Where Tampa Bay's $500,000-and-up homes are: owner value by ZIP, 2020-2024

One owner-occupied home in five in a typical Tampa Bay ZIP code is worth $500,000 or more. But that regional average hides a split that runs almost ZIP by ZIP: on the coast, nearly every owner home clears half a million dollars; inland, the median home can be worth less than $160,000. This post maps where high-value owner-occupied homes actually sit, using the U.S. Census Bureau's 2020-2024 American Community Survey five-year estimates across 132 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs) in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, and Hernando counties.

The regional picture

Across the 128 ZCTAs with a large enough owner-occupied sample to report reliably, the median of the ZIP-level median home values is $341,300. County medians of those ZIP medians are close: Hillsborough at $358,550 across 50 ZCTAs, Pinellas at $344,700 across 47, Hernando at $276,800 across 9, and Pasco at $253,650 across 22. The county medians look similar. The ZIP-level spread is anything but.

Where the high-value homes are

The highest median owner-occupied values:

33786 (Pinellas, Belleair Beach): $1,053,000
33629 (Hillsborough, South Tampa): $851,400
33606 (Hillsborough, Hyde Park/Davis Islands): $845,600
33767 (Pinellas, Clearwater Beach): $757,800
33704 (Pinellas, Old Northeast St. Petersburg): $753,600
33785 (Pinellas, Indian Rocks Beach area): $729,200

The share measure tells the same story more sharply. The ZCTAs where the largest share of owner-occupied homes are worth $500,000 or more:

33786 (Pinellas): 89.0%
33629 (Hillsborough): 82.5%
33606 (Hillsborough): 82.0%
34681 (Pinellas): 80.9%
33767 (Pinellas): 75.2%
33785 (Pinellas): 74.1%

Every one of these sits on the Gulf beaches, on Tampa Bay's waterfront, or in the oldest close-in neighborhoods. Region-wide, the median share of $500,000-plus owner homes per ZIP is 20.2%.

The other end of the map

At the low end, median owner values fall to $126,000 in 33541 (Pasco), $142,800 in 33540, $154,000 in 33542, and $171,100 in 33771 (Pinellas). The gap between the highest and lowest median-value ZCTAs is more than eight to one.

Why the split matters

County-level averages make Hillsborough and Pinellas look nearly identical. They are not. High values concentrate in a thin band of waterfront and close-in historic neighborhoods, while large parts of inland Pasco and Hernando price at half the regional median or less. For buyers, the ZIP figure is the only one that describes the market they are actually shopping in. For researchers, the value-distribution columns matter as much as the median: a ZIP where 80% of homes sit above $500,000 behaves differently from one where a few expensive sales pull the median up.

Data and method

All figures come from the 2020-2024 ACS five-year estimates (tables B25077 and B25075) for owner-occupied units in the 132 ZCTAs covering the four counties. ZCTAs with a small owner-occupied sample are flagged and excluded from the figures above. The full per-ZCTA dataset, including margins of error and value-band counts, is published with a DOI and free to download.