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

Palatka

Palatka is home to Ravine Gardens State Park at 1600 Twigg St., a full-service St. Johns River State College campus with residence halls, and the historic Atlantic Coast Line Union Depot, still the city’s Amtrak station. The paved Palatka-to-Lake Butler State Trail starts on the west side of town.

Crescent City

Crescent City sits on a strip of land between Crescent Lake to the east and Stella Lake to the west. It was first settled in 1852 as the Old Oliver Plantation, platted in 1876 and incorporated as a city in 1885.

The Crescent City Historic District and the Hubbard House are on the National Register, and labor and civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph was born here in 1889.

Welaka

Welaka is a St. Johns River town about 90 miles south of Jacksonville, incorporated on June 21, 1887. It marketed its mineral springs to visitors in the 1880s and calls itself the “Bass Capital of the World.” The nearby Mount Royal archaeological site may have been a Timucua village from about 1250 to 1500 CE.

Interlachen

Interlachen was incorporated in 1888, and its Swiss-inspired name means “between the lakes.” More than 28 lakes sit inside the town limits, the largest being Lake Lagonda and Lake Chipco, and State Road 20 was built through town in 1926.

Pomona Park

Pomona Park sits near US 17, and the main entrance to Dunns Creek State Park is at 320 Sisco Road, with a second entrance off US 17 just north of town.

Rodman and Kirkpatrick Dam

About 15 miles southwest of Palatka, the Army Corps of Engineers dammed the Ocklawaha River in 1968 for the Cross Florida Barge Canal, which was never finished. The dam created the 13,000-acre Rodman Reservoir.

Putnam County SHIP Home Purchase Assistance

For first-time buyers of new or existing single-family homes, SHIP pays toward the down payment and closing costs, with income tiers from extremely low to moderate. It’s a 0% loan with a long term that’s partly forgiven in stages once you’ve owned the home for years, and small awards come as grants. One adult in the household completes an approved homebuyer course.

The award sizes and price limit change from plan to plan. County offices are at 2509 Crill Avenue in Palatka, (386) 329-0205, or call us at 888-601-8344 and we’ll get Putnam’s figures from Crill Avenue for the house you want and find out whether the county is taking purchase files.

Local Housing Assistance Plan

Putnam County SHIP Purchase Assistance with Rehabilitation

If the house needs code or accessibility repairs, the same income tiers apply, and part of the award can go to repairs, held in escrow at closing. A foreclosed home can get extra money for repairs.

If the house you like in Crescent City or Interlachen needs work, text us at 954-816-8820 and we’ll ask the county what the rehab strategy can put toward it before you write the offer.

Local Housing Assistance Plan

Florida Hometown Heroes (statewide)

Hometown Heroes is a Florida Housing loan pair: a 30-year fixed first mortgage and a 0% second for down payment and closing costs. Nothing is due monthly on the second, and it isn’t forgiven. You pay it back when you sell, refinance or pay off the home, or stop living in it.

One buyer 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, so a teacher in the Putnam district or a sheriff’s deputy may qualify. Putnam buyers on active duty qualify with any employer; veterans and Reserve and National Guard members qualify if they work full time for a Florida-based employer. It works with FHA, VA, USDA and Conventional loans.

Florida Housing assistance is a once-in-a-lifetime benefit, and only a participating lender or broker can apply for you. Make it count on the right Putnam house: call us first at 888-601-8344.

Official program page

FL Assist, FL HLP and HFA Preferred (statewide)

FL Assist is Florida Housing’s 0% down payment second; you make no monthly payment and repay it when you sell, refinance, transfer the home or move out. It needs a Florida Housing first mortgage behind it: FHA, VA, USDA, or Conventional through HFA Preferred or HFA Advantage. The FL HLP second carries a small fixed payment over 30 years, and HFA Advantage PLUS is a second forgiven over 5 years while you live in the home.

Florida Housing reserves this money loan by loan. Call or text us at 954-816-8820 and we’ll tell you which one is open and which stacks best with Putnam’s SHIP money on the house you’ve picked.

Official program page

Schools and colleges

Public schools are run by the Putnam County School District, headquartered at 200 Reid Street in Palatka.

St. Johns River State College has a full-service Palatka campus with residence halls, and its programs include the Florida School of the Arts.

Getting around

US 17 is the main north-south road through eastern Putnam. SR 19 comes up from the Ocala National Forest to US 17 in Palatka, SR 20 runs east from Hawthorne through Interlachen to Palatka, SR 21 runs north from McMeekin through Melrose into Clay County, SR 100 runs through Putnam Hall and Florahome to Palatka, and SR 207 heads from Palatka through Orange Mills to the St. Johns County line. SR 100 also links Palatka with Bunnell, about 30 miles away, and on to Flagler Beach.

Amtrak stops at Palatka’s old Union Depot on the CSX line, and Palatka Municipal Airport is the county’s main airport, with minor and private airstrips elsewhere.

Ravine Gardens State Park

The Works Progress Administration built Ravine Gardens in 1933 in a set of steep ravines, and it holds nearly 100,000 azaleas, a 1.8-mile paved loop road and the Court of States, with a 64-foot obelisk dedicated to Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was listed on the National Register in 1999. The Florida Azalea Festival comes the first weekend of March, when the azaleas bloom.

Lake George

Florida’s second-largest lake covers about 46,000 acres of broad, shallow, brackish water on the St. Johns River, shared with Volusia County. Salt Springs and Silver Glen Springs flow into it, it supports one of the world’s few freshwater blue crab fisheries, and its World War II Navy bombing targets fall under NAS Jacksonville.

Rodman Reservoir

Rodman runs about 13,000 acres and 15 to 16 miles long on the Ocklawaha River in Putnam and Marion counties, and it’s considered one of Northeast Florida’s top largemouth bass fisheries. Water levels are drawn down every three to four years, and a long-running campaign wants the Ocklawaha restored to a free-flowing river.

Dunns Creek State Park

The park covers about 6,200 acres south of a sharp bend in the St. Johns River, with longleaf pine sandhills and sand pine scrub. Paddlers launch onto the 6-mile Dunns Creek between the river and Crescent Lake, and a 1.5-mile trail leads to Blue Pond.

Palatka-to-Lake Butler State Trail

The rail-trail runs nearly 47 miles on the old Norfolk Southern right-of-way through Putnam, Clay, Bradford and Union counties, with paved sections including the stretch from Roberts Lane, about 10 miles west of Palatka, toward Keystone Heights. It’s free and open 8 a.m. to sunset.

Ocala National Forest and the sinkhole lakes

The northern part of the Ocala National Forest reaches into Putnam. Established in 1908, it’s the oldest national forest east of the Mississippi and has the world’s largest concentration of sand pine. Out west, sinkhole lakes such as Lake Barco and Lake Suggs dot the county.

Buying a home

FHA is the loan most of our Putnam buyers use: 3.5% down, flexible credit guidelines, and it can be paired with Putnam SHIP and the Florida Housing programs above. Veterans who qualify can buy with VA and no down payment, and Conventional, Hometown Heroes and FHA 100% financing are all on the table.

We’ve held our Florida mortgage broker license since 1997 and lend statewide in all 67 Florida counties, so Palatka, Clay County next door and the rest of the state are all in reach. We shop your loan with multiple wholesale lenders and tell you what you qualify for before you make an offer, in Palatka or on a lot by the water.

Refinancing the home you have

A refinance can lower your monthly payment, take cash out for a new roof, a seawall or a dock, pay off higher-interest debt, or buy out someone else’s share of the home.

Call 888-601-8344 and we’ll put the new payment, your cash at closing and the full cost of the refinance on one page, so you can decide on your Putnam house with real figures in hand.