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

Wauchula

Wauchula is the county seat, incorporated on September 29, 1902. It grew from Fort Hartsuff, a Seminole Wars-era post, and the Florida Southern Railway reached it in 1886.

Downtown is the Wauchula Historic District, and the city also has the Albert Carlton Estate and a municipal airport. It was once called the Cucumber Capital of the World, though citrus has since become the bigger crop. Hurricane Charley damaged or destroyed most of the city’s buildings in 2004, so many Wauchula homes date from the rebuilding that followed.

Zolfo Springs

Zolfo Springs incorporated in 1904 as Zolfo, Italian for sulfur, after phosphate prospectors smelled a sulfur spring on the Peace River. It added Springs to the name in 1909.

The Peace River forms part of the town’s northern boundary, and Pioneer Park sits inside town limits. SR 64 and SR 66 through town follow the historic Florida Cracker Trail.

Bowling Green

Bowling Green incorporated in 1927 and is named for Bowling Green, Kentucky, home of A.M. Chester, who homesteaded here in 1883. Citrus farming and phosphate mining shaped its growth.

Paynes Creek Historic State Park is here, and so is the Hardee County Utilities office at 2428 Commerce Court.

Ona and Fort Green

The Mosaic Company runs the county’s phosphate mines in the rural western county: about 16,778 acres near Ona and about 10,000 acres near Fort Green. Ona and Fort Green are unincorporated, so county offices in Wauchula handle permits and services out here.

Hardee County SHIP Purchase Assistance

Hardee County helps very low to moderate income first-time buyers with down payment and closing costs on a new or existing single-family home, and existing homes can get minor repairs too. First-time means no ownership in the past 3 years, and displaced homemakers and some divorced applicants also qualify. The help is an interest-free deferred second mortgage, set up as a conditional grant, repaid only if you sell, transfer or move out.

You’ll need lender pre-approval, homebuyer education and the county’s credit counseling, and the county sets a maximum contract price and a minimum buyer contribution. Money goes to the buyer who is qualified and ready first.

Grants Management decides the award, the price cap and the open window, and those can change during the year as SHIP money arrives and runs out. Call 888-601-8344 before you write an offer and we’ll get your pre-approval ready and ask the Orange Street office what the program pays and whether it’s accepting files for that house.

County buyer guide (PDF)

Hardee County Grants Management and home repair

The Grants Management office at 412 West Orange Street, Room 201, Wauchula, (863) 773-6349, is open Monday through Thursday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Friday 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. It also runs a Housing Rehabilitation Program for very low and low income owners who live in their homes.

The rehab program works first-come, first-qualified until the money is spent, so its status changes. If you own in Hardee and the house needs work, call or text us at 954-816-8820 and we’ll find out whether the program can take your application, or whether a cash-out refinance makes more sense.

Grants Management page

Florida Hometown Heroes (statewide)

Hometown Heroes is Florida Housing’s program for buyers in essential jobs. It combines a 30-year fixed first mortgage with a 0% second toward the down payment and closing costs, and that second carries no monthly payment. It’s repaid, not forgiven, when you sell, refinance, pay off the home or stop living in it.

One buyer has to hold a full-time job with an eligible Florida-based employer in health care, K-12 schools, first response, public safety, the courts or licensed child care, so a nurse at AdventHealth Wauchula or an employee of the Hardee school district qualifies. Those on active duty qualify whatever their employer, and veterans, Reserve and Guard members qualify through a full-time position with any Florida-based employer. Part-time jobs, remote jobs and offer letters are excluded.

Florida Housing allows one use of its help per lifetime, which makes the Hardee house you use it on count. Funds are reserved loan by loan, so call 888-601-8344 before you offer on a Hardee house and we’ll confirm the program is reserving and check your income and price against the county’s limits.

Official program page

FL Assist, HLP and HFA Advantage PLUS (statewide)

FL Assist pays toward the down payment and closing costs at 0%, with no monthly payment, and gets repaid when the home is sold, refinanced or transferred or you move out. It only goes behind a Florida Housing FHA, VA, USDA or Conventional first. Two related options round out the list: the HLP second, which you pay down monthly at a small fixed amount over 30 years, and HFA Advantage PLUS, where a Freddie Mac Conventional first comes with a second that’s forgiven over 5 years while you stay in the home.

Each one needs a Florida Housing first mortgage through a participating lender or broker. Whether one lines up with a Hardee SHIP award depends on the rules when you apply, so call or text us at 954-816-8820 and we’ll sort out which ones work for your purchase.

Official program page

Schools and colleges

Public schools are run by the School Board of Hardee County, 1009 N. 6th Ave, Wauchula.

South Florida State College has a Hardee Campus, with its main campus in Avon Park.

Getting around

US 17 is the main north-south road: from Zolfo Springs it’s 4 miles north to Wauchula and 20 miles south to Arcadia. SR 64 runs northeast to Avon Park and west to Bradenton, and SR 66 runs 25 miles east from Zolfo Springs to US 27 at the south end of Sebring.

Wauchula has a municipal general aviation airport for private flying.

Paynes Creek Historic State Park

Paynes Creek, at 888 Lake Branch Road in Bowling Green, marks a trading post built and destroyed in 1849 and Fort Chokonikla, the first in a chain of forts built that year. It’s on the National Register and the Florida Native American Heritage Trail.

You can canoe, kayak and fish where Paynes Creek meets the Peace River, walk the hiking trails, and learn about Seminole and pioneer life at the visitor center.

Pioneer Park

Pioneer Park, a county park at 231 Wilbur C. King Blvd. in Zolfo Springs, has 65 campsites with water and electric and 25 without, a boat ramp on the Peace River, bank fishing on Pioneer Lake and Rock Lake, and a wildlife refuge area.

Pioneer Park Days

Pioneer Park Days is a long-running antique gas and steam engine show at Pioneer Park. The flea market and antique auto show were added in 1968, and the parade in 1980. Ask the county parks office for the dates.

The Florida Cracker Trail

Parts of SR 64 and SR 66 through Zolfo Springs follow the Florida Cracker Trail, the historic cattle route that helped the area prosper. The Cracker Trail Museum is one of the county’s Parks and Recreation destinations.

Buying a home

Most of our Hardee County buyers use FHA: 3.5% down, flexible credit guidelines, and it pairs with the county SHIP program and the state programs above. Veterans and service members who qualify can put nothing down with VA, and Conventional, Hometown Heroes and FHA 100% financing are on the table too.

From Wauchula to Ona, we handle Hardee loans the way we do statewide in all 67 Florida counties as a licensed Florida mortgage broker since 1997. We shop your loan with multiple wholesale lenders, and we’ll give you the pre-approval the county’s SHIP program asks for before you start writing offers.

Refinancing the home you have

Hardee owners refinance to lower the monthly payment, take cash out for a new roof or storm hardening, pay off higher-interest debt, or buy someone else off the title. Equity in a house in Wauchula or out toward Ona can pay for that work.

Call 888-601-8344 and we’ll show your current payment beside the new one, along with the cash you’d take out and the closing costs, so you decide with real numbers.