Alachua County, Florida: A Local Guide for Home Buyers and Homeowners

Gainesville

Gainesville is the county seat and home of the University of Florida. It was established in 1854 and incorporated in 1869, and US 441 runs along the east edge of campus, where it goes by 13th Street.

Near downtown, the Duckpond historic district has about 290 historic buildings across eight small subdivisions, with canals, parks, the Matheson History Museum and the Thomas Center.

Haile Plantation

Haile Plantation is a master-planned community begun in the 1970s on about 1,700 acres between Archer Road and Newberry Road. It has the Haile Village Center, a three-mile walking and biking loop and Hawkstone Golf and Country Club.

Celebration Pointe

Celebration Pointe is a 225-acre development off Archer Road near I-75 with homes, a Tech Park, shops, a Regal cinema and the six-mile Archer Braid Trail beside Split Rock Conservation Area.

City of Alachua

The City of Alachua runs its own electric, water, wastewater and garbage service, so the power and water bill there comes from the city, not GRU. Progress Park is here too, home of UF’s Sid Martin Biotech incubator at 12085 Research Drive, which has backed startups since 1995.

High Springs

High Springs incorporated in 1892 and became a railroad center in the early 1900s after phosphate mining boomed. Downtown has the Priest Theatre, which the city calls the oldest operating movie theater in Florida, and Poe Springs Park on the Santa Fe River carries a High Springs address.

Newberry

Newberry incorporated in 1895 after hard-rock phosphate turned up in the late 1880s, and before 1900 there were 14 mines within six miles of town. Plant’s railroad reached it in 1893. The Newberry Watermelon Festival and parade have come around every May since the first one in 1946.

Micanopy and Cross Creek

Micanopy bills itself as the oldest inland town in Florida and is known for its antique shops and galleries. Two films were shot here: Cross Creek (1983) and Doc Hollywood (1991).

At Cross Creek, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings wrote The Yearling, which won the Pulitzer Prize. Her cracker-style farmhouse is now a state park at 18700 S. County Road 325.

Hawthorne

Hawthorne sits at the east end of the paved Gainesville-Hawthorne State Trail, which was built on an old rail bed. You can ride or walk from town all the way across Paynes Prairie to Boulware Springs in Gainesville without sharing the road with a car.

Alachua County SHIP Down Payment Assistance

Alachua County helps first-time buyers with down payment and closing costs on homes in the county but outside Gainesville city limits. The help is a 10-year deferred second mortgage, due if you sell, refinance or transfer the home. You take a homebuyer class through Neighborhood Housing & Development Corp. or the City of Gainesville, use a SHIP-certified lender and get the home inspected by an approved SHIP inspector. Applications go through the county’s Neighborly portal, and the program office is 352-337-6240.

The county sets the award by income category and by how much SHIP money it has in hand, and both shift through the year. Call us at 888-601-8344 with the address in Newberry, Archer or Waldo, and we’ll confirm it sits outside Gainesville city limits and find out what the county is paying before you put in an offer.

Official program page

City of Gainesville SHIP Down Payment Assistance

The City of Gainesville runs its own SHIP down payment program for homes inside city limits. It’s a 0% deferred loan that the city forgives after a set number of years in the home, with the amount tied to your income category. It’s for buyers who haven’t owned a home in the past 3 years, and you’ll take a City-approved homebuyer course before closing.

The city’s award amounts, price limits and funding are set in a housing plan that gets rewritten every few years. Before you write an offer on a house inside the city line, call 888-601-8344 and we’ll check with Gainesville’s housing office what it pays and whether it’s accepting files for that address.

City housing plan (PDF)

Florida Hometown Heroes (statewide)

A nurse on a Gainesville hospital floor, a deputy or a teacher with Alachua County Public Schools is the kind of buyer Hometown Heroes was built for. The program puts a 0% down payment and closing cost second, with no monthly payment, behind a Florida Housing 30-year fixed first mortgage. That second is deferred, not forgiven, and it gets repaid when you sell, refinance or pay off the house, or stop living there.

One of the buyers needs a full-time job with a Florida-based employer in health care, K-12 schools, first response, public safety, the courts or licensed child care. Service members on active duty qualify no matter who they work for, and veterans, Reserve and National Guard members qualify with a full-time job at any Florida-based employer. Florida Housing help is a once-in-a-lifetime benefit, and the application goes through a participating lender or broker. Funds are reserved loan by loan and can run out, and since you only get this help once, call 888-601-8344 before you sign a contract in Gainesville or anywhere in the county so it goes toward the right house with the right lender.

Official program page

FL Assist and HFA Preferred (statewide)

FL Assist is a Florida Housing down payment and closing cost second at 0%, with no monthly payment. You pay it back when you sell, refinance, transfer the home or move out. It sits behind a Florida Housing first mortgage: FHA, VA, USDA, or Conventional through HFA Preferred or HFA Advantage. On the Conventional side, HFA Advantage PLUS puts a second behind a Freddie Mac first and forgives it over 5 years as long as you keep living in the house.

Florida Housing adjusts its income and price limits by county, so call or text us at 954-816-8820 and we’ll tell you which of these lines up with a purchase in Alachua County and whether it’s taking reservations when you’re ready to buy.

Official program page

Schools and colleges

Alachua County Public Schools runs the public schools. Start with the district website for enrollment questions.

The University of Florida and Santa Fe College are both in Gainesville.

Getting around

I-75 runs northwest to southeast along Gainesville’s west side, and US 441 (13th Street) is the main north-south road in town. US 301 heads toward Jacksonville, Ocala and Orlando, SR 26 is the main east-west road, and SR 20, SR 24, SR 121 and SR 331 also cross the city.

Gainesville Regional Airport (GNV), about three miles northeast of the city, has scheduled airline service, and small planes use Gleim Field in Gainesville, Flying Ten in Archer and Oak Tree Landing in High Springs. The City of Gainesville runs the RTS bus system. There’s no passenger rail in the county; the nearest Amtrak station is in Palatka, 32 miles east, and Amtrak Thruway buses serve Gainesville.

Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park

Paynes Prairie covers nearly 23,000 acres south of Gainesville and became Florida’s first state preserve in 1970. Wild horses and bison roam it, and a 50-foot observation tower gives you the view. The entrance is at 100 Savannah Blvd., Micanopy.

Devil’s Millhopper

Devil’s Millhopper Geological State Park is a sinkhole about 120 feet deep and 500 feet across, with a boardwalk that takes you down into it. It’s a National Natural Landmark at 4732 Millhopper Road in Gainesville.

Poe Springs and O’Leno

Poe Springs Park covers 202 acres on the Santa Fe River at 28800 NW 182nd Ave. in High Springs, and its spring, described as the largest in the county, pumps about 45 million gallons a day. O’Leno State Park, six miles north of High Springs on US 441, was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. The river sinks underground there and comes back up more than three miles away at River Rise Preserve State Park.

Trails

San Felasco Hammock Preserve State Park has hiking, off-road cycling and horse trails, with a north trailhead at 13201 San Felasco Parkway in Alachua and a south trailhead on Millhopper Road. The paved Gainesville-Hawthorne State Trail runs 16 miles from Boulware Springs City Park through Paynes Prairie to Hawthorne, with a grassy equestrian path alongside.

Kanapaha Botanical Gardens

Kanapaha covers 68 acres in Gainesville and has the state’s largest public display of bamboos and the largest herb garden in the Southeast. The Kanapaha Spring Garden Festival comes around every March.

Game days and racing

The Gators have played football at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, The Swamp, since it opened in 1930. Every March the NHRA Gatornationals bring drag racing to Gainesville Raceway.

Downtown traditions

The Downtown Festival & Art Show fills 111 E. University Ave. with artists and music stages each November, and admission is free. In late January the free Hoggetowne Medieval Faire, a long-running Gainesville tradition, sets up for one weekend.

Buying a home

FHA is the loan most of our Alachua County buyers use. It takes 3.5% down, the credit guidelines are flexible, and it pairs with the county, city and statewide programs above. We also close VA loans with no down payment for eligible veterans, Conventional loans, Hometown Heroes loans and FHA 100% financing.

We’ve been a licensed Florida mortgage broker since 1997 and lend in all 67 counties statewide, so the same team can handle your purchase here and a later one anywhere else in Florida. Here we’ll ask early whether the address is on GRU or Clay Electric, because it changes the monthly budget. We shop your loan with multiple wholesale lenders and tell you what you qualify for before you start touring houses in Haile or High Springs.

Refinancing the home you have

A refinance can lower your monthly payment, pull cash out for a new roof or an addition, pay off higher-interest debt, or buy someone else off the title.

Call 888-601-8344 and we’ll lay out the new payment, the cash you’d take home and the costs on one page for your house in Gainesville or anywhere in the county.