Understand Belleair before you commit to an address
Belleair is four thousand people on a bluff above the Intracoastal south of Clearwater, built around the golf courses of the old Belleview Biltmore resort. A small, wooded, entirely residential town with its own police force and a long history of keeping it that way. Figures are the same two indexes measured the same way in all 24 municipalities here, on Florida's rules including the homestead exemption. Zillow publishes no rent index for a municipality this size, so the rent shown is the median of the seventeen here that have one, and is marked as such wherever it appears.
The cost of living in Belleair, 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 Belleair
Whether buying here beats renting, and the year it turns over. With twenty-three of twenty-four municipalities down last year, appreciation is the input worth arguing with.
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 Belleair is the right part of the bay
No neighborhood guides for Belleair yet. What is here instead is both sides of the bay on one comparable footing.
All 24 municipalities in Tampa Bay
Every municipality across Hillsborough and Pinellas side by side on home value, millage, the rate a homesteaded buyer pays, and what storm surge did to it.
Compare the bayTampa, neighborhood by neighborhood
One of the two municipalities here with sourced guides rather than a single row of figures, including how high above the bay each part sits and what that is worth on a quote.
Explore TampaSt. Petersburg, area by area
The other municipality here with a hub of its own: the same row of figures as this table, the five areas the city divides into, and neighborhood guides on the peninsula where Helene's surge was the largest on record.
Explore St. PetersburgMiami and Miami-Dade
The same rules, the same exemptions and the same two Zillow indexes, and against every expectation, higher insurance premiums than Tampa Bay on a coast that has taken less surge.
Compare the two coastsWhat buying in Belleair actually involves
Belleair charges 6.9777 mills of its own, and its total of 20.4449 is the highest of these twenty-four. On a typical home value of $739,572 the effective rate of 1.93% produces about $14,300 a year. The largest property tax bill in this layer. A small residential town with no commercial base and its own police department is expensive per household, and this is what it costs.
Being on the bluff rather than at sea level is the other half of the story and it showed in 2024: Belleair's value is up 0.7% over the year to June 2026, the only municipality in this layer that rose. Elevation is now priced in Tampa Bay in a way it was not three years ago, and this town is the clearest evidence of it.
The town is entirely residential by design, with no commercial strip to carry any of the levy, which is the direct reason its rate is the highest in this layer. It is worth pricing that over a long hold: the gap between Belleair's bill and a neighbour's on a similar house compounds into a substantial number across ten years of ownership.
The old resort site at the center of the town has been the subject of redevelopment proposals for years, and what eventually happens there is the largest single variable in the neighborhood around it. A buyer nearby should read the current approvals rather than the history.
Moving to Belleair: check these before you commit
- The rate, which is the highest in this layer and worth pricing over a long hold.
- The town's building and tree rules, which are strict and are what preserve the setting.
- Where on the bluff the property sits, since the elevation advantage is not uniform across the town.
- The current status of the resort site redevelopment, if the address is anywhere near it.
- The town's tree and building rules before planning any work, because they are stricter than the county's.
Belleair's own council sets 6.9777 of the 20.4449 mills charged here. The rest is Pinellas County, the school board and the countywide special districts, and the 20.4449 is the total Pinellas County publishes for this taxing district rather than a figure assembled on this site.
Sourced, dated, and separated from the guesswork
Every Belleair 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 Belleair 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 each municipality, computed on one method across all twenty-four, The same series and month the Charlotte, Orlando, Palm Beach and Miami pages use, Year-over-year change to June 2026, which is negative in twenty-three of the twenty-four
- Zillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI), all homes, smoothed: city file, June 2026 · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: Asking rents for the seventeen municipalities Zillow indexes
- 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
- Millage rates levied for 2025 taxes · Pinellas County Tax Collector · retrieved Supports: A published real estate total for every taxing district in Pinellas County, from Redington Shores at 15.1568 to Belleair at 20.4449, including St Petersburg at 19.9197 and Belleair Beach at 15.4466, Countywide components: general fund 4.5423, health department 0.0713, emergency medical services 0.8050 and school 6.2930, Other districts totalling 1.0256: planning council 0.0175, Juvenile Welfare Board 0.8250 and the Southwest Florida Water Management District 0.1831, The Transit District at 0.7300 and which districts are inside it, and the Pinellas Suncoast Fire District at 0.6700 and which are inside that
- 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
- 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