Understand Tequesta before you commit to an address
Tequesta is sixty-three hundred people at the very northern edge of Palm Beach County, on the north bank of the Loxahatchee River across from Jupiter. A small, mostly single-family village with its own fire department, its own water utility and a compact commercial center on Old Dixie Highway. 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 Tequesta, 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 Tequesta
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 Tequesta is the right part of this coast
No neighborhood guides for Tequesta 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 Tequesta actually involves
The village levies 6.4595 mills, runs its own fire service so pays no county MSTU, and with the county library district's 0.5491 and the Jupiter Inlet District's 0.0722 totals 19.3388: a homesteaded buyer's rate of about 1.81%, or roughly $11,800 a year on a typical home value of $650,735. A village of six thousand people operating its own fire department and water utility is buying a lot of independence with that rate, and the water utility in particular has required significant capital work.
The market is river-oriented: a large share of the housing is on or near the Loxahatchee or its canals, and waterfront frontage is most of the value where it exists. Being at the county's northern edge means the drive to anywhere south is long, and Martin County immediately north is a different jurisdiction with different rates and schools. The river's Wild and Scenic designation governs shoreline and dock work here as it does in Jupiter.
The village has a small commercial core of its own and a set of services, including the water utility, that it runs rather than contracts, which is unusual at this size. That independence is the reason its rate compares as it does with neighbours that pay the county fire levy on top of a municipal one.
Most of the housing is 1960s to 1980s, a good deal of it on the river or its canals, and the newer stock is limited because the village is largely built out. That combination means the market here turns over slowly and the condition of an individual property matters more than the village average.
Moving to Tequesta: check these before you commit
- Seawall and dock condition on waterfront property, and what the Wild and Scenic designation permits.
- The village water utility's rates and its capital program, which are its own.
- The distance from everything south, which at this end of the county is real.
- The age of the systems in 1960s and 1970s stock, which is most of what trades here.
- Dock permits and river access rules, which are more restrictive on a protected waterway.
Tequesta levies 6.4595 of the 19.3388 mills charged here. The remaining 12.8793 is Palm Beach County, the school district and the countywide special districts, none of which the municipality sets, and none of it is the county Fire/Rescue MSTU, because Tequesta is outside it.
Sourced, dated, and separated from the guesswork
Every Tequesta 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 Tequesta 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