transit Ridership Report Q4 2025) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Transit ridership
- TECO Line Streetcar · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Transit ridership
- TPA Fact Sheet: Activity Report, Calendar Year 2025 · Tampa International Airport / Hillsborough County Aviation Authority · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- Tampa General Is the Top-Ranked Hospital in the Tampa Bay Region for the 11th Year in a Row, According to U.S. News & World Report · Tampa General Hospital via PR Newswire · retrieved Supports: Health care
- Tampa General again named the top hospital in Tampa Bay; OB-GYN rises to No. 5 in the U.S. · USF Health · retrieved Supports: Health care
- State University System of Florida 2025-2026 Matrix · Florida Board of Governors · retrieved Supports: Education
- HCPS data shows total county enrollment has declined since last year · Plant City Observer · retrieved Supports: Education
- 2024 Annual Report, Growth Management · Hillsborough County Public Schools · retrieved Supports: Education
- 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 Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places of 50,000 or More (all states, SUB-EST2025) · US Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: City population, 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, Houston Police Department (TXHPD0000): 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
- Houston homicides drop 17% in 2025, as experts say multiple factors drive national trend · Houston Chronicle · retrieved Supports: Homicides, Crime trend
- Crime continues downward surge in 2025 in Houston and nationwide (Major Cities Chiefs Association year-end survey) · Houston Chronicle · retrieved Supports: Violent crime rate, Crime trend
- US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USW00012960 Houston Bush Intercontinental Airport (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 53.8F, July 85.1F and August 85.2F from the monthly series, and annual mean 70.5F, precipitation 51.84 in, snowfall 0.1 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 USW00012918 Houston William P. Hobby Airport (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate normals
- Global Historical Climatology Network daily summaries, Houston Bush Intercontinental Airport (USW00012960), 1969-2026 · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, 31.26 in from 25 to 29 August 2017 and 16.07 in on 27 August 2017, 9.92 in on 18 April 2016, 46 days at or above 100F in 2011 and 24 in a row from 1 to 24 August 2011, 45 in 2023, 9 in 2026 through 21 September, 109F on 4 September 2000, 27 August 2011 and 24 and 27 August 2023, 1.0 in of snow on 15 February 2021 and 13F on 16 February 2021, 7F on 23 December 1989, 1.4 in of snow on 20 and 21 January 2025 and 20F on 22 January 2025
- Global Historical Climatology Network daily summaries, Houston William P. Hobby Airport (USW00012918), 1930-2026 · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, 37.01 in from 25 to 29 August 2017
- Average Annual Sunshine in US Cities · Current Results (NCDC Comparative Climatic Data, 1961-1990) · retrieved Supports: Sunshine hours, Climate normals
- Weather and Climate Billion-Dollar Disasters to affect the U.S. from 1980-2024 (events list) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Hurricane Harvey & Its Impacts on Southeast Texas (August 25-29, 2017) · National Weather Service, Houston/Galveston · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Immediate Flood Report, Final Report: Hurricane Harvey, 2017 · Harris County Flood Control District · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, Character
- National Hurricane Center Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Beryl (AL022024) · NOAA National Hurricane Center · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Houston power outages: Hurricane Beryl plunges 2.2 million into the dark · Houston Public Media · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, Character
- Public Utility Commission releases investigative report on CenterPoint's response to Hurricane Beryl · The Texas Tribune · 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
- ACS 2024 1-year tables B08301 and B19013 for Houston city and the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands 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, Harris County, Houston city and the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands MSA · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Health care, Character
- Local Area Unemployment Statistics, Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX MSA (LAUMT482642000000003), Harris, Fort Bend and Montgomery counties, and the US rate (LNU04000000), not seasonally adjusted · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved Supports: Unemployment rate
- Current Employment Statistics, Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX MSA: total nonfarm (SMU48264200000000001, SMS48264200000000001) and supersectors (SMU4826420xx00000001) · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
- Fortune 500 Companies (Houston ranks second among US metro areas in Fortune 500 headquarters) · Greater Houston Partnership · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
- 27 Houston companies make Fortune 500 for 2026, led by energy giants · CultureMap Houston (InnovationMap) · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
- Port Houston Statistics · Port Houston · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
- City Sales and Use Tax (city rate table) · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: Sales tax
- Transit Sales and Use Tax (Houston MTA, effective October 1, 1978) · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: Sales tax, Transit ridership
- Texas Tax Rates & Rankings · Tax Foundation · retrieved Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000, Tax notes, Character
- 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
- Houston won't raise property tax rate despite budget concerns · The Bond Buyer · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, Character
- City of Houston passes Whitmire's $7.5 billion budget for fiscal year 2027 · Houston Public Media · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, Character
- About METRO · Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County (METRO) · retrieved Supports: Transit system, Transit ridership
- Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County (citing the APTA Transit Ridership Reports, Q4 2025 and Q2 2026, through Template:American transit ridership) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Transit system, Transit ridership, Character
- Houston Airports closes 2025 with strong international growth, record cargo performance · Houston Airports · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- Houston Airports earns global honors as record travel powers momentum · Houston Airports · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- Houston Airports shatters passenger record with 63.1 million travelers in 2024 · Houston Airports · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- George Bush Intercontinental Airport (2025 passenger totals from the FAA, location, United Airlines hub) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers, Climate normals
- William P. Hobby Airport (2025 passenger totals from the FAA, location, Southwest Airlines) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers, Climate normals
- Status of State Medicaid Expansion Decisions · KFF · retrieved Supports: Health care
- About Us (TMC at a Glance) · Texas Medical Center · retrieved Supports: Health care, Character
- Harris Health Ben Taub Hospital · Harris Health · retrieved Supports: Health care
- Harris Health System Breaks Ground on Northeast Houston Hospital · Harris Health · retrieved Supports: Health care
- HISD cuts staff, campus budgets after enrollment drops nearly 10,000 from last September · Houston Chronicle · retrieved Supports: Education, Character
- HISD reports about 168,800 students enrolled in 2025-26 school year, a loss of 4.5% · Houston Chronicle · retrieved Supports: Education
- Mike Miles expects HISD's state takeover to end after this school year · Houston Chronicle · retrieved Supports: Education
- High costs, dwindling enrollment: Is Houston ISD's playbook under takeover sustainable? · The Texas Tribune · retrieved Supports: Education, Character
- University of Houston (fall 2025 enrollment) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Education
- Rice University (fall 2024 enrollment) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Education
- Houston City College (formerly Houston Community College, 1971-2025) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Education
- Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI), all homes, mid-tier, smoothed and seasonally adjusted: city file, June 2026 · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: A typical home value for each municipality, computed on one method across all twenty-four, The same series and month the Charlotte, Orlando, Palm Beach and Miami pages use, Year-over-year change to June 2026, which is negative in twenty-three of the twenty-four
- 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
- Millage rates levied for 2025 taxes · Pinellas County Tax Collector · retrieved Supports: A published real estate total for every taxing district in Pinellas County, from Redington Shores at 15.1568 to Belleair at 20.4449, including St Petersburg at 19.9197 and Belleair Beach at 15.4466, Countywide components: general fund 4.5423, health department 0.0713, emergency medical services 0.8050 and school 6.2930, Other districts totalling 1.0256: planning council 0.0175, Juvenile Welfare Board 0.8250 and the Southwest Florida Water Management District 0.1831, The Transit District at 0.7300 and which districts are inside it, and the Pinellas Suncoast Fire District at 0.6700 and which are inside that
- 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
- HAR.com reports more choices and steady prices in Houston's August housing market · My Neighborhood News, republishing the Houston Association of REALTORS' August 2026 release · retrieved Supports: 7,100 single-family sales in Greater Houston in August 2026, down 11.5% from August 2025, A median single-family sale price of $330,000, down 1.5% or $5,000 from August 2025, and an average of $426,760, up 1.2%, A median of $330,000 for existing single-family homes, down 2.9%, 38,947 active single-family listings and a 5.3-month supply, 405 townhouse and condominium sales, unchanged, at a median of $195,000, down 7.1%, and an 8.8-month supply
- Greater Houston area home sales on the decline · Community Impact · retrieved Supports: From the August 2026 monthly housing update of the Houston Association of Realtors, published 16 September 2026, Single-family sales down 11.5% and the median single-family price down $5,000 to $330,000
- Monthly update: home sales, August 2026 · Greater Houston Partnership · retrieved Supports: 59,843 single-family sales in the region year to date through August 2026, according to the Houston Association of Realtors, A 12-month average of the median MLS sale price of roughly $331,000 in August 2026, down about one percent on a year earlier
- Zillow Home Value Index, all homes, middle tier, smoothed and seasonally adjusted, by city · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: A typical home value of $261,740 for the city of Houston (region 39051) in August 2026, $267,880 in August 2025, so a fall of 2.3% over the year
- Zillow Home Value Index, single-family and condominium series, by city · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: A typical single-family value of $267,956 in the city of Houston in August 2026, against $274,277 a year earlier, down 2.3%, A typical condominium value of $131,763 in the same month, against $140,224, down 6.0%, 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
- Houston Rent Report, October 2026 · Apartment List · retrieved Supports: A median rent of $1,120 for a one-bedroom and $1,327 for a two-bedroom in the city of Houston, and $1,269 across all bedroom sizes, Rents flat over September and down 2.3% over the past 12 months, A metro-wide median of $1,335, 5.0% above the city's
- Apartments for rent in Houston, TX: average rent · Apartment List · retrieved Supports: Average listed rents of $1,299 and up for a studio, $1,309 and up for one bedroom, $1,630 and up for two, and $2,102 and up for three or more
- FY 2026 fair market rents, Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX HUD Metro FMR Area · United States Department of Housing and Urban Development · retrieved Supports: FY 2026 fair market rents of $1,323 for one bedroom, $1,573 for two and $2,116 for three, as gross rents including utilities
- Zillow Observed Rent Index, all homes plus multifamily, smoothed, by city · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: An observed rent index of $1,542 for the city of Houston in August 2026, against $1,544 a year earlier, down 0.13%
- Jurisdictions: homestead exemptions and tax rates · Harris Central Appraisal District · retrieved Supports: 2025 rates per $100: Harris County 0.380960, Harris County Flood Control District 0.049660, Harris County Port of Houston Authority 0.005900, Harris County Hospital District 0.187610, Harris County Department of Education 0.004798, City of Houston 0.519190, Houston ISD 0.878300, Houston City College 0.098802, Homestead exemptions of 20% for every one of those units except Houston City College, which grants 17%, and a flat $140,000 plus 20% for Houston ISD, No 2026 rate yet for any of the eight, from the table's data at https://hcad.org/actions/hcad-module/default/jurisdictions, More than 400 active utility districts in the appraisal district's list, at a median 2025 rate of about 0.54 per $100
- Tax rates · Harris County Tax Office · retrieved Supports: The same 2025 adopted rates with their maintenance and operations and debt parts: Harris County 0.33696 and 0.044, the Flood Control District 0.03826 and 0.0114, the Hospital District 0.17876 and 0.00885, the City of Houston 0.40326 and 0.11593, Houston ISD 0.7116 and 0.1667, and the Port's whole rate as debt, The City of Houston's rate at 0.51919 for the 2023, 2024 and 2025 tax years, 2026 rates already listed for Harris County (0.4175), the Flood Control District (0.05266), the Hospital District (0.19528) and the Port (0.00603), and none yet for the City, Houston ISD or the college
- FY2027 adopted budget: General Fund revenues · City of Houston Finance Department · retrieved Supports: Taxable values within the City set by the Harris, Montgomery or Fort Bend central appraisal district, A City tax rate of 51.919 cents per $100 for tax year 2025, and an estimate of the same for 2026, Proposition 1 of November 2004 capping the annual increase in total property tax revenue at the lower of inflation plus population growth or 4.5%, and Proposition H of November 2006 raising the limit by $90 million, Tax bills sent by the Harris County Tax Office around mid-November and due by 31 January
- FY2027 adopted budget: letter from the Mayor · City of Houston · retrieved Supports: Houston has operated for more than a decade under two revenue caps, which forced a nearly 20% reduction in the tax rate
- FY2026 adopted budget: letter from the Mayor · City of Houston · retrieved Supports: No other large Texas city is burdened by both a locally imposed revenue cap and the state cap or must fund solid waste operations without dedicated revenues
- Development regulations · City of Houston Planning and Development Department · retrieved Supports: The City of Houston does not have zoning, and its codes do not address land use, Development governed by ordinance codes on how property can be subdivided, chiefly Chapter 42, within the city and its extraterritorial jurisdiction
- Deed restrictions · City of Houston Legal Department · retrieved Supports: The City's authority to enforce residential deed restrictions under Chapter 212 of the Local Government Code and sections 10-551 through 10-555 of the City Code
- Harris County's flooding history · Harris County Flood Control District · retrieved Supports: A major flood somewhere in Harris County about every two years, mostly in areas developed before current regulations, More flood insurance funds paid in Harris County than in any other community in the National Flood Insurance Program
- Hurricane Harvey frequently asked questions · Harris County Flood Control District · retrieved Supports: Flooding outside the FEMA mapped floodplain, from ponding and overland sheet flow when rainfall overwhelms street drainage, The mapped floodplain is only an estimate of where flooding is predicted to occur from a bayou or creek, The City of Houston as one of the local floodplain administrators for the National Flood Insurance Program
- Home, flood, wind: which policies do you need? · Texas Department of Insurance · retrieved Supports: Most home policies do not cover floods; a flood policy covers damage from rising water
- Drainage utility charge FAQs · City of Houston, Rebuild Houston · retrieved Supports: A residential rate of $0.032 per square foot of impervious surface a year behind a curb and gutter and $0.026 on an open ditch, $48.00 a year, $4.00 a month, on 1,500 square feet behind a curb and gutter
- Valuing property: limitation on residence homestead value increases · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: A residence homestead's appraised value may not rise more than 10% a year once the owner has qualified in the preceding and current year
- Property tax protests and appeals · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: A protest deadline of 15 May or 30 days after the appraisal district mails the notice of appraised value, whichever is later
- Texas homeowners insurance market overview · Texas Department of Insurance · retrieved Supports: A statewide average homeowners premium of $3,489 a year for 2025, from the Texas Statistical Plan for Residential Risks, Paid homeowners losses in 2024 of $4.93 billion from hail and $2.21 billion from wind
- How much is homeowners insurance in Houston, TX? · Insure.com · retrieved Supports: An average Houston premium of $5,391 a year for $300,000 of dwelling cover, $100,000 of liability and a $1,000 deductible, updated 27 May 2026, Standard home insurance policies generally exclude flood damage
- Texas homeowners insurance · NerdWallet · retrieved Supports: An average Houston premium of $9,095 a year and a Texas average of $5,910, for $500,000 of dwelling cover, updated 20 February 2026
- Renters insurance in Texas · NerdWallet · retrieved Supports: An average Houston renters premium of $167 a year for $30,000 of personal property
- Monthly homeowners' association and condominium fee, tables B25142 and B25143, 2024 American Community Survey 1-year estimates, Houston city · United States Census Bureau, via the Census Reporter API · retrieved Supports: A median monthly association fee of $144 among Houston owner-occupied units that pay one, 176,568 of 385,594 owner-occupied units, or 45.8%, paying such a fee, and 31,837 paying $500 or more a month
- Homebuyer Assistance Program · City of Houston Housing and Community Development Department · retrieved Supports: Up to $75,000 for income-qualified first-time homebuyers, or buyers who have not owned a home in the last three years, at or below 80% of area median income, The home must pay taxes to the City of Houston, A no-interest forgivable loan secured by a lien, fulfilled if the buyer lives in the home for eight years, with a portion repaid on a sale or move before then, No maximum home price, and less than $50,000 in liquid assets
- 2025 Gazetteer files: places, Texas · United States Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: A land area of 640.819 square miles and a water area of 31.222 square miles for Houston city
- About Houston: education · City of Houston · retrieved Supports: Houston ISD serves 312 square miles with 288 schools
- Local schools · City of Houston Mayor's Office of Education · retrieved Supports: Public school districts in the Houston area including Aldine, Alief, Cypress-Fairbanks, Fort Bend, Houston, Humble, Katy, Klein, Spring and Spring Branch, and North Forest annexed by Houston ISD in 2013
- 2025 was a year of transformation and change for HCC · Houston City College · retrieved Supports: The college publishing under the name Houston City College