car registration and rental question (Tampa, Citrus Park: sales, rentals, insurance)

[kdalechek]

Did our first fact finding trip this past week. Made good progress, but have a few questions.

First- if you buy a new car (or used) car in Florida do you pay the "impact" fee, or is that only when you register your existing car when you first move. Our son will turn 16 right after we move and wondering if it matters if we buy a car before we move or if we wait and buy him a car after we get down there.

Second- We have narrowed our locations to South Tampa and Westchase. I think it would be in our best interest to rent for the first year. Any experience with renting homes in South Tampa (specifically Plant High school)? In a perfect world we would love find a four bedroom/pool/in-law suite.

Thanks for any input!

[jsun556]

It will be difficult to find a home with those specifications for rent that size in Plant district. The vast majority are owner occupied. They do pop up from time to time though. You'll be looking at around starting $3500/month for just a 4 bedroom without anything else if you find them.

[chi_tino]

I don't know what an impact fee is. However, if you buy a new/used car in another state and then soon register it in Florida, you may have the privilege of paying sales tax a second time. You will also be paying for an initial registration ($225) plus a new set of Florida plates ($28) plus your annual sticker ($46 and up) no matter what.

I'm not sure what benefit you would derive from buying a car in another state, paying to register it, acquiring auto insurance, then driving it across the border to pay for everything a second time.

There was an extensive discussion on this topic a few months ago.

http://www.dmvflorida.org/car-registration.shtml

http://www.flhsmv.gov/dmv/faqmotor.html#5

[Hills2beach]

I was just in your shoes 3 weeks ago. Good luck to ya.

1st- what is your budget? That is really going to impact what you are going to be able to find. Also do you have pets? We have 2 small dogs and it caused issues finding rentals.

2nd-Be prepared to get the house you want swept out from under you.

I was more surprised by how tight the rental market is than anything else when we did our scouting. The night before we flew down the agent called to tell me all the houses we were going to look at were gone.

Good Luck.

BTW we ended up in Citrus Park. Be flexible.

[Cleverbeetle98]

The 'impact' fee is what chi_tino called the initial registration. You pay this when you register a car for the first time in FL - whether it was purchased here or somewhere else. How that works if you will be registering one for yourself and then ANOTHER car (presumably in your name for your son) I can't say...not sure if the initial fee is a 'per person' or 'per household' type of thing.

The DMV website is cumbersome but the information is usually there somewhere. One location I was at to get my license was not friendly. The other where I registered my car...the employee helping me was great. It helped that both times I had all my paperwork ready to go...do your research, they'll appreciate it.

[Occifer]

The initial $225 fee isn't something waived if another car is purchased by someone else in a household. The only way that the fee is waived is if a tag is transferred from one Florida registration to another. There isn't any way to avoid the $225 fee if you aren't transferring a tag.

If you buy the car in another state you shouldn't get hit with sales tax twice. If the sales tax in the other state is less than it is in Florida, you will have to pay the difference. This is to prevent Floridians from buying cars in lower sales tax states and then bringing them to Florida without having to pay as much in taxes. If you have owned the car for at least six months, you don't have to pay the sales tax difference.