Renting vs buying in Highland Beach
Three miles of barrier island between Boca and Delray, and a brand-new fire department. Here is the arithmetic of owning here rather than renting, on the millage actually charged, Florida's homestead exemption and the most expensive homeowners insurance market in the country, and then the part the arithmetic misses.
Calculator
The short answer
The typical home in Highland Beach was worth about $914,455 in June 2026, and a three-bedroom on this coast asks roughly $8,236 a month. Both figures come from the same two Zillow indexes used for the Orlando and Charlotte metros elsewhere on this site, in the same month, which is what makes the three comparable.
The millage is not the rate you pay. Highland Beach is charged 15.8455 mills, but a homesteaded buyer pays about $13,856 a year: the 1.52% used below, because $25,000 of taxable value comes off for every taxing authority and a second slice, indexed to inflation each 1 January since 2025, comes off for all of them except the school district. You file for it with the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser by 1 March of the year after you buy.
And then there is the insurance, which is the number that actually decides this. The $850 a month assumed here is $10,200 a year: a barrier-island estimate, well above the Palm Beach County average of about $6,600, because an address east of the Intracoastal is the maximum windstorm and flood exposure case in the state outside the Keys. Flood is a separate compulsory policy on top of it. Tax and insurance together are $24,056 a year before a dollar of principal or interest. Replace the insurance figure with a real quote before you trust any result on this page; it moves the answer further than the mortgage rate does.
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.
One cost this page does not include. None of this includes a community development district assessment. A CDD is a special-purpose government that borrows to build a master-planned community's roads, drainage and amenities and repays the bonds through a non-ad-valorem line on your tax bill. Commonly $1,200 to $3,000 a year in the newer parts of Florida. It is in no millage, it is not in any figure here, and it is the first thing to check on a new-build address.
The county library district's 0.5491 mills is modelled here per municipality rather than left out. The property appraiser's taxing-authority chart carries a library column for every tax district code, and it shows eleven of these twenty-four municipalities inside the district and thirteen outside it, most of the thirteen because they run a library of their own. Whichever is right for this municipality is already in the figure above.
Your situation
Compare like for like: the rent on somewhere you would actually be willing to live, not the cheapest listing in the city. Drop the price to around $300,000 and the rent to a one-bedroom figure to compare apartments instead, and put the condo fee in under Assumptions.
20.0% down. The renter starts with this plus closing costs: $189,255: invested instead.
The single biggest lever. Buying costs a lot to enter and a lot to exit, and only time amortizes that away.
Assumptions: every one of them editable
Highland Beach's typical home value moved -1.2% in the year to June 2026. The 2% default is a long-run assumption rather than this market's recent experience: try both, and try zero.
What the renter earns on the down payment they never spent. This is the comparison's hidden lever. A renter who spends it instead of investing it does far worse than this model shows.
Florida forbids its counties and cities from controlling rents at all. The statute allowed a narrow exception (a declared housing emergency, a specific finding, and a referendum) and the legislature closed even that in 2023. There is no cap, no guideline and no prospect of one, so any rent-growth figure you enter here is a forecast rather than a legal ceiling.
Roofs, furnaces, fences, hail. Averaged out it is a real cost even in the years nothing breaks.
Zero for a single-family house. Where there is a condominium, $750 a month is a conservative figure for this coast, and check the milestone inspection and the structural integrity reserve study, because Florida's 2022 legislation has forced six-figure special assessments on older oceanfront buildings here.
Commission and legal fees, charged against the price you eventually sell at. The owner's net worth below is after this comes off.
Net worth, side by side
The buyer's line is home value minus what is still owed minus the cost of selling, plus anything they invested in months when owning was cheaper. The renter's line is one portfolio: the down payment and closing costs they never spent, plus the monthly difference whenever renting is cheaper.
Show the year-by-year figures
| Year | Owner | Renter | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $156,744 | $198,718 | −$41,974 |
| 2 | $192,596 | $208,654 | −$16,057 |
| 3 | $231,160 | $219,086 | $12,073 |
| 4 | $272,595 | $230,041 | $42,554 |
| 5 | $317,071 | $241,543 | $75,528 |
| 6 | $364,766 | $253,620 | $111,146 |
| 7 | $415,869 | $266,301 | $149,568 |
| 8 | $470,579 | $279,616 | $190,963 |
| 9 | $529,106 | $293,597 | $235,510 |
| 10 | $591,674 | $308,276 | $283,397 |
| 11 | $658,516 | $323,690 | $334,825 |
| 12 | $729,880 | $339,875 | $390,005 |
| 13 | $806,029 | $356,869 | $449,160 |
| 14 | $887,238 | $374,712 | $512,527 |
| 15 | $973,801 | $393,448 | $580,354 |
| 16 | $1,066,026 | $413,120 | $652,906 |
| 17 | $1,164,239 | $433,776 | $730,463 |
| 18 | $1,268,783 | $455,465 | $813,318 |
| 19 | $1,380,024 | $478,238 | $901,786 |
| 20 | $1,498,344 | $502,150 | $996,195 |
| 21 | $1,624,151 | $527,257 | $1,096,894 |
| 22 | $1,757,874 | $553,620 | $1,204,253 |
| 23 | $1,899,964 | $581,301 | $1,318,663 |
| 24 | $2,050,902 | $610,366 | $1,440,535 |
| 25 | $2,211,192 | $640,885 | $1,570,308 |
| 26 | $2,381,371 | $672,929 | $1,708,442 |
| 27 | $2,562,002 | $706,575 | $1,855,426 |
| 28 | $2,753,682 | $741,904 | $2,011,778 |
| 29 | $2,957,042 | $778,999 | $2,178,043 |
| 30 | $3,172,749 | $817,949 | $2,354,800 |
- The rate is fixed for the life of the loan, so there is no renewal to model, but nothing here credits you for refinancing into a lower one either.
- Neither household is credited with tax on their investments, and the buyer's gain on a principal residence is tax-free while the renter's portfolio may not be.
An estimate from published figures, not a lender quote.
Questions people actually ask
Is it worth buying in Highland Beach right now?
The typical home in Highland Beach is worth about $914,455 and a three-bedroom on this coast asks roughly $8,236 a month. At 6.67% on a 30-year fixed loan with 20% down, the mortgage is $4,706 a month, and then the two lines that actually decide this. Property tax at $1,155 a month, and homeowners insurance at about $850, which takes the owner's month to roughly $6,711. Tax and insurance together come to $24,056 a year before a dollar of principal or interest. In the Charlotte metro the same two lines on a house of this value would be a fraction of that, and the difference is not the tax.
Why is the tax rate on this page 1.52% when Highland Beach is charged 15.8455 mills?
About 1.52% of what you pay for the house, which is lower than the 15.8455 mills charged here, 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, so there is nothing to correct for. 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 school district, which levies 6.3210 of the 15.8455. 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 $13,856 on the $914,455 typical home value here. Highland Beach is outside the county's 3.4581-mill Fire/Rescue MSTU, and Palm Beach County Fire Rescue's own areas-served page lists it as dispatched by the county rather than served by it, so none of those mills is on this bill and the cost of the service is already inside the municipal levy above. Highland Beach is outside the county library district, so none of its 0.5491 mills is here. The exemption is not automatic: you file for it with the Palm Beach 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.
What actually makes up the 15.8455 mills?
Four things, and only one of them is the municipality's. Palm Beach County and its countywide districts come to 12.2580 mills everywhere in this layer: the county's 4.5000 and its 0.0330 of debt, the school district's 6.3210, the Children's Services Council's 0.4908, the Health Care District's 0.6561, three South Florida Water Management District levies totalling 0.2301 and the Florida Inland Navigation District's 0.0270. Highland Beach's own levy is 3.5875. Fire is nothing, because Highland Beach is outside the county's 3.4581-mill MSTU and Palm Beach County Fire Rescue's own areas-served page lists it as a municipality the county dispatches for but does not serve, so whatever the service costs is inside the municipal levy above. The county library district is none of it: Highland Beach is one of the thirteen outside the district. That fire line is the reason a municipality with a high own-rate can end up cheaper than a neighbour with a low one, and it is the first thing to check when a rate looks surprising.
Why is the seller's tax bill so much lower than the figure here?
Save Our Homes, and in a county where values have moved as far as this one's the gap is enormous. A homesteaded property's assessed value may rise no more than 3% a year (or the change in the consumer price index, whichever is lower) for as long as the same owner keeps the exemption, and it resets to full market value the January after a sale. On this $914,455 house the first-year bill is about $13,856; a neighbour who bought a decade ago may be paying a fraction of that for an identical house. If you already own a Florida homestead you can port up to $500,000 of the accrued benefit to the next one. If you are arriving from out of state, you cannot, and the number on this page is yours.
How much is homeowners insurance in Highland Beach, really?
The honest answer is that this page cannot tell you and it matters more than anything else on it. The figure used here is $850 a month ($10,200 a year) which is a barrier-island estimate, well above the Palm Beach County average of about $6,600 because an oceanfront or near-oceanfront address is the maximum windstorm and flood exposure case in the state outside the Keys. What actually sets your premium is roof age, construction type, opening protection, the wind mitigation report and the flood zone, and the spread between a 1960s wood-frame house with an old roof and a 2015 block house with impact windows is several multiples rather than a few percent. Flood is a separate compulsory policy here on top of all of it. Get a real quote before you make an offer, and put it into the calculator above in place of the default.
What are the closing costs, and what is the intangible tax?
Florida splits the transfer taxes between the two sides. The documentary stamp on the deed (70 cents per $100, or $6,401 on this house) is the seller's by convention, and in Palm Beach County so is the owner's title policy. What is yours is a second documentary stamp on the promissory note at 0.35% and a non-recurring intangible tax on the mortgage at 0.2%: on a $731,564 loan that is $4,024 in tax on the borrowing itself, and it gets larger the less you put down. With the settlement fee, an inspection (which in Florida usually means a general inspection plus wind mitigation and four-point reports the insurer will demand) and recording, the buyer's side comes to about $6,364 before the lender's own charges.
How long do you have to stay for buying to beat renting in Highland Beach?
Getting in is about $6,364 and getting out is roughly 6.5% (the commission, the seller's $6,401 documentary stamp and the title policy) or about $59,440 on this house. But on this coast the break-even is driven by the carrying cost rather than the friction: $24,056 a year in tax and insurance that the renter does not pay, against a rent of $8,236 a month. Change the insurance figure to your own quote before you read anything into the crossover year; it moves the answer further than the mortgage rate does.
Does Florida have rent control?
No, and Highland Beach is not permitted to introduce it. Florida forbids its counties and cities from controlling rents at all. The statute allowed a narrow exception (a declared housing emergency, a specific finding, and a referendum) and the legislature closed even that in 2023. There is no cap, no guideline and no prospect of one, so any rent-growth figure you enter here is a forecast rather than a legal ceiling. On this coast that cuts both ways. Seasonal demand is real (a great deal of the rental stock here is let by the season at prices no annual lease would bear) and a landlord facing an insurance increase has nothing preventing them passing it on at renewal.
What is this calculator not accounting for in Highland Beach?
Three things. Community development districts and club memberships: None of this includes a community development district assessment. A CDD is a special-purpose government that borrows to build a master-planned community's roads, drainage and amenities and repays the bonds through a non-ad-valorem line on your tax bill. Commonly $1,200 to $3,000 a year in the newer parts of Florida. It is in no millage, it is not in any figure here, and it is the first thing to check on a new-build address. And in this county a great many communities carry a mandatory country club or golf membership attached to the deed, which can be a five-figure annual obligation entirely separate from anything here. Tax: mortgage interest and property tax are deductible if you itemise; a principal residence's gain is excluded up to $250,000 single or $500,000 married under section 121, and Florida charges no state income tax on either. And the local variation: 3 miles from downtown Boca Raton in a straight line is not a drive time: None. A1A is the road., and a single figure for a municipality of 4,368 people averages over housing stock and, in several places on this coast, over a mainland market and a barrier-island one at once. 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.
Which figures here are estimates
The home values, rents and every component of the millage come from published sources, each listed below with the period it describes. These do not:
- Home insurance, which is the largest and least certain figure on these pages: $550 a month on the mainland and $850 on the barrier islands, against a Palm Beach County average of about $6,600 a year. It varies more by roof age, construction and flood zone than by municipality, and it is the one input worth replacing with a real quote before trusting any result
- The split of rent by bedroom count, derived by scaling each place's rent index by the same ratios the Orlando layer uses. The level is measured, the shape is assumed
- The rent in the six municipalities Zillow publishes no index for, which falls back to the median of the other eighteen
- The condominium fee at $750 a month, which on this coast is a conservative figure and has been moving upward since Florida's 2022 reserve legislation
- The utilities an owner pays over a renter, at $160 a month
- Maintenance at 1% of the home's value a year
- Every forward-looking rate: appreciation, rent growth, cost inflation and the return on the invested difference
- And nothing at all for a community development district assessment, or for a mandatory club membership, both of which are common in this county
If you want the payment side on its own. Prepayments, the month mortgage insurance stops, and the documentary stamp and intangible taxes Florida charges on the loan: the Highland Beach mortgage calculator covers it. To see how Highland Beach compares with the other twenty-three municipalities on this coast, use the coastal comparison; Highland Beach is 3 miles from downtown Boca Raton. And for the same rules and the same indexes inland, the Orlando metro is measured identically.
Sources
- 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 the 35th to 65th percentile of each municipality's market, computed on one method across all twenty-four, The same series and month the Charlotte and Orlando metro pages use, so all three American layers can be read against each other, Year-over-year change to June 2026
- Zillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI), all homes, smoothed: city file, June 2026 · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: Asking rents across the whole rental stock for the eighteen municipalities Zillow indexes, No index at all for the six smallest, several of which have fewer than five hundred residents
- Taxing Authority Code Description, Palm Beach County 2025 · Palm Beach County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: One row per tax authority code, 123 codes, with a named column for every levy and a published TOTAL, which settles the district set for all twenty-four municipalities by inspection, The Fire/Rescue MSTU at 3.4581 on five of the twenty-four and on no others: South Palm Beach, Lake Worth Beach, Wellington, Royal Palm Beach and Lake Park, The county Library district at 0.5491 on eleven: Ocean Ridge, Hypoluxo, South Palm Beach, Greenacres, Wellington, Royal Palm Beach, Palm Beach Shores, Palm Beach Gardens, Jupiter, Jupiter Inlet Colony and Tequesta, The Jupiter Inlet District at 0.0722 on three: Jupiter, Tequesta and Jupiter Inlet Colony, Children's Services 0.4908, the Health Care District 0.6561 and F.I.N.D. 0.0270 on all 123 codes, which is why they are countywide here, The published TOTAL every row in this layer reproduces, from Palm Beach's 14.8690 to Lake Worth Beach's 21.6106
- 2025 millage rates by taxing authority, Palm Beach County · Palm Beach County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: The countywide levies: county 4.5000 and county debt 0.0330, school state 3.0730 and local 3.2480, Children's Services 0.4908, Health Care District 0.6561, three SFWMD levies totalling 0.2301 and FIND 0.0270, The conditional Fire/Rescue MSTU at 3.4581 and the separate Jupiter Fire/Rescue MSTU at 1.7251, Every municipality's own operating and debt millage, and the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District at 1.0800, A published total for Boca Raton of 17.0029 mills, which this layer's stack reproduces exactly
- 2026 Proposed, Rollback and 2025 Final Millage Rates, Palm Beach County · Palm Beach County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: The 2025 Final column corroborating the three district rates read off the code chart: Fire/Rescue 3.4581, Library 0.5491 and Jupiter Inlet District 0.0722, F.I.N.D. at 0.0270 for 2025, against the 0.0288 this layer carried for a year, which is the 2024 rate
- Table 1: Comparison of Taxes Levied, county and municipal governments, fiscal years 2024-25 and 2025-26: Palm Beach · Florida Department of Revenue, Property Tax Oversight · retrieved Supports: The adopted 2025-26 millage rate and taxes levied for Palm Beach County and every municipality in it, Independent confirmation of the municipal rates taken from the property appraiser's table
- Areas served · Palm Beach County Fire Rescue · retrieved Supports: Which of these municipalities Palm Beach County Fire Rescue serves, which it only dispatches for, and which it neither serves nor dispatches: seven of the twenty-four here are served, eleven are dispatched only, and six are in neither list, That the county serves Manalapan, which is outside the Fire/Rescue MSTU, so the one municipality here buying the county's service under a contract paid from its own general fund is Manalapan, Not who provides the service where the county does not, which the page does not say, and not which are inside the Fire/Rescue MSTU, which is the question the tax bill answers and the appraiser's code chart settles
- 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, West Palm Beach at 127,744 and Boca Raton at 102,238; Golf at 273 and Jupiter Inlet Colony at 456
- Average cost of home insurance in Florida, 2026 · MoneyGeek · retrieved Supports: A Palm Beach County average of about $6,614 a year against a Florida average of about $3,815 and a national average of about $2,543, Coastal and barrier-island exposure as the largest single driver of the difference
- 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
These are estimates built from published figures, not a lender quote, a pre-approval or financial advice. Rates, premiums and state and federal rules change; confirm anything you plan to act on with a mortgage professional and read the sourcing methodology.