Understand Lake Worth Beach before you commit to an address
Lake Worth Beach is forty-four thousand people between Lantana and West Palm Beach, laid out in a 1920s grid of small lots and wooden bungalows that gives it the most consistent historic housing stock in the county. It runs its own electric utility, one of very few Florida cities that do, and it renamed itself from Lake Worth in 2019. Figures are the same two indexes measured the same way in all 24 municipalities on this coast, on Florida's rules including the homestead exemption.
The cost of living in Lake Worth Beach, and what a home costs
Two calculators on Florida's own rules: monthly compounding and the month private mortgage insurance stops, and the closing costs this state actually charges.
Rent or buy in Lake Worth Beach
Whether buying here beats renting, and the year it turns over. On this coast insurance moves the answer more than the mortgage rate, and you can edit it.
Mortgage calculator
Monthly compounding, the 30-year fixed loan, the private mortgage insurance a low down payment triggers, and Florida's documentary stamp and intangible taxes on the loan itself.
Then work out whether Lake Worth Beach is the right part of this coast
No neighborhood guides for Lake Worth Beach yet. What is here instead is the whole coast on one comparable footing.
All 24 municipalities on the Palm Beach coast
Every municipality from Boca Raton to Tequesta side by side on home value, millage, the rate a homesteaded buyer pays, and which of them pay the county for fire.
Compare the coastThe 24 municipalities of the Orlando metro
Identical rules and exemptions, the same two Zillow indexes, and insurance at less than half what it costs here. It is the clearest measure of what proximity to the Atlantic costs.
Compare coast and inlandWhat buying in Lake Worth Beach actually involves
The city levies 5.4945 mills plus 0.4000 for debt, pays the county's Fire/Rescue MSTU after dissolving its own department, and lands at 21.6106 mills in total: the highest in this layer, and a homesteaded buyer's effective rate of about 1.95%, the highest as well. On a typical home value of $441,314 that is roughly $8,600 a year, which is only the fifteenth-largest bill of these twenty-four, because the houses here cost a fraction of what the barrier-island towns' do. The municipal electric utility transfers money into the general fund, which is the only reason the rate is not higher still.
The bungalow districts are the draw and the constraint at once: small lots, wood-frame construction from the 1920s, and historic district rules over a large part of the city. Wood frame and age are exactly what a Florida insurer prices hardest, so a beautiful 1925 bungalow here can be considerably more expensive to insure than a 1995 block house a mile west. Get the quote before the offer.
The city has an unusual amount of civic infrastructure for its size: a municipal beach and casino building, a golf course, an arts district and its own utility. That is what the rate funds, and it is also why the city feels quite different from the suburban communities immediately west of it.
Moving to Lake Worth Beach: check these before you commit
- The insurance quote specifically: wood-frame 1920s construction is the hardest profile to place in this state.
- Historic district rules if the property is inside one, which cover a large share of the city.
- The city's electric utility rates, which are its own rather than FPL's and are a recurring local argument.
- Parking and permit rules in the bungalow districts, where lots are small and streets are narrow.
Lake Worth Beach levies 5.8945 of the 21.6106 mills charged here. A further 3.4581 is the fire district levy, and the remaining 12.2580 is Palm Beach County, the school district and the countywide special districts. None of which the municipality sets.
Sourced, dated, and separated from the guesswork
Every Lake Worth Beach figure below is cited, stamped with the period it describes, and editable, because a number for the whole city rarely describes your purchase. Appreciation and investment returns are assumptions rather than facts, and they are labelled that way. Read the methodology for how the line is drawn.
- Prices, rents and tax rates: published statistics and the official schedules.
- Nothing here is a lender quote, a pre-approval or financial advice.
Where the Lake Worth Beach figures come from
- 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