If you find any other resources for Clearwater real estate that you feel are helpful and that you feel would be useful to others, please leave a comment below so that I can add them to this section.
BUYER’S GUIDES – Articles on Topics that Buyers of Clearwater Real Estate Want to Know About
6 Steps to Buying a Home, Condo or Townhome in Florida
Taking Advantage of the Buyer’s Market (good info for future buyer’s markets)
Short Sales, Foreclosures and Bank-Owned Properties
LINKS – Resources for Clearwater Real Estate Outside this Site on Taxes, Schools, Etc.
Property Taxes
Although there is no set way to know what the property taxes will be for the property you purchase when it gets reassessed, you can at least find out what the taxes were for the previous year. In most cases, since property values are either going down slightly or staying steady, it will give you a pretty good idea of what they will be for you. When you find what the property taxes were for the last year, I recommend looking for what the taxes were without any exemptions. That is the maximum tax amount. If you will be eligible for a homestead exemption then you would pay less, but I think you should be aware of what the maximum amount could be.
Pinellas County Property Appraiser’s Office
Click the link above and when you get there go to the menu on the left and click “Search Our Database” and then “By Address”. You’ll have to ‘accept’ their disclaimer and then you’ll get to the page where you can enter the address you want to check on.
Flood Zones
It is important, even more than ever, to know which type of a flood zone the property you want to buy or sell is in. Best are flood zone ‘X’ or ‘X-500’.
There used to be a site through the county where you could put in an address to find out which flood zone it was in but that site is no longer available.
This information is not typically available in online searches but does show in most listing reports I email you directly from the MLS.
If you ever want to verify the flood zone for a certain property you can also email me with the MLS number (or address if you don’t have the MLS number) and I’ll be happy to get that for you.
Pinellas County School Map
If you want to know what school district a property is in and what schools serve that area, you can go to this site and look and enter the property address to find out which schools it would match:
Pinellas School Locator by Address
The Pinellas County School Board site also has many other options for getting information about schools here (check out the tabs on the right side of the page).
School Ratings
If you’d like to check out the schools in this area to see how they rank, there is a great site that you can go to where you compare all the elementary, middle or high schools in this county (Pinellas County).
Just click the link below and when you get to the site choose the school level (Elementary, Middle or High) where it says “Compare Schools IN a DISTRICT”. Next, type “Pinellas” in the box for the District and click GO. On the next screen that comes up it should show “Pinellas County Public Schools” for the district and you should click where it says “get results”.
Check back from time to time because I will add new resources for Clearwater real estate as I find them or as people suggest them.
