Amendment 3 Passed, and What the Election Changes for Tampa Bay Real Estate

Three things happened in eight days, and together they change the arithmetic on owning property in Tampa Bay more than anything else this year.

On October 28 the Federal Reserve held rates. On November 3 both chambers of Congress changed hands. And Florida voters passed Amendment 3, which rewrites the homestead exemption and the cap on how fast a rental's assessment can climb.

Taken one at a time they're headlines. Taken together they're a decision.

The Fed: no cuts are coming

The Fed left its benchmark rate at 3.75 to 4 percent, which was expected. The vote wasn't.

It carried 10 to 2, and both dissenters, Governor Lisa Cook and Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack, wanted a quarter-point increase. September had raised rates. October held them. The two people who disagreed wanted to go higher.

The Fed's statement called economic activity strong and inflation elevated. Chair Kevin Warsh said inflation has run above target for close to six years.

If you have been waiting for rates to fall, nothing in that meeting supports the wait.

The election: bonds moved, and bonds are what matter

Most people get this backwards. The Fed doesn't set your mortgage rate. The bond market does.

A thirty-year mortgage is priced off long-term bonds, mostly the ten-year Treasury. So an election can move your mortgage rate faster than a Fed meeting, and this one did.

Democrats took both the House and the Senate, giving the country a divided government. Investors read that as less room for large fiscal expansion, money moved into bonds, and yields fell. The ten-year ended the day around 4.93 percent. The thirty-year bond, which tracks closest to mortgages, fell too.

That's the mechanism, and it points the right way for anyone borrowing. It's also one day of trading, and the first real test comes when the Treasury auctions new notes and bonds in the middle of this month.

Where rates sat: Freddie Mac's weekly survey put the thirty-year fixed at 7.24 percent on October 29, down from 7.32 percent the week before. A year earlier it was 6.17 percent. That survey closed before the election, so it doesn't yet show any of this. What rising rates changed for buyers and sellers covers how the market got here.

Amendment 3: the biggest change to Florida property taxes in years

It needed 60 percent and got about 62.

The measure is CS/HJR 1-F, "Save our Homes from Excessive Property Taxes", and the state's official record of it sits with the Division of Elections. Both are worth a look if you want the wording rather than a summary of it, including ours.

The homestead exemption is being replaced, not topped up. Today a qualifying homeowner gets up to $51,411: $25,000 against all taxes including schools, plus $26,411 against non-school taxes. From January 1, 2027 that becomes $25,000 against school taxes and up to $150,000 against non-school taxes. In 2028 the non-school portion rises to $250,000, and from 2029 it adjusts with inflation.

The cap on non-homestead property drops from 10 percent to 5 percent. That's rentals, second homes, commercial property and vacant land. It limits how fast the assessed value can climb each year.

Your county or city can go further than that. The amendment requires the Legislature to set a uniform procedure letting counties and municipalities raise the homestead exemption against their own levies, up to the full assessed value of the home. Special districts can do the same with voter approval. Whether any local government here does that is a separate fight, and now a possible one.

It also restricts what counties and cities may spend property tax money on, naming public safety, education and schools, infrastructure, natural resources, bond debt service, employee retirement benefits, and operations and administration. Other spending can still be approved by county officers or a governing body unless general law forbids it.

Nothing changes on your bill until late 2027. The amendment takes effect January 1, 2027, and first appears on the August 2027 TRIM notice, with the tax bill following in November 2027.

TRIM stands for Truth in Millage, and it's the notice your county property appraiser mails every August. It isn't a bill, and Hillsborough's version says so across the top in capital letters. It shows what your property was valued at on January 1, the tax rates each local authority is proposing, an estimate of what you'd owe under those proposed budgets, and the dates of the public hearings where those rates get set. It's also the start of your clock to object: you generally have 25 days from the mailing to petition the Value Adjustment Board over your value.

The December 31 deadline

Eight weeks from now, this one closes.

The larger exemption goes to people who are permanent Florida residents as of December 31, 2026. Establish residency by then and you qualify for the bigger numbers, even if you haven't bought yet. Buy later, apply for homestead, and you get them.

Become a Florida resident on January 1, 2027 or later and you're on a different track: you start with a $50,000 exemption against non-school taxes, and you have to maintain a Florida homestead for four years before the larger exemption applies, beginning January 1 of the fifth year.

So for anyone considering a move to Florida, the difference between December and January is the difference between $150,000 of exemption in 2027 and $50,000, with a four-year wait for the rest.

If that's your situation, talk to someone about residency now rather than in the spring.

Four things it doesn't do

The honest limits matter as much as the headline, and they're where owners will be disappointed in 2027.

It changes taxable value, not tax rates. Millage rates are set each year by counties, cities and other taxing authorities, and nothing here stops them from rising. A smaller taxable value multiplied by a larger rate is not an automatic saving.

School taxes are mostly untouched. The school exemption stays at $25,000, and for non-homestead property the 5 percent cap applies only to non-school assessed value. School taxes continue to be based on full market value.

It doesn't touch non-ad valorem assessments. Homestead exemptions reduce ad valorem taxes only. Your CDD assessment, fire and garbage fees sit outside it entirely, which matters here, where CDD fees ride on the tax bill in a lot of newer communities.

It doesn't protect any service. The amendment guarantees no funding level for police, fire or anything else. Those stay annual budget decisions.

What it means if you're buying

The after-tax cost of owning a home here is about to fall, and it's larger for recent buyers. A buyer purchasing now has a taxable value close to market value, so a $150,000 exemption takes out a bigger share of it than it does for a neighbor with decades of Save Our Homes protection. How the homestead exemption and Save Our Homes work covers the filing and the cap, which the amendment leaves in place.

The waiting argument got weaker twice in one week. No cuts are coming from the Fed, and the thing that would make waiting pay, a lower price, is working against you as the tax picture improves and yields fall.

If you're moving from out of state, the calendar is now part of the decision. See above. December 31.

Run the payment, not the rate. How much house you can afford in Tampa Bay covers how taxes and insurance set the ceiling, and from 2027 the tax line on a homesteaded purchase looks different than it does today.

What it means if you're selling

Your buyer's carrying cost is going down. Not this year, but on a bill they'll receive in November 2027, and buyers who understand that will factor it in. That's a real selling point for a homesteaded primary residence, and it should factor into your price.

Out-of-state buyers have a deadline. Anyone relocating to Florida has an eight-week reason to move sooner. That's the most motivated buyer pool you'll see this year, and it expires on December 31.

Nothing about this fixes a price that's wrong. Tampa Bay still has a great deal of inventory sitting. Pricing your home from recent sales covers reading closed sales rather than asking prices.

What it means if you hold rentals

The 5 percent cap is the quiet win, and it compounds. Assessment growth on a non-homestead property has been capped at 10 percent a year. Halving that slows how fast the assessed value, and therefore the non-school portion of the bill, can climb. Over a decade of holding, that's real money.

Read the limits carefully before you count it. The cap applies to assessed value, not to your taxes, and only to non-school taxes. School millage still works off full market value. If your county raises its millage, your bill can rise while the cap is doing its job.

It doesn't help you this year or next. First effect is the 2027 assessment, visible on the August 2027 TRIM notice.

Nothing here changes the exemption question. A rental doesn't get a homestead exemption, and renting out a homesteaded house ends the exemption on it. Our sister company covers what happens to your homestead exemption when you rent your house out.

What to watch

The Fed meets again on December 8 and 9, and the minutes from October arrive on November 18, which will show how close the committee came to raising.

On the amendment, the implementing law already passed alongside it in June, as Chapter 2026-240. What isn't settled is the administrative detail, and the property appraisers have said as much. The numbers above are the constitutional framework, and the procedure around them is still being written.

Talk it through with us

If you're moving to Florida and the December 31 date applies to you, that's worth a conversation this month rather than in the spring. Same if you hold rentals and want to understand what the cap does to your particular bill. Get in touch.