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

Sebring

Sebring was founded in 1912 by Ohio pottery maker George E. Sebring and laid out around a central circle, which is why it’s called The City on the Circle. Circle Drive anchors the Sebring Downtown Historic District on Lake Jackson, a sandy-shored lake used for boating and swimming.

The 1920s land boom left the Kenilworth Lodge, a surviving large resort hotel, and the Mediterranean-style Harder Hall Hotel. The Highlands Lakeside Theater is a waterfront performing arts center, and the Highlands Museum of the Arts is in town too.

Avon Park

Avon Park incorporated as a city in 1926, after an earlier Town of Lake Forest incorporated in 1886. SR 17 runs through the center as Main Street, and circular Lake Verona sits inside city limits.

South Florida State College has its main campus here, and the city’s nickname is The City of Charm.

Lake Placid

Lake Placid incorporated as Lake Stearns in 1925 and took its current name in 1927 at the suggestion of Melvil Dewey, inventor of the Dewey Decimal System, after his Lake Placid Club in New York. It’s known as the Town of Murals and the Caladium Capital of the World.

The Lake Placid area counts 27 freshwater lakes, and its golf communities include Placid Lakes and Lake June West.

Venus

Venus is a rural south-county community where Archbold Biological Station manages nearly 20,000 acres of research land at the headwaters of the Everglades.

Avon Park Air Force Range

The Avon Park Air Force Range covers 106,000 acres in Polk and Highlands counties, about 10.5 miles southeast of Avon Park. It trained B-17 aircrews in World War II, hosts a deployed unit complex of the 347th Wing from Moody AFB, and runs natural-resource, wildlife and grazing programs.

Highlands County SHIP Purchase Assistance

Highlands County’s SHIP program helps first-time buyers, meaning no ownership in the past 3 years, with down payment and closing costs on an existing home or a new home with a certificate of occupancy within 12 months. You need pre-qualification, a homebuyer education course and a 30-year fixed first mortgage (Conventional, FHA, VA or USDA), plus some cash of your own, and the help is a 0% loan secured by a mortgage on the home.

The county opens and pauses this program, and it sets a purchase price cap that can change with each plan. Call 888-601-8344 and we’ll check with the Housing Division on South Commerce Avenue whether it’s taking applications and what it pays, and line up FHA 100% financing or a statewide second if it isn’t. Contact: 618 S. Commerce Ave., Sebring; (863) 402-6648; SHIP@highlandsfl.gov.

Official program page

Highlands County SHIP foreclosure prevention and emergency repair

Highlands County SHIP also offers foreclosure prevention for owners who fell behind on a first mortgage after a hardship such as job loss, medical bills, divorce, a death or an unexpected repair. Emergency repair covers failures such as A/C, septic, electrical or plumbing, and can also cover an insurance deductible. Both are 0% loans for income-eligible homesteaded owners.

Funding for both depends on the county’s plan, so ask the Housing office at (863) 402-6648 what’s available. If you’re behind on a Highlands mortgage or the A/C just died, text us at 954-816-8820 too and we’ll talk through what a refinance could do alongside the county’s help.

Official program page

Florida Hometown Heroes (statewide)

Hometown Heroes is Florida Housing’s 30-year fixed first mortgage with a 0% down payment and closing cost second. The second carries no monthly payment and is repaid when you sell, refinance or pay off the home, or stop living in it; it isn’t forgiven. One or more of the buyers must 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 nurses at AdventHealth Sebring and staff in the Highlands schools are the kind of buyers it was built for. If you’re on active duty, any employer works; veterans, Reserve and National Guard members need full-time work with a Florida-based employer.

You can use Florida Housing assistance once in a lifetime, through a participating lender or broker. Call 888-601-8344 before you choose the house, and we’ll check the Highlands income and price limits and whether funds are open for your loan.

Official program page

FL Assist, FL HLP and HFA Preferred (statewide)

FL Assist is a 0% deferred second with no monthly payment, repaid when you sell, refinance, transfer the home or move out, and FL HLP is a second with a small fixed monthly payment over 30 years. Both go with a Florida Housing first mortgage: FHA, VA, USDA, or a Conventional HFA Preferred or HFA Advantage loan. HFA Advantage PLUS couples a Freddie Mac Conventional first with a second that’s forgiven over 5 years of owner occupancy.

Florida Housing changes what these pay during the year. Text us at 954-816-8820 and we’ll tell you which one does the most for a Sebring, Avon Park or Lake Placid purchase.

Official program page

Schools and college

Public schools are run by the School Board of Highlands County, 426 School Street, Sebring, (863) 471-5564.

South Florida State College has its main Highlands Campus at 600 West College Drive in Avon Park and a Lake Placid Center.

Getting around

US 27 is the main north-south road: Lake Placid is 16 miles south of Sebring, and Clewiston is 58 miles south. US 98 passes the north shore of Lake Istokpoga, and SR 17 is Avon Park’s Main Street.

Sebring Regional Airport (KSEF) is at 128 Authority Lane, (863) 655-6444, and Avon Park Executive Airport (KAVO) is a public-use airport about 2 miles west of downtown Avon Park.

Highlands Hammock State Park

Highlands Hammock State Park was established in 1931, developed by the Civilian Conservation Corps, and covers about 9,000 acres at 5931 Hammock Road near Sebring. A raised catwalk crosses a cypress swamp under towering oaks, the park is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the CCC Museum tells the story of the Corps crews who built Florida’s eight CCC parks.

Lake Istokpoga

Lake Istokpoga covers 27,692 acres about five miles northeast of Lake Placid, with a maximum depth near 10 feet. It’s a well-known largemouth bass lake, with crappie (specks), bluegill and redear, and public ramps sit off US 98, Cow House Road and CR 621.

Lake June-in-Winter Scrub Preserve State Park

The preserve protects 845 acres of mostly sand scrub on the west side of Lake June-in-Winter, about 12 miles south of Sebring off US 27. Florida scrub-jays, scrub lizards and gopher tortoises live here, and there’s a half-mile nature trail and a canoe and kayak launch.

Archbold Biological Station

Scientists have studied the land at Archbold Biological Station near Venus for more than eight decades, and its trails and exhibits are open to the public.

Lake Placid murals and festivals

Lake Placid started painting outdoor murals in 1992 and now has dozens, and the Chamber of Commerce hands out a mural guide. The Lake Placid Caladium Festival comes around every July.

Museums worth a stop

The American Clown Museum and School in Lake Placid, founded in 1993, holds more than 700 pieces of clown memorabilia. The town also has the Lake Placid Historical Society Depot Museum and a Saturday morning farmers market, and Sebring has the Highlands Museum of the Arts.

Buying a home

Most of our Highlands County buyers go FHA: 3.5% down, flexible credit guidelines, and it works with the SHIP and Florida Housing programs above. Eligible veterans can buy with VA and nothing down, and we also do Conventional loans, Hometown Heroes and FHA 100% financing.

A licensed Florida mortgage broker since 1997, AAA Capital Funding lends in all 67 Florida counties statewide and shops each loan with multiple wholesale lenders. You’ll know what you qualify for before you tour a house in Sebring, Avon Park or Lake Placid.

Refinancing the home you have

Highlands owners refinance to lower the monthly payment, take cash out for a new roof, a generator or a remodel, pay off higher-interest debt, or buy out someone else’s share of the home. Irma left most of the county without power for days, which is why the generator is on that list.

Call 888-601-8344 and we’ll show you the payment you have now, the new one, the cash in hand and the closing costs together, so you decide with real numbers.