Victoria vs St. Petersburg: which should you move to?
Victoria 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.
Victoria
St. Petersburg
The housing bills are in different currencies and do not net, and held against local pay they are not close. Mortgage, property tax and insurance on Victoria's single-family benchmark come to about $6,515 CAD a month, roughly 92% of the metro's 2020 median household income, against about $2,742 USD on Zillow's typical value for the City of St. Petersburg, roughly 45% of the city's 2024 median; the Victoria house is 15.4 times income and the St. Petersburg one about 4.9. Renting is nearer: about 29% of median income for a Victoria two-bedroom and about 34% on Zillow's St. Petersburg index. Both are waterfront capitals of their own kind, a provincial capital at the tip of an island and the head-office city of Tampa Bay, and both have hazards that come from the water and the ground: Cascadia under Victoria, and in St. Petersburg the storm surge Hurricane Helene drove into the bay in 2024, the largest on record there. Florida takes no state income tax and collects through a property tax of about 1.76% of value against Victoria's 0.566%, and through a homeowners policy of $390 a month that does not cover flood. Victoria recorded 4 homicides in 2025 across its metro, 0.90 per 100,000, against 9 in St. Petersburg at about 3.4. Choose Victoria to walk to work in a mild climate with public health care, if you rent or already hold equity. Choose St. Petersburg to buy a house on a salary in a warm city on the bay, if you will buy above the surge and insure against water as well as wind.
Victoria 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 | Victoria | St. Petersburg | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| City population | 91,867 (2021) | 264,033 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
| Metro population | 445,090 (2025) | 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. | 7.1% (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 | Victoria | 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. | $1,311,000 (July 2026) | $355,759 (June 2026) | Not directly comparable |
| Detached house benchmark Victoria and St. Petersburg publish a single house index rather than a composite, so the two rows repeat. | $1,311,000 | $355,759 | Not directly comparable |
| Apartment or condominium benchmark | $548,600 | Not published | Not directly comparable |
| Two-bedroom rent | $2,076/mo (average, October 2025) | $2,058/mo (median, June 2026) | Not directly comparable |
| One-bedroom rent | $1,594/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. | 29.3% of a year's income | 33.8% of a year's income | Victoria |
| Mortgage payment on the benchmark, 20% down 25 years in Victoria 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. | $5,712/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. | 15.4× | 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. | $7,415/yr (0.566%, 2026) | $6,248/yr (1.756%, 2025) | Victoria |
| 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. | $24,220 (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 |
Victoria: The 2026 Class 1 residential total of $5.6559 per $1,000 of taxable value: municipal $3.7229 plus the CRD, local school, hospital district, BC Assessment, MFA and BC Transit levies, before the Home Owner Grant. 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 | Victoria | 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. | 74.6 (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. | 1,542 (2025) | 502 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
| Property crime per 100,000 | 3,096 (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 Victoria CMA Crime Severity Index moved between 71 and 80 from 2021 to 2025 (72.7, 74.9, 80.2, 71.2, 74.6) with no sustained direction. The violent crime rate per 100,000 fell from 1,542 in 2021 to 1,439 in 2024 and then returned to 1,542 in 2025; the property crime rate fell from 3,319 in 2021 to 3,096 in 2025.
What the rates cover: Police-reported total violent Criminal Code violations, rate per 100,000, Victoria CMA, table 35-10-0177-01.
Homicides: Victoria CMA, 4 victims, 0.90 per 100,000 (table 35-10-0071-01). Counts were 5, 5, 2, 2 for 2021 through 2024.
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 | Victoria | St. Petersburg | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| January mean | 4.6 °C | 16.8 °C | Not directly comparable |
| July mean | 17.2 °C | 28.8 °C | Not directly comparable |
| Precipitation a year | 901 mm | 1,185 mm | Not directly comparable |
| Snowfall a year | 39 cm | 0 cm | Not directly comparable |
| Sunshine a year | 2,109 hours | Not published | Not directly comparable |
Environment and Climate Change Canada 1991-2020 normals at Victoria Int'l A (climate ID 1018620, at Sidney, 25 km north of downtown) for temperature, precipitation and snowfall. Sunshine is from the 1981-2010 normals at the same station; the 1991-2020 set does not publish a sunshine normal. Downtown is drier: Victoria Gonzales 1991-2020 normals show 5.8 C in January, 16.3 C in July and 110.6 mm in the wettest month against 155.3 mm at the airport.
Hazards: The region sits on the Cascadia subduction zone and carries Canada's highest earthquake risk; summers bring wildfire smoke from the BC interior and drought-driven watering restrictions, and winters bring atmospheric-river rain and occasional short snow events that stop traffic.
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 | Victoria | 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. | 5.0% (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. | $20,503 CAD | $13,449 USD | Not directly comparable |
In the 2021 Census the region's largest employers by sector were health care (29,750 workers), public administration (27,780), retail (22,540) and professional, scientific and technical services (19,655), per the South Island Prosperity Partnership's 2025 socio-economic profile. Victoria's unemployment rate is usually among the lowest of Canadian CMAs; the same report notes shortages in health care and construction and an ageing population.
Main sectors: Health care and social assistance, Public administration (provincial capital, CFB Esquimalt), Retail trade, Professional, scientific and technical services including software, Tourism, accommodation and food services.
BC has no payroll tax on employees beyond CPP and EI, and MSP health premiums were eliminated in 2020. Property transfer tax applies on purchase (1% to 3%, plus 20% foreign-buyer tax in the Victoria CMA) and a speculation and vacancy tax applies to homes left empty.
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 | Victoria | St. Petersburg | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| System | Victoria Regional Transit System (BC Transit buses and handyDART); no rail. BC Ferries and Harbour Air, Helijet and the Coho and Clipper ferries connect to Vancouver and Seattle. | 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 | 7.7% (2021) | 2.1% (2024) | Victoria |
| Walk or cycle to work | 15.3% (2021) | 2.9% (2024) | Victoria |
| Airport | Victoria International Airport (YYJ), at Sidney, 1,986,057 passengers in 2025, up 6.1% on 2024 and the busiest year since 2018 (Victoria Airport Authority 2025 Annual Report). Domestic-heavy; most international trips connect through Vancouver or Seattle. | 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 |
No verified systemwide annual total. BC Transit's 2025 year-in-review (Dec 19, 2025) reports the busiest route, the 95 Blink RapidBus, at more than 11,000 daily boardings; the Victoria Regional Transit Commission's Nov 2025 service plan reports 58.53 boardings per service hour by end of 2024, up 17.6% year over year and 21.2% above pre-COVID. Wikipedia cites APTA's Q4 2025 report at 26.56 million boardings for 2025 but the APTA PDF could not be fetched.
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 paid for by BC's Medical Services Plan, with no premiums since 2020, and delivered by Island Health; prescription drugs outside hospital are covered through income-tested Fair PharmaCare, so many households carry employer extended-health plans for drugs, dental and physio. Greater Victoria has three hospitals, Royal Jubilee (the cardiac and cancer referral site for Vancouver Island), Victoria General (trauma and pediatrics) and Saanich Peninsula; the region has a well-known shortage of family doctors, and BC runs a central waitlist (Health Connect Registry) to attach new patients to primary care.
Education
The University of Victoria (about 22,000 students) is the main research university, with Camosun College for trades and transfer programs and Royal Roads University in Colwood for working adults; the University of Victoria is regularly placed in the top three Canadian comprehensive universities by Maclean's. Public K-12 is run by the Greater Victoria School District (SD61) in the core, with Sooke (SD62) in the fast-growing West Shore and Saanich (SD63) on the peninsula; there are no charter schools in BC, and French immersion seats in SD61 are allocated by lottery.
Living there
Victoria is a government and university town at the south tip of Vancouver Island with the mildest winters in Canada, a walkable and bikeable core, and a large retiree population; the trade-off is island logistics, with every mainland trip by 95-minute ferry or a short flight, and a housing market priced close to Vancouver's. Most growth since 2016 has gone to Langford and the West Shore, 15 to 25 km out along a congested Highway 1, while the City of Victoria itself is dense apartment and heritage-house neighbourhoods where a third of commuters walk or cycle. Downtown has visible street homelessness and open drug use concentrated around Pandora Avenue, which shows up in the higher-than-national violent crime rate for a metro this size.
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
Victoria's headline is the real estate board's single-family benchmark for the Victoria Core, $1,311,000 CAD in July 2026, 2.8% below a year earlier. St. Petersburg's 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. One is a benchmark modeled on a typical detached house and the other an index across every home in the city, condominiums included, so the two are built differently as well as priced in different currencies. The Victoria house is 15.4 times the metro's 2020 median household income of $85,000 CAD and the St. Petersburg 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, Victoria's mortgage at 4.34% is $5,712 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 $7,415 CAD a year in Victoria, 0.566% on the city's 2026 rate, 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 $185 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 $6,515 CAD and $2,742 USD, roughly 92% and 45% of local median income. A two-bedroom averaged $2,076 CAD in October 2025, about 29% of Victoria's median income. Zillow's observed rent index for St. Petersburg, across all homes, was $2,058 USD in June 2026, about 34%, so the gap that is so wide for owners nearly closes for renters, and runs the other way. Only British Columbia caps rent on an existing tenancy, at 2.3% for 2026; Florida forbids rent control outright.
Homicide is the only count that crosses the border intact, and Victoria's is the lower. The Victoria metro recorded 4 homicide victims in 2025, 0.90 per 100,000, after 5, 5, 2 and 2 in the four years before. 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. Geography matters to the rates: Victoria's cover a metro of 445,090 and St. Petersburg's a city of 264,033. The rest are different instruments. The Victoria metro's Crime Severity Index was 74.57 in 2025, just under the national 75.0; American cities have no equivalent. Victoria's violent rate of 1,542 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, 3,096 per 100,000 against 2,059, is defined differently too. Victoria's index has moved sideways since 2021. St. Petersburg's direction is clearly down: violent offenses fell 19% in 2025 after three flat years, property offenses 17%, and motor vehicle thefts more than halved from 917 in 2023 to 407. Its counts were read on 1 October 2026 from a federal feed that can still be revised.
Victoria has the mildest winters in Canada and is still twelve degrees colder in January. January averages 4.6 C at the Victoria airport and 5.8 C downtown at Gonzales, against 16.8 C at Albert Whitted Airport on St. Petersburg's downtown waterfront, where frost is almost unknown: one night at 0 C since 2010. July averages 17.2 C in Victoria against 28.8 C in St. Petersburg, where August is warmer still and the normals count 70.9 days a year at or above 32.2 C (90F) and none at 37.8 C (100F); the airport recorded 128 such days in 2024, the most in its record since 2010. St. Petersburg gets 1,185 mm of precipitation a year against Victoria's 901.2 mm, and in the opposite season: Victoria's arrives as winter rain, 63% of St. Petersburg's from June to September. Victoria gets a 38.6 cm snow normal and St. Petersburg none. Victoria records 2,108.8 hours of sunshine on its 1981-2010 normals; 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. Each city's worst hazard is one it has not taken head-on in living memory: the last hurricane to strike St. Petersburg directly was in 1921, and Helene did its damage from offshore. It passed 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. Victoria sits on the Cascadia subduction zone and carries Canada's highest earthquake risk, and its summers bring wildfire smoke and watering restrictions.
Victoria's economy is government and health care, and St. Petersburg's is head offices and health care. Victoria's largest sectors in the 2021 census were health care with 29,750 workers, public administration, which includes the provincial capital and CFB Esquimalt, with 27,780 and retail with 22,540. St. Petersburg's largest private employers are Raymond James, headquartered in the city with 4,800 staff, Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital with 2,800, Power Design and Jabil with 1,700 each, St. Anthony's Hospital and Duke Energy Florida, and BLS counted 1,559,600 nonfarm jobs across the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metro 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. The metro's unemployment rate was 4.8% in July 2026, not seasonally adjusted, up from 4.1% a year earlier; the City of St. Petersburg's own was 4.2%. The Victoria metro's was 5.0% seasonally adjusted and 5.3% unadjusted on the three-month average, so on the closest like-for-like basis Victoria's is half a point higher. Median household income was $85,000 CAD for the Victoria metro in 2020, against $73,048 USD in the City of St. Petersburg in 2024, $11,066 below Tampa's across the bay. The tax systems collect in opposite places. British Columbia takes income and sales tax: about $20,503 CAD on $100,000, 20.5% before CPP and EI, a top combined rate of 53.5% and 12% on purchases. Florida takes no income tax, 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, an effective 1.76% on St. Petersburg's typical value against 0.566% in Victoria, and on these two homes the bills are close, $6,248 USD against $7,415 CAD.
Victoria's commuters leave the car far more often, and St. Petersburg's more often than most Floridians'. In the 2021 census 32.1% of City of Victoria commuters walked or cycled, the highest share of any Canadian city, and 11.1% took the bus; across the metro those shares fall to 15.3% and 7.7%, because most growth since 2016 has gone to Langford and the West Shore, 15 to 25 km out. That census was taken in May 2021 and understates normal transit use. In St. Petersburg 2.9% of workers walked or cycled in 2024 and 2.1% took transit, the highest transit share of the Florida cities this site compares outside Miami; 65.6% drove alone and 21.3% worked from home. BC Transit publishes no verified systemwide total for Victoria; its busiest route, the 95 Blink RapidBus, carries more than 11,000 boardings a day. The Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority carried 10,441,618 trips across the county in 2025, 769,551 of them on the SunRunner, a bus rapid transit line every 15 minutes from downtown to St. Pete Beach. There is no passenger rail, and the seasonal Cross-Bay Ferry to downtown Tampa stopped after 2025, though PSTA bought two vessels in June 2026 to restart it. Victoria International handled 1,986,057 passengers in 2025 and sends most international trips through Vancouver or Seattle. St. Pete-Clearwater International, about 9 miles north of downtown, handled a record 2,794,067, almost all on Allegiant, and most of St. Petersburg's flights go through Tampa International, about 16 miles away, which handled 24,811,007.
In Victoria the bill for care is settled by British Columbia's Medical Services Plan, with no premium since 2020, and Island Health runs Royal Jubilee, Victoria General for trauma and pediatrics and Saanich Peninsula. The problem there is attachment: family doctors are scarce enough that BC runs a central Health Connect Registry to place new patients. In St. Petersburg the problem is coverage. 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, and the City of St. Petersburg's was 7.3%. 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. No wait time figure was verified for either city. Greater Victoria runs three public school districts, with no charter schools anywhere in BC and French immersion seats drawn by lottery. 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. The University of Victoria teaches about 22,000 students; St. Petersburg has the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, a downtown campus of about 6,500, Eckerd College and four of St. Petersburg College's campuses and centers.
What people underestimate is what each figure leaves out. A BC buyer hands over $24,220 in property transfer tax on the Victoria benchmark house. 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, because a homeowners policy does not pay for rising water, and flood is what Helene did there. The City assessed 13,494 parcels for damage after Helene and recorded 5,189 with major damage and 146 destroyed; those are parcels rather than homes, but they put the questions in order. 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, moving since Florida's 2022 reserve law and the 2024 storms. St. Petersburg is also shrinking a little: it lost 1,822 residents, 0.7%, in 2024-25, the year that took in Helene and Milton, and its median age is 43.0. Victoria, for its part, sits at the south tip of an island, where every mainland trip that is not a flight is a 95-minute ferry. Victoria's 4.34% renews after a five-year term, where 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
- In the 2021 census 32.1% of City of Victoria commuters walked or cycled, the highest share of any Canadian city, against 2.9% in St. Petersburg in 2024.
- The Medical Services Plan covers physician and hospital care with nothing due at the point of use and has charged no premium since 2020, where Florida has not expanded Medicaid and its uninsured rate was 10.9% in 2024.
- July averages 17.2 C on the 1991-2020 normals, against 28.8 C in St. Petersburg, where the same normals count 70.9 days a year at or above 32.2 C (90F), and there is no hurricane season.
- Property tax is 0.566% of value on the city's 2026 rate, against an effective 1.76% on St. Petersburg's homesteaded typical value.
- A two-bedroom averaged $2,076 CAD in October 2025, about 29% 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.
- There were 4 homicide victims in the metro in 2025, 0.90 per 100,000, against 9 in St. Petersburg at about 3.4.
Worse here
- The benchmark house was 15.4 times the metro's 2020 median household income of $85,000 CAD in July 2026, against about 4.9 times for Zillow's typical value in St. Petersburg.
- Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $6,515 CAD a month on the July 2026 benchmark, roughly 92% of that median, and a buyer pays $24,220 in property transfer tax at closing.
- Income tax on $100,000 is about $20,503 CAD for 2025 against $13,449 USD of federal tax in St. Petersburg, and sales tax is 12% against 7%.
- Family doctors are scarce enough that BC runs a central Health Connect Registry, and about 1.4 million British Columbians had no primary care provider in mid-2025.
- January averages 4.6 C at the airport under winter rain, against 16.8 C in St. Petersburg.
- Every mainland trip that is not a flight is a 95-minute ferry, and the city sits on the Cascadia subduction zone, with Canada's highest earthquake risk.
Choose Victoria if
- you want health coverage that stays with you between jobs
- you would rather walk or cycle to work inside a small core than drive
- you plan to rent, or already hold housing equity, because 15.4 times median household income is not a salary purchase
- you want a July averaging 17.2 C and no hurricane season
The Victoria guide · Neighbourhoods · Victoria rent vs buy · Victoria mortgage calculator
Better here
- Zillow's typical value of $355,759 USD in June 2026 is about 4.9 times the city's 2024 median household income, against 15.4 times for Victoria's benchmark house.
- Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $2,742 USD a month on that value, roughly 45% of local median income against about 92% in Victoria.
- Florida levies no income tax, so $100,000 pays $13,449 USD in federal tax for 2025 and $13,170 for 2026, against about $20,503 CAD in Victoria.
- January averages 16.8 C with no snow on the normals, against 4.6 C and a 38.6 cm snow normal in Victoria.
- Unemployment in the Tampa-St. Petersburg metro was 4.8% in July 2026, not seasonally adjusted, against 5.3% in Victoria on an unadjusted three-month average.
- Violent offenses fell 19% in 2025 and property offenses 17%, and the police department's 10 homicides were the fewest it has counted since 1967.
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.
- Zillow's rent index for the city was $2,058 USD in June 2026, about 34% of a median household income of $73,048, against about 29% in Victoria.
- Florida is one of ten states that have not expanded Medicaid, and its uninsured rate was 10.9% in 2024 against 8.2% nationally.
- Only 2.1% of workers commuted by transit in 2024 and 2.9% walked or cycled, 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.
Choose St. Petersburg if
- you want to own a house on one or two salaries rather than on equity you already hold
- you want a 16.8 C January and can plan a summer around heat, humidity and hurricane season
- you work in finance, health care or engineering and want a headquarters town inside a metro of 3.4 million
- you have employer health insurance you trust and will buy on elevation and flood zone first
The St. Petersburg guide · Neighborhoods · St. Petersburg rent vs buy · St. Petersburg mortgage calculator
Victoria or St. Petersburg, in short
Is Victoria or St. Petersburg cheaper to live in?
St. Petersburg, to own, and not narrowly, once each bill is read against its own city's pay, because the currencies do not convert here; Victoria, to rent. A Victoria owner pays about $6,515 CAD a month on mortgage, property tax and insurance for the benchmark single-family house, roughly 92% of the metro's 2020 median household income of $85,000 CAD. 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, even at 6.67% against 4.34%, with a property tax of about 1.76% of value and $390 a month of insurance that does not cover flood. A BC buyer also pays $24,220 in property transfer tax on the benchmark, and a Florida buyer about $1,565 in tax on the loan. Renting runs the other way: a two-bedroom averaged $2,076 CAD in October 2025 in Victoria, about 29% of median income, against Zillow's St. Petersburg rent index of $2,058 USD in June 2026, about 34%. Income and sales taxes favor St. Petersburg, $13,449 USD against about $20,503 CAD on $100,000 and 7% against 12%, though Victoria's taxes pay for health care.
Is Victoria or St. Petersburg safer?
Victoria, on homicide, the only count that crosses the border intact: 4 victims in the Victoria metro in 2025, 0.90 per 100,000, against 9 in the City of St. Petersburg in the FBI's file, about 3.4 per 100,000, and 10 on its police department's count, the fewest since 1967. The other rates measure different things. Victoria's violent rate of 1,542 per 100,000 counts every violent Criminal Code violation, common assault and uttering threats included, while St. Petersburg's 502 is murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault on the FBI's definitions, divided by the Census estimate and still open to revision. Property crime, 3,096 per 100,000 against 2,059, is defined differently as well. Victoria's metro Crime Severity Index was 74.57 in 2025, just under the national 75.0, and has moved sideways since 2021; St. Petersburg's violent offenses fell 19% in 2025 and its vehicle thefts have more than halved since 2023.
Which has the better climate, Victoria or St. Petersburg?
Victoria, unless warmth matters more to you than a mild summer. January averages 4.6 C at Victoria International and 16.8 C on St. Petersburg's waterfront, but July is 17.2 C in Victoria against 28.8 C in St. Petersburg, where the normals count 70.9 days a year at or above 32.2 C (90F) and the airport recorded 128 in 2024. St. Petersburg gets more precipitation, 1,185 mm against 901.2 mm, 63% of it in summer storms where Victoria's falls in winter. Victoria gets a 38.6 cm snow normal and St. Petersburg none, with one night at 0 C on its waterfront since 2010. Victoria's hazards are Cascadia earthquake risk and summer wildfire smoke; St. Petersburg's is storm surge, which reached a record 6.31 ft above mean higher high water in Helene in 2024, followed two weeks later by Milton's 18.54 in of rain in a day.
What did Hurricanes Helene and Milton change about buying in St. Petersburg?
The order of the questions. Helene did not make landfall in the city, but it pushed the bay 6.31 ft above mean higher high water at the St. Petersburg gauge, against a previous record of 3.97 ft, and the City assessed 13,494 parcels for damage afterward, recording 5,189 with major damage and 146 destroyed. The $390 a month of homeowners insurance in this site's figure covers wind and not rising water, so a flood policy, priced off the elevation certificate, comes on top of the $2,742. On a damaged or renovated house, FEMA's substantial improvement rule can require the whole building to be brought up to current flood standards once the work reaches half its market value. The city's typical value fell 3.9% in the year to June 2026, and it lost 1,822 residents in 2024-25. Victoria's equivalent question is seismic, and no figure on this site prices it.
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.
- Population and dwelling counts: Canada, provinces and territories, census divisions and census subdivisions (table 98-10-0002-01) · Statistics Canada · retrieved Supports: City population, Five-year growth
- Population and dwelling counts: Census metropolitan areas, census agglomerations and census subdivisions (table 98-10-0003-01) · Statistics Canada · retrieved Supports: population.metro (2021 census count), population.growthPct5y (CMA comparison)
- Population estimates, July 1, by census metropolitan area and census agglomeration (table 17-10-0148-01) · Statistics Canada · retrieved Supports: Metro population
- Crime severity index and weighted clearance rates, police services in census metropolitan areas (table 35-10-0026-01) · Statistics Canada · retrieved Supports: Crime Severity Index, Crime trend
- Incident-based crime statistics, by detailed violations, police services in census metropolitan areas (table 35-10-0177-01) · Statistics Canada · retrieved Supports: Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Crime trend
- Number and rate of homicide victims, by census metropolitan areas (table 35-10-0071-01) · Statistics Canada · retrieved Supports: Homicides
- Canadian Climate Normals 1991-2020, Victoria Int'l A (climate ID 1018620) · Environment and Climate Change Canada · retrieved Supports: January mean, July mean, Annual precipitation, Annual snowfall
- Canadian Climate Normals 1991-2020, Victoria Gonzales (climate ID 1018610) · Environment and Climate Change Canada · retrieved Supports: climate.note (downtown comparison)
- Canadian Climate Normals 1981-2010, Victoria Int'l A · Environment and Climate Change Canada · retrieved Supports: Sunshine hours
- Household income statistics by dwelling and household characteristics: census metropolitan areas (table 98-10-0061-01) · Statistics Canada · retrieved Supports: Median household income
- Household income statistics by household type: census subdivisions (table 98-10-0057-01) · Statistics Canada · retrieved Supports: economy.medianHouseholdIncome (city figure in note)
- Labour force characteristics, three-month moving average, by census metropolitan area, seasonally adjusted (table 14-10-0459-01) · Statistics Canada · retrieved Supports: Unemployment rate
- Greater Victoria Metropolitan Region Socio-Economic Profile 2025 · South Island Prosperity Partnership · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
- Personal income tax rates · Province of British Columbia · retrieved Supports: Top marginal income tax
- Provincial sales tax (PST) · Province of British Columbia · retrieved Supports: Sales tax
- 2025 personal tax rates, British Columbia (combined federal and provincial) · EY Canada · retrieved Supports: Income tax on $100,000, Top marginal income tax
- Main mode of commuting by commuting duration, time leaving for work, age and gender: census metropolitan areas (table 98-10-0457-01) · Statistics Canada · retrieved Supports: Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share
- Main mode of commuting by commuting duration, time leaving for work, age and gender: census subdivisions (table 98-10-0458-01) · Statistics Canada · retrieved Supports: transit.transitModeSharePct (city), transit.walkBikeModeSharePct (city)
- Year in review: a successful 2025 for BC Transit · BC Transit · retrieved Supports: Transit ridership
- 2026/27 Annual Service Plan, Victoria Regional Transit Commission report #14 · BC Transit · retrieved Supports: Transit ridership
- 2025 Annual Report · Victoria Airport Authority · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- The sky's the limit: Victoria airport has high hopes for year ahead · Victoria News · retrieved Supports: transit.airport (exact passenger count 1,986,057)
- Hospitals and health centre locations · Island Health · retrieved Supports: Health care
- 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: Victoria Real Estate Board monthly news release · Victoria Real Estate Board · retrieved Supports: Victoria Core single-family benchmark of $1,311,000, down 2.8% year over year, Victoria Core condominium benchmark of $548,600, down 2.2% year over year, Victoria Core townhouse benchmark of $857,300, 673 sales and 3,847 active listings board-wide in July 2026
- Rental Market Survey: Victoria (CY), average rent by bedroom type, October 2025 · Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation · retrieved Supports: One-bedroom average rent of $1,594, Two-bedroom average rent of $2,076, Three-bedroom-plus average rent of $3,035, Victoria CMA vacancy rate of 3.3%
- 2026 Property Tax Mill Rate · City of Victoria · retrieved Supports: 2026 Class 1 residential total rate of $5.6559 per $1,000 of taxable value, Municipal residential rate of $3.7229, of which $1.3782 is police, Additional school tax of 0.2000 above $3 million and 0.4000 above $4 million
- 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