Tavares, Florida.
Typical home $306,546 (-1.8% in a year), asking rent $1,964 (-1.5%). Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$839 (+109%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $5,585 -2%
- $312,132$306,546 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $44,964 +17%
- $261,582$306,546 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Tavares$1,609
- Florida$1,970
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 22 years.
Typical home values in Tavares, FL fell 1.8% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Tavares, FL fell 1.5% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Tavares runs $168/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $454 in Oct 2023.
That is $2,132 a month against $1,964 rent: a $1,609 mortgage payment, plus $195 property tax and $328 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Tavares
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$2,132
- Renting$1,964
- Mortgage only$1,609
Property tax · $195/mo 0.76% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Lake County, FL
Insurance & upkeep · $328/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in Tavares, Lake County, Florida
Tavares is a city of 19,003 people in Lake County. Half its households earn more than $58,886 a year and half less, against $73,161 across Lake County; 9% of its people live below the poverty line. 77% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 23% are rented. Unemployment in Lake County was 4.9% in August 2026, and the county had 1.1% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then professional services.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Tavares is a small Florida city in Lake County, and most homes here are lived in by their owners. Incomes run below the county's, and typical rents are on the high side next to what many households earn. Winters are mild and summers are hot, with the coldest weather in January still comfortably cool rather than cold, and a fair amount of rain through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in professional and business services, shops and the building trades. Among the largest workplaces in Tavares are Lake Schools, Solaris Healthcare Waterman and PAM Health Rehab Hospital of Tavares. Commutes tend to be fairly long, and relatively few people work from home.
Things to do. Lake Harris and Lake Eustis are both lakes a short drive away, good for time on the water. For a bigger day out, Walt Disney World Resort and Universal Studios Florida are amusement parks a longer drive away.
Report a mistake
- 9,154households
- 26%of adults have a degree
- 9%below the poverty line
- 31 mintypical commute
- 9%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Lake County had 118,622 jobs in 2025, 1.1% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 70° and lows near 49°; warmest in August, with highs near 92° and lows near 75°. About 44 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Leesburg Municipal Airport weather station, 5 miles away (NOAA).
Largest employers in Tavares
- Lake County Public Schools5,699
- Advent Health (Florida Hospital Waterman)2,500
- Lake County Board of County Commissioners1,025
- Cornerstone Hospice768
- Lake County Sheriff's Office755
- City of Tavares221
- Lake County Clerk of Court191
- Publix150
From the City of Tavares’ annual financial report for 2025, its schedule of principal employers (its source: “City of Tavares Economic Development Department”), as Florida’s Auditor General publishes it: the report. Employees as the report counts them.
Natural hazards
- Strong windRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- HurricanesRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingrelatively high in parts of TavaresRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Tavares’ census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Lake County and the Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL metro.
Tavares home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Tavares$306,546
- Florida$375,361
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Tavares listings, and the typical home goes pending in 30 days — the market is roughly in balance.
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Tavares30.78%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Tavares30
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Tavares205
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Tavares43
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Tavares$294,017
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Tavares97.34%
Zip codes with a Tavares address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Tavares — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.