Property Management in Apollo Beach, FL

Apollo Beach sits on Tampa Bay in south Hillsborough, between Riverview and Ruskin, and it is largely a made place: the canals were dredged from the 1950s onward, which is why so much of it has water at the back of the lot. That water is the product, and it is also the part of the property most likely to cost you money.

What houses rent for in Apollo Beach

Houses in Apollo Beach rent for about $2,600 a month on average, which is above Riverview next door and roughly level with the better parts of south county.

The average hides a very wide spread. A house in a newer inland section and a waterfront house with a dock and a lift are not the same product, and the second commands a premium that has less to do with the house than with what is behind it. If you own the second kind, a rent estimate built from neighborhood averages will be low.

Our guide to how much rent you can get in Tampa Bay walks through the same work you can do yourself first.

Managing rentals in MiraBay, Symphony Isles, and Apollo Beach's other communities

• MiraBay, the largest master-planned community here, with its own lagoon, its own amenities, and a CDD on the tax bill.
• Symphony Isles, gated and waterfront, with private beach access and the top of the local market.
• Andalucia and Bimini Bay, waterfront and canal-front, where the section below applies most.
• Covington Park, inland and family-oriented, the steadiest annual-lease demand.
• Golf and Sea Village and the Apollo Beach Golf and Country Club area, the older core near the original canals.

The seawall, the dock, and the lift

This is what makes owning a rental here different from owning one anywhere else we manage, and it is not the flood zone. Flood is a question all over the bay, and our South Tampa page covers what a flood zone does to a building. This section is about the structures that sit outside the house.

They are yours. A seawall is part of the property and its condition is the owner's problem. So is a dock, so is a lift. No ordinary residential lease makes a tenant responsible for a seawall, and you would not want one that tried, because a tenant with responsibility for a structure like that is a tenant improvising repairs on it.

Your policy probably covers them badly. Standard homeowner and landlord policies treat docks and seawalls as other structures, with a limited sub-limit rather than full cover, and commonly exclude damage caused by water: flood, storm surge, and wave action. In a hurricane, surge and wave action are usually what destroys a dock. That is the gap.

Flood insurance does not fill it. NFIP policies generally exclude docks, piers, and seawalls. Owners find this out after a storm rather than before one.

So find out what you actually have before the season, not after. Ask your agent, in writing, what the sub-limit for other structures is and whether water-driven damage to them is covered. An endorsement may be available. It costs money and it is cheaper than a seawall.

What the lease has to say

Separate from insurance, and just as capable of costing you.

Write down who maintains the dock and the lift, and how often. Write down whether a boat or a lift is included in the tenancy at all, because an included lift is a mechanical system you now maintain for someone else's boat. Write down what the tenant may and may not do at the water, including whether they may moor anything and whether guests may.

And write down who prepares for a storm. A dock, a lift, and a boat all need doing something with before a named storm arrives, and a lease that is silent on it leaves you calling a tenant from out of state and hoping.

If you are still deciding whether to rent at all, our guide on renting out your house or selling it runs the numbers both ways, and if this is your first rental, the accidental landlord's guide is the place to start.