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

Downtown Jacksonville

Downtown was rebuilt after the Great Fire of May 3, 1901, which burned 146 blocks and more than 2,000 buildings. Architect Henry J. Klutho’s St. James Building went up in 1912 and now serves as City Hall.

Riverside and Avondale

Riverside has houses dating to the 1870s, many of them bungalows built after the 1901 fire. Avondale was laid out during the 1920s land boom with curving streets, and the Shoppes of Avondale line St. Johns Avenue. Both are on the National Register of Historic Places and became a city historic district together in 1997.

San Marco

San Marco was developed starting in 1925 on about 80 acres of the old Villa Alexandria estate. Its triangular square, where Atlantic Boulevard, Hendricks Avenue and San Marco Boulevard meet, has the 1927 San Marco Building and lion statues modeled on Venice’s Piazza San Marco.

Springfield

Springfield was platted in 1869 just north of downtown and filled in after the 1901 fire, many of its homes designed by Klutho. The whole neighborhood went on the National Register in 1987 and is a city historic district.

Arlington

Arlington runs along the St. Johns River and holds Jacksonville University’s riverfront campus, founded in 1934, and Fort Caroline National Memorial on Fort Caroline Road. The Jacksonville Silent Film Museum at Norman Studios is here too; more than 30 silent film studios worked in Jacksonville in the 1910s.

Mayport

Mayport has more than 150 years of commercial fishing and shrimping behind it at the mouth of the St. Johns River, and in the 1970s more than 150 shrimp boats unloaded at its docks. Visit Jacksonville promotes a Mayport Shrimp & Seafood Trail, and the St. Johns River Ferry leaves from Mayport Village for Fort George Island.

Jacksonville Beach, Atlantic Beach and Neptune Beach

Jacksonville Beach’s 1,285-foot fishing pier was rebuilt and reopened in 2022 after damage from Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and Hurricane Irma in 2017. Atlantic Beach and Neptune Beach kept their own city governments in 1968, the same as Jacksonville Beach, and Hurricane Dora’s 10-foot surge hit Atlantic Beach in 1964.

Baldwin

Baldwin is a town of about 2 square miles on the county’s west side, incorporated in 1876 and surrounded by Jacksonville. Named for railroad president Abel Seymour Baldwin, it’s still the junction of three CSX rail lines, though passenger trains stopped calling here when Amtrak’s Sunset Limited ended service in 2005. The paved Jacksonville-Baldwin Rail Trail runs toward Jacksonville on the old Atlantic Coast Line rail bed that CSX abandoned in 1992.

Headstart to Homeownership (H2H)

The city’s H2H program puts money toward down payment and closing costs for income-qualified buyers who don’t own a home now. The house has to be in Jacksonville or Duval and pass Section 8 Housing Quality Standards, you use a lender from the city’s approved list, and you can’t sign a sales contract before you’re approved. City Housing Services: 904-255-8241.

Because the contract has to wait for approval, the order of steps matters more here than anywhere else in the county. Call 888-601-8344 before you start shopping, and we’ll ask Housing Services what H2H is paying and whether it’s approving new files, so you don’t lose a house waiting on the city.

Official program page

Down Payment Assistance Home Ownership Pilot Program

The city has also run a Down Payment Assistance Home Ownership Pilot Program that covers part of the down payment or closing costs your lender requires, with income limits set higher than H2H’s.

Pilot money comes and goes with the city budget. Call or text us at 954-816-8820 and we’ll find out from Jacksonville Housing Services whether the pilot is funded for a purchase on your street.

Official program page

Jacksonville/Duval SHIP purchase assistance

SHIP purchase assistance is a 0% second mortgage that the city forgives over a set number of years, with the term tied to the amount. It’s for very-low, low and moderate income buyers, who put in some of their own money and complete HUD-approved homebuyer counseling. The city’s Housing and Community Development Division runs it, first qualified, first served.

SHIP awards and income limits are set in a plan the city rewrites every few years, and the line moves fast once a year’s money arrives. Call us at 888-601-8344 and we’ll ask the Housing and Community Development Division what it’s lending and how close you’d be to the front.

Local Housing Assistance Plan

Jacksonville Housing Finance Authority

The JHFA’s single-family program offers a 30-year fixed first mortgage for first-time buyers, and the authority also runs a Mortgage Credit Certificate program. Its office is at 214 N. Hogan St., 7th Floor; the phone is 904-255-8200.

JHFA’s rates, limits and assistance terms follow its bond issues. Call 888-601-8344 and we’ll check what the first mortgage and the credit certificate offer on the day you’re ready, and how they pair with your loan.

Official program page

Florida Hometown Heroes (statewide)

Nurses at the big Jacksonville hospitals, school staff, deputies and child care workers are who Hometown Heroes was written for. Florida Housing pairs a 30-year fixed first mortgage with a 0% down payment and closing cost second with no monthly payment. It’s deferred, not forgiven: it comes due when you sell, refinance or pay off the home, or stop living in it.

Somebody on the loan has to work full time for a Florida-based employer in health care, K-12 schools, first response, public safety, the courts or licensed child care. With NAS Jacksonville and Naval Station Mayport here, the military rules matter: active-duty service members qualify with any employer, and veterans, Reserve and National Guard members qualify working full time for any Florida-based employer.

You can use Florida Housing assistance once in a lifetime and only through a participating lender or broker, so make the first call count. Call 888-601-8344 before you pick a house in Mandarin, Arlington or the beaches, and we’ll confirm Hometown Heroes money can be reserved for it.

Official program page

FL Assist, FL HLP and HFA Preferred (statewide)

Behind a Florida Housing first mortgage, a Duval buyer can add FL Assist, a 0% deferred second with no monthly payment that’s repaid when you sell, refinance, transfer or move out. FL HLP is the other option: a down payment second with a small fixed monthly payment over 30 years. On a Conventional first, HFA Advantage PLUS adds a second that’s forgiven over 5 years while you live in the home.

Florida Housing sets income and price limits by county and changes them during the year. Call or text us at 954-816-8820 and we’ll tell you which of these pairs best with a Jacksonville purchase and whether it’s reserving funds.

Official program page

Schools and colleges

Public schools are run by Duval County Public Schools.

The University of North Florida is at 1 UNF Drive. Jacksonville University has been on the river in Arlington since 1934, Florida State College at Jacksonville has campuses Downtown at 101 W. State St., Kent at 3939 Roosevelt Blvd. and South at 11901 Beach Blvd., among others, and Edward Waters University on Kings Road, founded in 1866, calls itself Florida’s first independent institution of higher learning.

Getting around

JTA runs the buses, the free downtown Skyway monorail, ReadiRide door-to-door shuttles in several neighborhoods, Gameday Xpress to EverBank Stadium and the St. Johns River Ferry. The ferry has crossed 0.9 miles between Mayport Village and Fort George Island since September 1950, joining the two halves of SR A1A.

Timucuan Preserve and Fort Caroline

The National Park Service’s Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve takes in Fort Caroline, Kingsley Plantation, the 600-acre Theodore Roosevelt Area and more than 30 miles of trails in Northeast Jacksonville. Fort Caroline National Memorial, at 12713 Fort Caroline Road, tells the story of the 16th-century French colony on the river.

Little Talbot Island State Park

Little Talbot has more than 5 miles of beach on one of the few undeveloped barrier islands left in Northeast Florida. The 4-mile Dune Ridge Trail and the kayak routes on Myrtle Creek start from 12157 Heckscher Drive.

Kathryn Abbey Hanna Park

Hanna Park, the city’s oceanfront park at 500 Wonderwood Drive, has about 1.5 miles of beach, including the surf spot known as The Poles, a 60-acre freshwater lake, more than 20 miles of bike and hiking trails, and tent, RV and cabin camping.

Game days and race day

The Jaguars, awarded to Jacksonville in 1993, play at EverBank Stadium, and the city hosted Super Bowl XXXIX in 2005. The Florida-Georgia game has been played here nearly every year since 1933, usually in late October or early November. The Gate River Run, a 15K held every March since 1977, has doubled as the U.S. 15K national championship since 1994.

Downtown and the riverfront

The free Jacksonville Jazz Festival takes over downtown on Memorial Day weekend and opens with the Jacksonville Jazz Piano Competition. Friendship Fountain on the Southbank, open since 1965, pushes about 17,000 gallons a minute as high as 100 feet with a light show every night, and the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens sits at 829 Riverside Avenue on the old Cummer family estate.

Buying a home

FHA is the loan most of our Duval buyers use: 3.5% down, flexible credit guidelines, and it works alongside the city, SHIP and Florida Housing programs above. With NAS Jacksonville and Naval Station Mayport in the county, we also close VA loans with no down payment for eligible veterans, plus Conventional loans, Hometown Heroes and FHA 100% financing.

We’ve been a licensed Florida mortgage broker since 1997 and close loans in all 67 counties statewide, from Baldwin to the beaches here in Duval and on to the rest of Florida. Multiple wholesale lenders see your loan, and you’ll know your number before you tour your first house in Arlington or Mandarin.

Refinancing the home you have

A refinance can lower your monthly payment, pull cash out for a new roof or a renovation, pay off higher-interest debt, or buy out a co-owner’s share of the house.

Call 888-601-8344 and we’ll set your Duval mortgage payment against the new one, with the cash out and the closing costs spelled out, so you’re deciding with real numbers.