\u00a0WATCH: Parents hold premature twins for 1st time using groundbreaking ‘Skincubator’\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\nSince property taxes are collected by local governments, city and county leaders along with many law enforcement agencies have been warning voters to avoid approving the amendment.<\/p>\n
Lacey Lingelbach rents an apartment in downtown St. Petersburg. She is no fan of the effort to reduce the property tax bill for a homeowner’s primary residence.<\/p>\n
“We get no direct benefit from this amendment,” Lingelbach said. “This doesn’t necessarily make landlords have to decrease their rent for us. They’re going to want to keep on profiting off of us.”<\/p>\n
Lingelbach has been working with the Democratic Socialists of America St. Pete chapter to help renters push back on the proposal.<\/p>\n
There’s a provision in the amendment that requires a Florida resident to be in the state for five years or more to see a reduced tax bill starting in 2027, if the amendment passes.<\/p>\n
Lingelbach questions how that could help benefit many Tampa Bay renters today or even in the immediate future.<\/p>\n
Florida Realtors CEO Margy Grant argued landlords may be persuaded to keep rent steady or even reduce it, if the measure passes by a different provision in the amendment.<\/p>\n
“It also has a reduction on the cap for taxes on non-homesteaded properties, meaning commercial and rental properties,” Grant said.<\/p>\n
The Florida Realtors group has spent $18 million to get voters on their side in its campaign to get voters to pass the amendment.<\/p>\n
“Realtors are advocates in their community. It’s not just about selling someone a home. It’s about helping them stay in that home. That’s where affordability has become key,” grant said.<\/p>\n
If the amendment gets 60% approval, it’ll go into effect in January.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (WFLA) \u2013 The effort to raise the homestead exemption in Florida during the midterm political…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-426955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}