St. Petersburg Reverse Mortgage

St. Petersburg has the oldest housing stock of any large city in Pinellas County. The median year built is 1969. More than one in five residents is 65 or older. And the city has published something most Florida cities have not: a count of how many of its condominium buildings fall under Florida's milestone inspection rules.

The number is 225. Buildings within three miles of the coast, built before July 1997, three storeys or more. As of July 2024, with a deadline of that December, only 68 of the 225 had submitted their reports. If you own in a St. Petersburg condo tower, that statistic is the single most useful thing on this page.

St. Petersburg by the numbers

Figures are as published by the cited sources as of August 2026 and will move. Nothing here is an offer of credit or a quote for your property.

The 225, and why it matters to a reverse mortgage

Florida requires a milestone structural inspection of condominium and cooperative buildings of three habitable stories or more, at 30 years, then every ten. Pinellas County applies it, and St. Petersburg identified 225 of its buildings as being in scope, with a deadline of 31 December 2024.

Alongside it sits the Structural Integrity Reserve Study, covering roof, structure, fireproofing, plumbing, electrical, waterproofing, windows and exterior doors, with its own deadline that moved to the end of 2025 under HB 913.

The published example that shows what this looks like in practice is Bayfront Tower on Beach Drive, built in 1975. Its post-Surfside structural review flagged post-tension cables, exterior framing and stucco, garage concrete and roof, with repairs described as running into millions over several years, on top of a special assessment residents had already paid in 2022.

Older housing, and what appraisers look at

A median build year of 1969 means most St. Petersburg homes we see are over fifty years old. That is not a barrier, but it does shape the file. Roof life comes first, then electrical panels and plumbing, and where work is needed a repair set-aside carved out of the loan usually handles it rather than money out of your pocket.

The insurance side is harder. At about $8,434 a year for the average St. Petersburg policy against roughly $3,540 nationally, and with every reverse mortgage requiring insurance to stay in force for the life of the loan, the premium is a permanent part of the arithmetic rather than a closing cost. Older roofs make it worse. If your roof is near the end of its life, dealing with that first often improves both the insurance and the loan.

The 55+ condo communities we see most

St. Petersburg's age-restricted housing is overwhelmingly condominium, and overwhelmingly from the early 1970s, which puts nearly all of it inside the inspection regime.

Terrace Park of Five Towns is the largest at about 1,328 homes built between 1972 and 1987. Sea Towers runs to about 800 homes from 1969 to 1973. Casa Del Mar is about 389 from 1977, Boca Ciega Point about 365 from 1969 to 1974, Paradise Shores about 330 from 1970 to 1973, and Palma Del Mar about 140 from around 1980.

For every one of these the same three questions apply, and in this order. Is the project acceptable to FHA, which you can check at HUD's condominium search. Where is the building in its milestone inspection. And what are the monthly dues, because those count as an ongoing property charge in a HECM financial assessment.

Counseling for Pinellas borrowers

Federal rule 24 CFR 206.41 requires counseling with a HUD-approved agency independent of your lender before any HECM. Consumer Credit and Budget Counseling, trading as the National Foundation for Debt Management, is HUD-listed for reverse mortgage counseling and sits in Clearwater on Icot Boulevard, at (866) 395-5769. Real Estate Education and Community Housing in Tampa is the other nearby option, at (561) 491-1670.

Worth knowing: St. Petersburg Neighborhood Housing Services is HUD-approved but not for reverse mortgage counseling, so it is not the number to call for this. HUD also permits HECM counseling by telephone through national agencies including GreenPath at (888) 860-4167 and Money Management International at (877) 908-2227.

Find your own through HUD's counselor search or by calling (800) 569-4287.

Questions we get from St. Petersburg homeowners

How do I find out if my building is one of the 225?

The City of St. Petersburg runs the milestone inspection programme and its building department can tell you where your building stands. Your association should also have received notice and is required to share the inspection summary with unit owners. We check this before discussing loan amounts, because a pending assessment changes the plan and a completed inspection with no findings makes everything simpler.

My condo association just levied an assessment. Is it too late?

No, but it changes the conversation. Once levied, the assessment is a known obligation and lenders look at your ability to keep property charges current. Reverse mortgage proceeds can be used to pay it. Setting up a line of credit before the letter arrives puts you in a stronger position, which is the argument for not waiting if your building is on the list.

My house was built in 1965. Is that a problem?

Not by itself. The city's median build year is 1969, so this is the normal case here rather than the exception. Condition at appraisal is what matters, with roof life usually first. Required repairs can generally be funded through a repair set-aside from the loan.

Insurance here is over eight thousand a year. Does that affect what I can borrow?

It affects the analysis rather than the limit. A HECM financial assessment looks at whether you can keep taxes, insurance and dues current for the long run, and a premium of that size is a large part of that picture. Where the history is thin a lender may require a set-aside from the loan to cover property charges, which reduces what you can draw but protects the loan.

Is my building FHA approved?

You can check in a minute at HUD's condominium search. A status of Expired is very common and simply means the approval lapsed rather than the building being rejected. If the project is not approved there are three routes: full project approval, Single-Unit Approval for your unit within FHA's caps, or a proprietary reverse mortgage where FHA approval does not apply.

Talk to someone who works Pinellas

Tell us the building and we will check its inspection status and its FHA approval before we talk numbers. Free, no obligation, and if a reverse mortgage is not the right answer for you we will say so. Hablamos Español.

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Sunshine State Home Loans, LLC. NMLS ID 1901827, Florida license MBR3278. We are not affiliated with, and are not acting on behalf of, HUD, FHA or any government agency. Proprietary and jumbo reverse mortgages are not FHA insured. Reverse mortgage proceeds are loan proceeds rather than income; consult a tax advisor about your situation. Borrowers remain responsible for property taxes, homeowners and flood insurance, association dues and property maintenance, and the loan may become due if those obligations are not met. This is not a commitment to lend.