Everything You Need To Know About St. Petersburg/Clearwater, Florida

Here's my entire Florida playlist! youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq-_cmf3H6yox4qW3D-Zm5Z…

as a Florida Gulf Coast resident, watching tourists feed seagulls is one of my favorite beach activities. Feed one and he calls all of his relatives.

As a Dunedin resident, I would say this is a pretty fair breakdown of the area. This area really is the best metropolitan region in all of Florida. I hope it never changes or goes downhill. This really is a special area. I think when most people think of Florida, what they're envisioning is the Clearwater St Petersburg area.

Downtown Clearwater is sleepy because of Scientology. Locals who love spending time in downtowns go either North to Dunedin (super lovely, truly) or South to Largo. The city tries really hard to get people invested in downtown, but it's a battle that they are losing, as the COS continues buying up more property. You are so very right about how "blah" Clearwater neighborhoods are. Your footage of neighborhoods looked spot on from my experience of nearly a decade living there. I'd guess you were driving on Keene, but you could have been anywhere! You can find some nicer neighborhoods buried here and there, but mostly it's what you saw. The pricing for 50's-70's era ranch homes with varying levels of up-keep is astonishing. I was so glad that your guest mentioned Honeymoon Island, because that's where families in Clearwater go, not Clearwater Beach. Yes, you pay to get in, but you don't have to hunt for parking that you may have to pay for anyway.

Nick, I watch your videos just to hear your song of the day. You never disappoint! 🤣 Thanks

"Rich" is a relative term, a 3br 2 bath house in Los Angeles is $2m...sell it and move to St Pete and buy that $300k house is probably happening as well.

St Pete native here- been following the channel since 2019! So happy to see you come to town and definitely agree with your take and Greasy films guy. Too many investors destroying this place. We need to take it back. We do not need to be another Manhattan or Miami!!

I live in unincorporated Clearwater on a Dead End (perfect name for it) street with 4 inhabited, very old houses (the rest are vacant) and no street sign. It's zoned commercial and residential but Clearwater would very much like it if there were no residents. We were warned if our house was to burn down we could not rebuild. I keep waiting for a county employee to drive by in an unmarked vehicle loaded with molotov cocktails.

I lived in St Pete for 8 yrs from 2000 to 2008 on 4th St coming off the Howard Franklin Bridge. Apt Row... My rent was $530-740 when I left. Now my nice 1br is $1700! It was nice back then. I left cuz my job moved to TN and I was sick of Hot weather and lightning!

Thanks for NOT mentioning Pass-A-Grille (my favorite). I retired after decades of work in Orlando, and moved to St Pete. I was able to take advantage of the housing bubble burst earlier in this century, and spent only $100K for my 3/2 property in 2012. Shockingly on my block of 1000 +/- sq ft homes, some are selling at $475K! One across the street from me is renting for $3000 a month! Unbelievable.

As person who has lived in Pinellas for over 30 years and has multiple properties I can assure you you CANNOT get a tenant out in 2 weeks. Truth is it takes about 60 days to get a non paying tenant out. This changes if the tenant causes property damage. But then again this is also up to your rental contract. Rule 1 DONT FEED SEAGULS. Such a tourist thing to do. Might as well wear a fanny pack too...You should never feed any wild animals. You don't want wild animals to be reliant on humans feeding them. You failed to mention that Pinellas county is one of the safest counties to live in with the lowest crime in the state. I appreciate your review of the area but your view on the area is jaded. You cannot get a feel for a place in a week. St. Pete has the highest crime out of all the Pinellas county cities. Downtown St.Pete is very hipster and has the most homeless. You failed to go to the south side of St. Pete. From the sunshine skyway bridge to north about 30 blocks. Also should have covered the skyway bridge! Pinellas county has reached its max as far as areas to build homes. (I am a home builder) So investors come and over pay for a property, winning the bid. They will buy up properties and put in condos. The only way to stack more people in the county is to build homes up. I dislike this as traffic is already bad. You have 3 million people living in the tri-county area, then add in the traffic from vacationers who are not familiar with the area. It's no LA traffic but were only a few years behind that. You are 100% correct about Pasco and Polk counties. They are drug infested, meth and fentanyl, with pain pills probably in 3rd place. As far as service industry people affording to live here they can 100% do it. Florida generates insane amount of money off tourism. Tourists eat at the restaurants along the local beaches. A good server can make 60-80k a year at a beach restaurant. I does not cost anything near that to afford a home. An average mortgage in the area is 1800 for a 3/2. Someone who makes 60k a year is roughly 5k a month. Id say at 28% taxes they bring home just over 3500 a month. It would be tight but someone could afford a house here(bigger home than needed as a single person living in a 3/.2). Now add the income of a spouse or roommate. FL is one of the cheapest states for power. $.08 pre Kw at the time of this comment. Now compare the cost of this beachside living to places like California. Reason I compare Cali to Florida is because both states have huge amounts of beachside properties. Florida also does not have a state tax. You 100% missed out by not going to Clearwater Beach. They are rated #1 in the country for their beach sand. You should have known better beach sand expert...

I saw tons of museums when I visited downtown St Pete a couple weeks ago. It’s beautiful there. Art installations everywhere. Lovely place.

Another great video on the Florida series, which I am thoroughly enjoying Nick (more and more)..you have a unique style and format that is appealing and efficient at giving true portraits of places, including the local guests you interview >=> Thank You! - and I have to comment on the few, subtly sly yet eloquent and respectful smirks you get after long poker face sections during interviews : one of a kind ;)

I grew up in St. Pete and it used to be run down and cheap. Prostitutes walking down 4th street. Now there is a Chipotle and dog bakery there and the house are all worth twice as much. Even the hoods where the drug dealers live have white couple shopping house with their realtor. It’s good for the economy and the city is much prettier, but it’s not the same shabby little city on the water that it once was. Wish I woulda bought like 3 houses there back then. I’d be so rich

Never miss a video Nick!! I'm a traveling homeless man. I get a lot from your work. Thank you ❤️

I’m glad I had the opportunity to experience all of Tampa Bay for 11 years before all the rich people decided to take over and push us all out. I live in a smaller, quaint Florida town now, within an hour of everything. Not telling anyone where it is.

All the communities around the beaches are there to support the massive tourism that is Pinellas county. If you keep kicking those worker ants out then the tourism machine that is Pinellas county will fail eventually.

I was there in May of 2022, and it was lovely. Not too crowded. We had a good time.

I lived in St Pete during the 90’s and it was a huge retirement community. We were the only hispanic family at our school during that time.

Thanks for doing this video Nick! You were on point about what’s going on here.