Relocating to the Beach, but which one?! (Tampa, St. Petersburg: rental, townhouse)

[Samuigirl]

Hi there,

My husband and I are in our early 30's and are strongly considering moving from San Francisco to the Tampa area. We would like to find a single dwelling or townhouse style home rental that is no more than a 10 minute walk to a swimmable beach(from what I understand, the beaches on the Bay are not swimmable, but the Gulf side ones are?)

We are both self-employed/working from home and I will be taking some classes at St. Petersburg College in Pasadena. We will have a car. Due to the need to be near a beach and the proximity to the college we have narrowed down our potential location to "the island" (what do locals call it?) between Indian Shores and St. Pete's Beach. Here is what we are looking for in addition to the above, I hoping that someone can help us narrow down which area will we will be best suited to:

1. We are looking for a long-term rental (for a year+ before we decide to buy).

2. We realize that the area has a large number of retirees and tourists, but are there areas which are home to more young people than others, say between the ages of 26-46? It is important to us that we have some local friends in our age range, not just retirees or transient tourists.

3. We are both social and like to have a good local pub or sports bar to stop in at, once again within a 10 minute walk. Even better would be being close to a little "village" type area with a selection of restaurants, pubs, shops etc. but being close to people our age is more of a consideration.

4. And once again, being walking distance to a swimmable beach is a main priority.

Also, please let me know any pros and cons that you feel there are for the different Beach areas.

Thank-you!

[chi_tino]

I wouldn't rule out Pass-A-Grille (south of St Pete Beach). It's a little more high-end, but no spot in the community is more than 100 yards from water.

I may get beaten up for saying this, but the Gulf communities are pretty much wealthy retirees + younger blue collar service workers. The housing stock in many of the places you listed are concrete block homes built in the 1950's and 1960's, and there is very little land to build new properties on. The exception is waterfront, where you will see a rebuilt 4,000 sq ft mansion next to a 1,000 sq ft shack. That said, you can find some nicer rental places, but it may take a bit of a search.

[jambo101]

Focus your search around the Johns Pass area.johns pass florida - Google Search
Its on the gulf and is an area that seems to check all your boxes,

Tampa Bay has very little in the way of beaches..

[BBI]

The bay area doesn't have what you want. There is no beach community with a significant young professional population. We (30, married, no kids) would move to one in a heartbeat if it existed, and even tried living in a beach community when we first moved here. But the beach communities are all tourists/snowbirds/retirees, and they're just about completely dead for the half year it's not beach season. We found it very isolating, and were driving to St. Pete to meet friends and for non-beach fun (though some of the beach bars are fun during beach season). Ultimately, we moved to St. Pete.

The good news is that St. Pete has a bunch of people our age, and it's only about a 20 min drive from some beaches (Ft Desoto, Pass-A-Grille, St. Pete Beach, Treasure Island). So if you're ok driving 20 minutes to friends/nightlife, you can make it work. We chose the opposite tradeoff (walk to friends/nightlife, drive to the beach), but that's just personal preference.

I agree with chi_tino that, if I had to live at the beach, I'd choose Pass-A-Grille. Pretty close to downtown St. Pete, mostly single family homes, no heavily trafficked road between you and the beach, and the little downtown bar/restaurant area doesn't feel like a strip mall (St. Pete Beach) or NJ boardwalk (Johns Pass). Gets just enough tourist traffic to be fun during beach season without being obnoxious. Some early 30s friends lived there and loved it (they've since moved to Tampa related to a job change). They didn't mind driving to St. Pete for friends/nightlife (which they did 3-4 times per week), but they are from St. Pete and had a bunch of friends in the area before moving to the beach, which I think made it a lot easier for them than it was for us. They didn't seem to have any good friends who lived at the beach, consistent with our experience.

[hoobness]

I live 2 miles from the the treasure isle beaches. Someone said the beach communities are full of old folks and hardened service employees. That's the truth. Plus the wealthy. Especially treasure island, reddington and northward. Madiera is a lot of blue collar and hardened servers and bartenders, nice ppl but can be rough around the edges. My adv ice is to look downtown st pete, kenwood, old northeast, pass a grille, indian rocks, etc. My home is in pasadena, I love it. I'm 4 minutes to the beac, 30 if I walk, 20 to dowtown, target, wal mart, the mll food store re all less than 10 mins. The beach gets boring, but its nice to have so closeby

[Samuigirl]

Thanks for your help, we're going to come check out Pass-a-Grille, Madeira and Treasure Island in June. How is the water in the winter along the St. Pete's Beach area? Is it warm enough to swim in in January, in your opinion?

Thanks again for the advice!