The Best Places to Live in Florida

With Florida still in recovery from Hurricane Ian, it’s probably easier right now to decide where not to live in Florida than where you should set down roots.

Devastating as Ian was, though, its impact across the state was uneven. The hardest-hit areas will require months or even years more before basic infrastructure and services are restored. Yet plenty of places in Florida retain their allure.

This report identifies 10 such places, based on their continuing appeal and comparative affordability.

The emphasis on finances was partly due to the unusual stresses to Florida’s economy in recent years. In addition to the gut punch delivered by Ian, Florida is among the states most affected by inflation, according to a 2022 analysis by the website Merchant Maverick.

Here are the 10 best places to live in Florida, according to our analysis.

1. Altamonte Springs
2. Oakleaf Plantation
3. Orlando
4. Winter Garden
5. Sarasota
6. Tampa
7. West Palm
8. Plantation
9. St. Petersburg
10. Jacksonville

Picking your place in Florida

Ultimately, of course, you’ll choose a home base in Florida by juggling a host of factors, financial and otherwise.

For example, you may want to consider smaller communities away from the hubbub of Miami and other big cities. Or perhaps you favor the activities and amenities of a bigger center – like the ability to regularly see Bucs, Rays and Lightning games in Tampa? Alternatively, for you, Sarasota’s beaches, botanical garden and famed Ringling Museum may compensate for housing prices that are on the high side compared to the other places on our list.

Fortunately, Florida’s size and diversity facilitate multiple options for almost anyone moving to or within the state.

Some good choices are even close to one another. We supplemented most of our main picks with a list of nearby places (reachable within a half hour or so’s drive) that also ranked well in our analysis. Some of those cities and towns may have less expensive housing than our main pick, yet still promise to have appeal.

The 10 best places to live in Florida

Here’s more detail about the 10 communities we’ve identified as the best places to live in the Sunshine State. They’re listed in order of their combination of economic opportunity and relatively low cost of living.

In all but one place, for instance, the median home price was no more than about $400,000 — which was the 2022 median for all the Florida communities we analyzed. (The pricey outlier is Winter Garden, which boasts the highest median household income of all best cities on our list by far at $94,852.) That wealth promises to make the city at least as affordable to would-be homebuyers as are the other places to their residents.

One caveat to the home price data: it’s subject to change within Florida’s dynamic housing markets – and not just downward, due to higher interest rates and Hurricane Ian.

Case in point: home prices in our top pick, Altamonte Springs, have been on the rise, increasing by 16.1% in the year that ended in September 2022. Because of timing, some of that surge isn’t fully reflected in the modest average home price we cite for the city.

For the three communities that also ranked among Money’s 50 Best Places to Live in 2022 across the country, we’ve linked to the city profile within that report.

Altamonte Springs

Population	Median household income	Median home price	Unemployment
44,383	$62,762	$210,105	2.7

See the Money profile of Altamonte Springs, which came in at #33 in the national ranking of best places to live in 2022.

Nearby and also worth considering:
* Sanford

Oakleaf Plantation

Population	Median household income	Median home price	Unemployment
29,054	$83,973	$307,198	2.6

Orlando

Population	Median household income	Median home price	Unemployment
295,112	$65,183	$319,211	3

Nearby and also worth considering:
* Alafaya

Winter Garden

Population	Median household income	Median home price	Unemployment
57,288	$94,852	$525,000	3

Sarasota

Population	Median household income	Median home price	Unemployment
56,115	$64,142	$368,733	2.6

See the Money profile of Sarasota, which came in at #43 in the ranking of best places to live in the U.S. in 2022.  

Tampa

Population	Median household income	Median home price	Unemployment
379,742	$70,145	$381,352	2.7

See the Money profile of Tampa, which came in at #9 in the ranking of best places to live in the U.S. in 2022.

Nearby and also worth considering:
* Northdale
* Citrus Park
* Carrollwood

West Palm

Population	Median household income	Median home price	Unemployment
29,054	$83,973	$307,198	2.6

Nearby and also worth considering:
* Royal Palm
* Town ‘n’ Country
* Wellington

Plantation

Population	Median household income	Median home price	Unemployment
90,251	$80,011	$274,056	2.9

Nearby and also worth considering:
* Davie
* Sunrise
* Hollywood
* Coconut Creek
* Pembroke Pines

St. Petersburg

Population	Median household income	Median home price	Unemployment
262,518	$66,135	$370,905	2.5

Jacksonville

Population	Median household income	Median home price	Unemployment
948,290	$62,841	$256,447	3.1

Methodology

We arrived at our selections through a two-step process. All the Florida picks ranked within the top half of the 1,300 locations considered in the Money’s analysis of Best Places to Live across the country. Indeed, three of the 10 — Altamonte Springs, Sarasota and Tampa — rank among Money’s 50 best U.S. places to live. Another, Jacksonville, got Money’s nod as one of the 10 best big cities to live in the country.

That national analysis considered community attributes ranging from home prices and employment through educational standing and crime to amenities like sports teams and cultural facilities. The choices in our Florida ranking were chosen for having an especially strong combination of high economic opportunity — plentiful job opportunities at decent or better wages — and relatively low cost of living.

This story is sponsored by Amerisave, but the methodology, selection of places and content was created independently by the Money Research Collective.

Data sources: Population and median household income provided by Synergos Technologies Inc.; unemployment rate (by county) provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics; and median home price provided by ATTOM Data Solutions.