Amendment 3 Passed: What It Means for Pinellas Sellers

Florida voters approved Amendment 3 on Tuesday, November 3. Bay News 9 reported the result the next morning: the measure cleared the share of the vote a constitutional amendment needs. If you own a house in St. Petersburg or anywhere else in Pinellas County and you have been thinking about selling, here is what actually changed, and what did not.

What Amendment 3 does

The amendment raises the homestead exemption on the non-school part of the property tax bill, in steps that start in 2027. According to the Kaufman Rossin summary of Amendment 3, it takes effect January 1, 2027, and the change first shows up on the August 2027 TRIM notices and the November 2027 tax bills.

So the tax bill arriving in Pinellas mailboxes this month is not affected. Nothing changes on paper for most of a year.

If the house is your homestead

If you live in the house as your primary home and it already carries a homestead exemption, the bigger exemption is written for you.

If it is a rental, or a house you inherited and do not live in

This is where most of the calls we get come from, and the answer is different. Kaufman Rossin puts it plainly: second homes, rental property and commercial buildings will not receive the homestead exemption. What they get instead is a tighter yearly cap on how fast the assessed value can rise, starting January 1, 2027.

One thing stays the same. Non-homestead property is still reassessed at full market value after a change of ownership, so whoever buys a rental or an inherited house starts from a fresh assessment.

If you are not sure how your house is classified today, the Pinellas County Property Appraiser can tell you.

St. Pete passed its flood and sewer bond too

On the same ballot, St. Petersburg voters approved the city bond for stormwater, wastewater and drinking water work. The City of St. Petersburg bond page confirms the approval. We wrote about what the question asked before the vote.

What this means if you are deciding whether to sell

If you are a tired landlord, or you inherited a house in Pinellas and nobody in the family plans to live in it, the vote does not have to make the decision for you this week. Nothing shows on a bill until late 2027, and the bigger exemption is for people who live in the house as their primary home.

What we can do is tell you, on one call, what selling as-is looks like. We buy houses directly from the owner in St. Pete, Clearwater, Largo and across Pinellas County, with the stuff still inside, on the timeline you pick. We are not agents, and we do not sell our contracts to other investors. Here is how our cash offer works.

Call or text (727) 613-0241, or send us the address through the form. A local team member answers.