Real estate In Tampa
If you are considering purchasing a property in Tampa We have some information and resources that may be of use to you. Whether you are planning to purchase a home you hope to relocate in to, a vacation property in_Tampa or perhaps even an investment property, the information here will help you feel confident as you gain valuable knowledge about the real estate market in Tampa area.
A little about Tampa
Tampa is a United States city in Hillsborough County, on the west coast of Florida. It serves as the county seat for Hillsborough County.GR6. The population of Tampa in 2000 was 303,447. According to the 2006 Census estimate, the city has a population of 334,550 Tampa is a part of the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metropolitan area, most commonly referred to as the "Tampa Bay Area". The four-county area is composed of roughly 2.7 million residents, making it the second largest metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in the state, and the third largest in the Southeastern United States.
The Tampa Bay Partnership and U.S. Census data showed an average annual growth of 2.47 percent, or a gain of approximately 97,000 residents per year. Between 2000 and 2006, the Tampa Bay market area has experienced a combined growth rate of 14.8 percent, growing from 3.4 million to 3.9 million and hitting the 4 million people mark on April 1, 2007[2]. It is the largest media market in the state of Florida and thirteenth largest DMA Market in the United States.
Buying a house in Tampa
Buying a house is an important time in one`s life, and it is not so easy as it looks. Apart from arranging finance, it involves many other considerations including legal and emotional considerations.If you are considering buying a home in Tampa or the surrounding area it is a good Idea to look at all information available information on price, amenaties,areas, and proximity to the things that are important to you. Other important things to consider might be, public bus or subway accesibilty, weather, and recreational venues.
If this will be your first home, strongly consider attending a free first-time buyer`s seminar before house shopping. Your loan officer might be able to recommend a seminar in the Tampa area
Buying a house in Tampa the simple way
Many people dream of owning their own home in Tampa buying a home you can be happy in requires deligence and follow through to get the right home. An experianced agent can help make the process go more smoothly.
obtaining the assistance of a an agent who specializes in real estate in the The area is always the best think you can do, even if it seems that by not enlisting the services of an agent you are saving money, in actuality by not being represented by an agent, you are open the door to many possible promlems such as apporpriatly determining the value of a property and related documentation require the knowledge and experiance of an expert.
The Multiple Listing Service
Check out the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) for the Tampa area and you can search properties in the area to get a grasp on what is available.
History Main article: History of Tampa, Florida [edit] Origins [edit] The Meaning of "Tampa" The word "Tampa" is believed to mean "sticks of fire" in the language of the Calusa, a Native American tribe. Other historians claim the name refers to "The place to gather sticks". "Sticks of fire" may also relate to the high concentration of lightning strikes that Tampa Bay receives every year during the hot and wet summer months.
Toponymist George R. Stewart writes that the name was the result of a miscommunication between the Spanish and the Indians, the Indian word being "itimpi", meaning simply "near it" (Stewart, pg. 231). [edit] Early explorations Whatever its origins, the name first appears in the "Memoir" of Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda (1575), who had spent 17 years as a Calusa captive.
He calls it "Tanpa" and describes it as an important Calusa town. While "Tanpa" is the apparent basis for the modern name "Tampa", archaeologist Jerald Milanich places the Calusa village of Tanpa at the mouth of Charlotte Harbor, the original "Bay of Tanpa".
A later Spanish expedition failed to notice Charlotte Harbor while sailing north along the west coast of Florida and assumed that today`s Tampa Bay was the bay that they had sought. Thus, the name was accidentally transferred north.[4] In April of 1528, the ill-fated Narváez Expedition landed near Tampa with the intention of starting a colony. After being told by the natives of better riches to the north, they abandoned their camp after only a week.
A dozen years later, a surviving member of the expedition named Juan Ortiz was rescued by Hernando de Soto`s expedition.[5] A peace treaty was conducted with the local Indians and a short-lived Spanish outpost was established, but this was abandoned when it became clear that there was no gold in the area, and that the local Indians were not interested in converting to Catholicism but were too skilled as warriors to easily conquer.
The Tampa area would be effectively ignored by its colonial owners for the next 200+ years. [edit] British rule When Great Britain acquired Florida in 1763, the bay was named Hillsborough Bay, after Lord Hillsborough, Secretary of State for the Colonies. Britain was more concerned with the strategically important Atlantic coast of Florida (especially St. Augustine) rather than mostly empty Gulf coast, and the Tampa area was by and large disregarded again. With the native population having died from disease long before and the Seminoles still living to the north, the only (seasonal) residents of the Tampa Bay area were Cuban fishermen.
These visitors stayed in temporary settlements along the shore, catching a large haul of fish from the teeming waters of the bay to take back and sell.[6] [edit] Florida becomes a U.S. Territory Spain regained control of Florida in 1783 as part of the Treaty of Paris at the end of the American Revolution.
Once again, the Tampa area was not a vital concern to its European owner. The United States purchased Florida in 1821 (see Adams-Onís Treaty) to end frontier Indians raids and to stem the tide of escaped slaves fleeing to the wilds of Florida from neighboring states. In fact, one of the first official U.S. actions in the new territory was a raid which destroyed Angola, a village built by escaped slaves on the shores of Tampa Bay.
Frontier Days
Birth of a pioneer town
The Treaty of Moultrie Creek (1823) created a large Indian reservation in the interior of the peninsular Florida. As part of efforts to establish control over the vast swampy wilderness, the U.S. government built a series of forts and trading posts throughout the new territory. "Cantonment Brooke" was established in 1823 by Colonels George Mercer Brooke and James Gadsden at the mouth of the Hillsborough River on Tampa Bay, at what is now the site of the Tampa Convention Center in Downtown Tampa. In 1824, the post was officially christened Fort Brooke. A few settlers soon established homesteads around the wooden fort, but growth was very slow due to difficult conditions and the constant threat of attack from the Seminole Indian population, who lived nearby in an uneasy truce. When the Second Seminole War flared up in late 1835, Fort Brooke served as a vital military asset. After almost seven long years of vicious fighting, the war was over and the Seminoles were forced away from the Tampa region. The tiny village of Tampa soon began to grow up.
The Territory of Florida had grown enough by 1845 to become the 27th state. The settlement of Tampa had grown enough by 1849 to incorporate as the "Village of Tampa", which officially occurred on January 18. Tampa was home to 185 inhabitants, excluding military personnel stationed at Fort Brooke. The city`s first census count in 1850 listed Tampa-Fort Brooke as having 974 residents.[7] Tampa was reincorporated as a town on December 15, 1855, and Judge Joseph B. Lancaster became the first Mayor in 1856.
During the American Civil War, Florida seceded along with the rest of the south to form the Confederate States of America. Fort Brooke was manned by Confederate troops and martial law was declared in Tampa in January of 1862. Tampa`s city government ceased to operate for the duration of the war.
In late 1861, the Union navy set up a blockade around many southern ports to cut off the Confederacy from outside help, and several ships were stationed near the mouth of Tampa Bay. However, blockade runners based in Tampa were able to repeatedly slip through the blockade to trade cattle and citrus for needed supplies, mainly with Spanish Cuba.
Trying to put a stop to this, Union gunboats sailed up Tampa Bay to bombard Fort Brooke and the surrounding city of Tampa. The Battle of Tampa on June 30-July 1, 1862 was inconclusive, as the shells fell ineffectually and there were no casualties on either side.
Much more damaging to the Confederate cause was the Battle of Fort Brooke on October 17-18, 1863. Two Union gunboats shelled the fort and surrounding town and landed troops, who found blockade runners hidden up the Hillsborough River and destroyed them. [14] The local militia mustered to intercept the Union troops, but they were able to return to their ships after a short skirmish and headed back out to sea.
The war ended in Confederate defeat in April 1865. In May, federal troops arrived in Tampa to occupy the fort and the town as part of Reconstruction. They would remain until August, 1869.[15]
The Lean Years
The years after the Civil War were difficult ones in Tampa. With little industry and land transportation links limited to bumpy wagon roads from the east coast of Florida, Tampa was a small sleepy fishing village with very few people and poor prospects for development.
Then came yellow fever. Borne by mosquitos from the surrounding swampland, Tampa was hit by wave after wave of yellow fever epidemics and scares throughout the late 1860s and 1870s. The disease was little understood at the time, and many residents simply packed up and left rather than face the mysterious and deadly peril.
A telling moment occurred in 1869, when residents voted to abolish the City of Tampa government [16]. The population of "Tampa Town" was below 800 in the official 1870 census count and had fallen further by 1880. (see demographics, below). The little village was dying.
Another blow was to come. Fort Brooke, the seed from which Tampa had germinated, had served its purpose and was decommissioned in 1883. Except for two cannons displayed on the nearby University of Tampa campus, all traces of the fort are gone. In an odd nod to history, a large downtown parking garage near the old fort site is called the Fort Brooke Parking Garage.
Then, out of the blue, Tampa`s fortunes took several sudden turns for the better. First, phosphate was discovered in the Bone Valley region southeast of Tampa in 1883. The mineral, which is vital for the production of fertilizers and other products, was soon being shipped out from the Port of Tampa in ever increasing volume. Tampa is still one of the world`s leading phosphate exporters.
Henry B. Plant`s railroad line reached Tampa and its port shortly thereafter, connecting the small town to the country`s railroad system. Tampa finally had the overland transportation link that had been so sorely lacking. The railroad enabled phosphate and commercial fishing exports to go north [18], brought many new products into the Tampa market, and started the first real tourist industry: visitors coming in modest numbers to Henry Plant`s first Tampa-area resort built literally on Tampa Bay on stilts. (This was not the still-standing Tampa Bay Hotel, which came a few years later).
The new railroad link enabled another important industry to come to Tampa. In 1885, the Tampa Board of Trade helped broker a land deal with Vicente Martinez Ybor to move his cigar manufacturing operations to Tampa from Key West. Close proximity to Cuba made imports of tobacco easy by sea, and Plant`s railroad made shipment of finished cigars to the rest of the US market easy by land.
Since Tampa was still a small town at the time (population less than 5000), Ybor built hundreds of small houses around his factory to accommodate the immediate influx of mainly Cuban and Spanish cigar workers. Other cigar factories soon moved in, and Ybor City (as the 40-odd acre settlement was dubbed) quickly made Tampa a major cigar production center. To round out the town`s population, many Italian and a few eastern European Jewish immigrants also arrived starting in the late 1880s, mainly operating businesses and shops that catered to the cigar workers. The majority of Italian immigrants came from Alessandria Della Rocca and Santo Stefano Quisquina, two small Sicilian towns with which Tampa still maintains strong ties.
In 1891, Henry B. Plant built a lavish 500+ room, quarter-mile long luxury resort hotel called the Tampa Bay Hotel among 150 acres of manicured gardens along the banks Hillsborough River. The eclectic structure cost $2.5 million to build, a huge sum in those days. Plant filled his expensive playground with exotic art collectables from around the world and installed electric lights and the first elevator in town.
The resort did great business for a few years, especially during the Spanish-American War (see below). But with Plant`s death in 1899, the hotel`s fortunes began to fade. It closed in 1930. In 1933, however, the stately building reopened as the University of Tampa.
Mainly because of Henry Plant`s connections in the War Department, Tampa was chosen as an embarkation center for American troops in the Spanish-American War. Lieutenant Colonel Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders were among the 30,000 troops who waited in Tampa for the order to ship out to Cuba during the summer of 1898, filling the town to bursting [19]. Those months, while unpleasant for the troops wearing thick wool uniforms in the oppressive Florida heat, were a great boon to Tampa`s growing economy. It was also the only time when Plant`s Tampa Bay Hotel was full to capacity.
The founding of Ybor City, the building of Plant`s railroad and hotels, and the discovery of phosphate - all within a dozen years in the late 1800s - were crucial to Tampa`s development. The town suddenly expanded from sleepy backwater village to bustling town to small city. Except for temporary bumps along the way, this growth has continued unabatted.
The 20th Century
During the first few decades of the 20th century, the cigar making industry continued to be the backbone of Tampa`s economy. The factories in Ybor City and West Tampa made an enormous number of cigars -- in the peak year of 1929, over 500,000,000 cigars were hand rolled in the city.[20] As the market for cigars began to wane during the Great Depression, other industries came to the fore, especially shipping and, of course, tourism.
In 1904, a local civic association of local businessmen dubbed themselves Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla (named after local mythical pirate Jose Gaspar), and staged an "invasion" of the city followed by a parade. With a few exceptions, the Gasparilla Pirate Festival has been held every year since.
Bolita & the Mob
Beginning in the late 1800s, illegal bolita lotteries were very popular among the Tampa working classes, especially in Ybor City. In the early 1920s, this small-time operation was taken over by Charlie Wall, the rebellious son of a prominent Tampa family, and went big-time. Bolita was able to openly thrive only because of kick-backs and bribes to key local politicians and law enforcement officials, and many were on the take.
Profits from the bolita lotteries and Prohibition-era bootlegging led to the development of several organized crime factions in the city. Charlie Wall was the first major boss, but various power struggles culminated in consolidation of control by Sicilian mafioso Santo Trafficante, Sr. and his faction in the 1950s. After his death in 1954 from cancer, control passed to his son Santo Trafficante, Jr., who established alliances with families in New York and extended his power throughout Florida and into Batista-era Cuba.
The era of rampant and open corruption ended in the 1950s, when the Senator Kefauver`s traveling organized crime hearings came to town and were followed by the sensational misconduct trials of several local officials. Though many of the worse offenders in government and the mob were not charged, the trials helped to end the sense of lawlessness which had prevailed in Tampa for decades.
Mid-Late 20th Century
The University of South Florida was established in 1956, sparking development in northern Tampa and nearby Temple Terrace.
There were four attempts to consolidate Tampa with Hillsborough County (1967, 1970, 1971, and 1972), all of which failed at the ballot box with the biggest margin was 33,160 for and 73,568 against the proposed charter in 1972.The biggest recent growth in the city was the development of New Tampa that started in 1988 when the city annexed a 24-square mile (mostly rural) area between I-275 and I-75. Since then, many subdivisions and thousands of homes and businesses have filled in, accounting for much of Tampa`s population growth over that time.
East Tampa, which has historically been a mostly black community, was the scene of several riots, mainly due to problems between residents and the Tampa police.
The 21st Century
On January 5, 2002, just four months after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, 15-year-old amateur pilot Charles Bishop stole a Cessna plane and flew into the Bank of America Tower in Downtown Tampa. Bishop died, but there were no other injuries (because the crash occurred on a Saturday, when few people were in the building).
A suicide note found in the wreckage expressed support for Osama bin Laden. Bishop had been taking a prescription medicine for acne called Accutane that may have had the side effect of depression or severe psychosis. His family later sued Hoffman-La Roche, the company that makes Accutane, for $70 million; however, an autopsy found no traces of the drug in the teenager`s system.
Current Tampa mayor Pam Iorio has made the redevelopment of Tampa`s downtown, especially bringing in residents to the decidedly non-residential area, a priority.[24] Several residential and mixed-development high-rises are in various stages of planning or construction, and a few have already opened. Another of Mayor Iorio`s initiatives is the Tampa Riverwalk, a plan which intends to make better use of the land along the Hillsborough River in downtown where Tampa began. Several museums are part of the plan, including new homes for the Tampa Bay History Center, the Tampa Children`s Museum, and a the Tampa Museum of Art.
