Understand Saint Cloud before you commit to an address
Saint Cloud is seventy-one thousand people on the south shore of East Lake Tohopekaliga, founded in 1909 as a Union veterans' colony and up more than twenty percent since the 2020 census, the third-fastest growth on this list behind Leesburg and Groveland and the fastest in Osceola County. Figures are the same two indexes measured the same way in all 24 municipalities here, on Florida's rules including the homestead exemption.
The cost of living in Saint Cloud, 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 Saint Cloud
Whether buying here beats renting, and the year it turns over. The insurance line, which in Florida decides it, is a figure you can edit.
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 Saint Cloud is the right part of the metro
No neighborhood guides for Saint Cloud yet. What is here instead is the whole metro on one comparable footing.
All 24 municipalities around Orlando
Every municipality in the four counties side by side on typical home value, the millage adopted, and the rate a homesteaded buyer really pays.
Compare the metroThe 24 towns around Charlotte
The same two Zillow indexes for the same month, in a metro where the effective tax rate runs about six-tenths of Orlando's and insurance a little under six-tenths as much.
Compare the two metrosOrlando, neighborhood by neighborhood
The one municipality here with sourced guides rather than a single row of figures, including the first pages on this site to price a community development district assessment.
Explore OrlandoWhat buying in Saint Cloud actually involves
Saint Cloud charges 5.11 mills for a total of 17.90 and a buyer's effective rate of 1.60%, the highest in Osceola County and fifth-highest in this metro. On a typical home value of about $393,000 that is a bill near $6,300. Growth of this speed is expensive to service and the millage reflects it; so does the city's utility, which Saint Cloud also owns.
Everything about this market is new construction on the eastern and southern edges, and almost all of it sits in a community development district. The CDD assessment is a bond repayment on top of the tax bill, commonly $1,200 to $2,500 a year here and running twenty to thirty years, and it is not in the millage on this page. The other constraint is roads: there is no rail, US-192 and the Turnpike are the routes, and the Osceola Parkway extension has been contested for years.
Growth here has been eastward and southward on former ranch land, and the road network is catching up rather than leading. The practical consequence is that the drive to the medical and technology employment north of the city, or to the tourism corridor west of it, is longer than the map suggests at peak.
Because almost everything is new, the housing stock has an unusually narrow age range and a good insurance profile: current wind codes, newer roofs and modern construction. The offsetting cost is the district assessment attached to most of those subdivisions, which is a bond repayment rather than a service charge.
Moving to Saint Cloud: check these before you commit
- The community development district assessment on the specific lot, its annual amount and its remaining term. This matters more here than almost anywhere in the metro.
- School capacity, which in a city growing this fast is the first thing to fall behind.
- The commute on US-192 and the Turnpike at your hour, since there is no rail alternative.
- The drive to your actual workplace at peak, because the road network here lags the housing.
Saint Cloud levies 5.1128 of the 17.8989 mills charged here; the rest is Osceola County, the school district and the water management district, none of which the city council sets.
Sourced, dated, and separated from the guesswork
Every Saint Cloud 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 Saint Cloud 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, Year-over-year change to June 2026, which is negative in twenty-two of the twenty-four, The same series and month the Charlotte metro pages use, so the two American metros can be read against each other
- Zillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI), all homes, smoothed: city file, June 2026 · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: A repeat-rent index of asking rents across the whole rental stock, single-family homes included, Municipality-level rent measured on one method across the metro, for twenty-three of the twenty-four
- 2025 Final Millage Rates · Orange County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: Orange County general at 4.4347 mills, the library district at 0.3748 and the St Johns River Water Management District at 0.1793, School state and local levies totalling 6.449 mills, Municipal rates from Windermere's 3.7425 to Eatonville's 7.2938, A published total against every mill code, including Winter Park's 15.3615 on codes 2, 4 and 6, Maitland's 16.3055 on code 6, and Windermere's 15.2311 on code 35 and 15.4839 on code 75, A blank library column on every Winter Park and Maitland code, which is what puts both municipalities outside the district
- Special taxing district information: the Orange County Library District's boundary · Orange County Library System · retrieved Supports: The district's boundary is Orange County exclusive of Winter Park and Maitland, each of which operates its own library, Laws of Florida chapter 99-486 as the enabling act behind it
- Final 2025 Millage Rates, fiscal year 2025-26 · Seminole County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: Total millage by taxing authority for every Seminole municipality, from Lake Mary's 14.3929 to Casselberry's 18.1808, School required local and discretionary levies totalling 5.2490 mills, The county fire and road MSTUs, which apply in the unincorporated area and in some cities but not others
- 2025 Final Millage Rates · Osceola County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: Kissimmee at 17.4114 mills and Saint Cloud at 17.8989, School levies totalling 5.3060 mills across required local, discretionary and capital, Dozens of separate municipal service taxing units in the unincorporated county, from 0.13 to 12.42 mills, which is why an unincorporated Osceola address cannot be given one rate