St. Petersburg neighborhood

[nextstate]

Glad it was helpful. Hope you post a follow up with what you decided to do -- maybe we'll be seeing you down there!

[stpeteguy]

Originally Posted by fromeasttowest

Hi everyone,
Can anybody give my girlfriend and I some advice about the Kenwood neighborhood in St. Pete? Is it safe, what's to do around there? Any other neighborhoods where we should look to get a house? Any and all suggestions are appreciated. Thanks a lot!

Unless your on the water or in a wealthy community, stay north of Central ave. at the very minimum.

[Tiger Beer]

Originally Posted by nextstate

My fiance and I spent the past week in St. Petersburg looking for a house. Seven days of nothing but driving and walking through the neighborhoods, checking out places, etc. We found and bought a place in Old Northeast. Here's the deal -- and I'll throw it out there simply for the sake of full disclosure: we're both white, middle class, early 30s, no kids. Take our perspective with that in mind: Old Northeast is a beautiful neighborhood with brick-lined streets, lots of Craftsman houses and a serious community feel. In our one week there we met -- and had extended conversations with -- a half dozen people. I have a pocket of business cards from people we met while out and about who we are supposed to let know what we decided and contact if/when we move. We kept joking that the Chamber of Commerce must be paying them to say all the right things; they all raved about their area and St. Pete in general. We walked the streets at 10 a.m. to as late as 2 a.m on weekdays and the weekend and never felt unsafe. At most any time of day there were tons of people out walking dogs, pushing babies in strollers, biking, roller blading, etc. You pay a premium for that, though there are plenty of cute houses in the $250-300k range. For what it's worth, we negotiated the price on ours down $40,000 so make sure you look at stuff $10-20 above what you think your cap is because there is definitely room to bargain, esp. with the first time homebuyer credit expiring.

Historic Kenwood is an "up-and-coming" neighborhood quite a bit further west from the waterfront. There are some cute houses in there, but there are an equal or larger mix that could benefit from some serious attention. Put it this way: You buy in Old Northeast, friends and family will walk your block and talk about how charming it is. You buy in Old Northeast, they'll tell you they really like your house. If it were me and a few buddies going in on a place 10 years ago, I wouldn't worry. But I wouldn't wany my fiance, or kids when the time comes, roaming around there on their own.
Round Lake -- and basically the whole area between 4th St. N to the east and MLK to the west, 5th Ave S to the south and Crescent Lake to the north is much further along. You pay a lot less if you move to that side of 4th St. N (the boundary for Old Northeast) and the neighborhood is still pretty good. That said, we looked at a property right on the lake (really just a little pond in the middle of a cute park) but right next to it was an apartment building with several movie thug looking fellows enjoying an afternoon brown paper bag beer -- again, didn't bother me much and they seemed perfectly friendly, but my fiance was having none of it. We also met a guy who lived on the other side of the house and he said he and his family had been there for several years, had a 1-year-old daughter and never had a problem or felt unsafe. But strictly on first blush, if you look at one side of 4th and the other, Old Northeast simply looks prettier, safer and more inviting.

Roser Park, just south of downtown, is another area that comes up on here fairly often and has some ardent defenders. My take on that: another area that has some really pretty houses, but it really is a small oasis in an otherwise really bad area. Bad as in, we witnessed a drug sale while waiting at a traffic light and that's not a joke. And despite that we still checked out stuff there just to give it a fair shake but honestly, no way I'd raise a family there.

My overall take: I grew up in DC and when the market was white hot there, tons of people moved into fringe neighborhoods -- fringe in terms of safety and public amenities and proximity to things like nightlife and metro -- b/c that was where they could afford. First ones in made great profits as more people followed and those areas became the new hip pockets. Columbia Heights, for example, is an area that has had a long standing problem with crews fighting but it has seen massive redevelopment and is really becoming a hot section of the city. Kenwood, Roser Park, Round Lake are those areas -- where people who couldn't afford Old Northeast at the peak went (everyone who lives in those neighborhoods, relax, I'm obviously generalizing and plenty of you probably never wanted to live in Old Northeast). The market collapsed and those neighborhoods stopped revitalizing and now they're a mix. People who have gone in and worked hard to fix things up, alongside a lot of stuff that didn't quite make it. When the market gets going again, they'll offer a greater potential upside -- we looked at a four bed, four bath totally renovated house right off Round Lake for $200k asking! Question is what do you want in the near future b/c that turn around could take some time.

Last thing regarding crime: Old Northeast has an above average amount of thefts from car; of car; and residential burglaries. It has very little violent crime and quality of life crime -- drunk and disorderly, public intoxication, etc. The type of stuff where it may not directly affect you but it's loud, disturbing and involves guys with no shirts on not acting surprised when cops show up at their door. A monitored house alarm is usually free or close to it with a service plan (maybe $20-30 a month) and gets you a discount on your insurance. Car alarms are standard issue and if you use a steering wheel lock or put in a lo-jack you probably get another insurance discount. You live in / near a city, you have to take a few common sense precautions. But with that said, I can honestly say that I felt completely safe in that area.

We went to do a look see and like it so much we bought and are moving. That's about as solid a recommendation as you can make. Or we're just total idiots -- guess that'll have to be a follow up post Feel free to contact directly if you want to ask any specific questions -- we shot a lot of pictures and took a few videos and really did hit a lot of Tampa and St. Pete aside from these neighborhoods (and I've been before).

Thanks for the great post! Just followed your post from city vs city, where you compared St. Pete with LA/SD. Excellent stuff here.