Investors
Investment property in Northeast Florida
A rental here lives or dies on the numbers nobody puts in the listing. This page is about those numbers.
Before real estate, Omer worked in wholesaling — which trains you to look at a property the way an investor does: what it costs, what it needs, what it is actually worth, and where the risk is hiding.
What follows is the cost side. There are no yield figures, no appreciation forecasts and no projections on this page, because an honest one can only be built from a specific address.
No returns are promised or projected here. Rent levels, vacancy and resale value depend on the property and on conditions nobody controls. What can be established before you buy is the cost of holding it — and that is what is set out below.
The costs that change on the day you buy
Property tax, reassessed at your price
Florida reassesses at full market value in the year following a sale. The seller's figure reflects their assessed value and their protections, which do not transfer. A tax amount on a listing is almost always the seller's number.
No homestead exemption, and a 10% cap instead of 3%
The homestead exemption and the 3% Save Our Homes cap apply to a permanent residence. A property you do not live in gets neither: the applicable limit on assessed value is 10% a year for non-homestead property, and it too resets after a sale. This is the single most common miscalculation on an investment purchase here.
Insurance without the owner-occupied assumptions
Homeowners and windstorm cover are priced on roof age and condition, construction type, the wind-mitigation report and distance from open water. Landlord policies are their own product. Get a real quote on the specific address during the inspection period.
Flood, parcel by parcel
Separate from the homeowners policy, and required by lenders in high-risk zones. Desirable ground near the river, the Intracoastal, the marsh and the beaches often sits in one. Look up the exact address at FEMA rather than the neighbourhood.
CDD and HOA, which are not the same thing
The CDD assessment repays the bonds that built the community's roads, drainage and amenities, and it arrives on the tax bill; HOA dues are billed by the association. Newer St. Johns County communities commonly carry both. In RiverTown's Rivers Edge district the FY2027 schedule runs from $1,455.10 to $3,121.42 — every lot type up 11% on the year — which is the kind of movement worth knowing about before you model anything.
The rules that decide whether you can rent it at all
This is the part that most often turns a good-looking purchase into an unusable one, and it is entirely checkable in advance.
Associations frequently restrict leasing: a minimum lease term, a cap on the number of rented homes in the community, a waiting period after purchase before you may rent at all, and approval of tenants. These sit in the recorded covenants and the association's rules, not in the listing. Ask for both documents and read the leasing article before the inspection period ends.
Short-term rental rules are set by the city, not the county, and they differ across municipal lines. At the beaches, Jacksonville Beach, Neptune Beach and Atlantic Beach are three separate cities with their own ordinances, so an address a few streets away can sit under a different rule entirely. Verify with the city that actually governs the parcel.
What gets checked before an offer
Documents
Recorded covenants and the leasing article, association rules, the last year of association financials and minutes, and the estoppel certificate at closing — Florida law caps what an association may charge for it.
The parcel
FEMA flood designation, the CDD assessment and how many years of bond debt remain on it, the tax estimate at your purchase price, and any open or unpermitted work.
The building
Roof age and the wind-mitigation report, because they move the insurance quote more than almost anything else; then the ordinary inspection findings.
The city
Which municipality governs the address, and what its rules say about the rental use you have in mind.
Buying from outside Florida
Many investors here never see the property in person. That is workable: video walkthroughs with honest commentary rather than a highlight reel, electronic signing, and the document review above done before you commit. Conversations happen in English, Ukrainian or Russian.
Send an address and get the carrying cost
Tax at your purchase price, insurance exposure, flood designation, CDD and HOA, and what the association's leasing rules actually allow — assembled for the specific parcel.
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