St. Johns County, Florida: A Local Guide for Home Buyers and Homeowners

St. Augustine

The county was created in 1821, five days after St. Augustine was incorporated as a city. On the bayfront, the Castillo de San Marcos was begun in 1672 and finished in 1695 from coquina quarried on Anastasia Island, and it’s considered the oldest surviving masonry fort in the mainland United States.

Flagler College’s campus at 74 King Street is built around Henry Flagler’s Ponce de Leon Hotel, which became a college in 1968.

Ponte Vedra Beach

Ponte Vedra Beach is unincorporated, covers 33.8 square miles and lies entirely east of the Intracoastal Waterway. It started as the mining settlement of Mineral City after ilmenite, zircon and rutile were found in 1914, and National Lead Company turned it into a resort beginning in 1929.

The PGA Tour’s headquarters and TPC Sawgrass are both here, and the area’s resort and golf-course communities include the Ponte Vedra Inn and Club and Sawgrass.

Nocatee

Nocatee is a master-planned community in Ponte Vedra between Jacksonville and St. Augustine, with a Town Center, the Splash and Spray water parks, neighborhood parks and trails. The Welcome Center is at 245 Nocatee Center Way.

Hastings

Hastings sits about 18 miles southwest of St. Augustine and is known as the Potato Capital of Florida, with potato farms plus cabbage and onions. It was founded in 1890 to grow produce for Henry Flagler’s hotels.

Hastings was an incorporated town from 1909 until voters dissolved it in 2017, and the county took over its government in 2018.

St. Augustine Beach and Vilano Beach

St. Augustine Beach sits on Anastasia Island next to Anastasia State Park. Vilano Beach is across the St. Augustine Inlet to the north. Both appear on the local tourism bureau’s beach list along with Crescent Beach, Butler Beach and Mickler’s Landing.

World Golf Village

World Golf Village is a community along SR 16 west of I-95, on the road that runs east from the Shands Bridge.

St. Johns County SHIP Purchase Assistance

The St. Johns County Homeownership Program, part of Housing and Community Development, lends SHIP money to very-low, low and moderate income buyers as a 0% deferred loan that’s forgiven gradually over its term. The sales price has to fall well under the county’s SHIP purchase price limit.

The county’s housing plan sets the award amount and the price cap, and both change when a new plan is adopted. Call 888-601-8344 and we’ll ask the Homeownership Program whether it’s taking applications and what the price cap works out to on the St. Augustine or Hastings house you like.

Local Housing Assistance Plan

St. Johns County SHIP Impact Fee Assistance

On new single-family homes built by nonprofit developers and sold to income-qualified buyers, SHIP can pay toward impact fees as a 0% deferred loan that’s forgiven if you keep the home long enough.

Eligible homes depend on what the nonprofit builders have finished. Text us at 954-816-8820 and we’ll check with Housing and Community Development whether any are available and how much of the impact fees SHIP covers.

Local Housing Assistance Plan

Florida Hometown Heroes (statewide)

For a St. Johns County purchase, Florida Hometown Heroes combines a Florida Housing 30-year fixed first mortgage and a 0% down payment and closing cost second. The second has no monthly payment and isn’t forgiven; it’s repaid when you sell, refinance, pay off the first or stop living in the home. At least one buyer works full time for a Florida-based employer in health care, K-12 schools, first response, public safety, the courts or licensed child care, which includes Flagler Health+ and St. Johns County School District staff.

St. Johns County buyers on active duty qualify with any employer, while veterans and Reserve or National Guard members must work full time for a Florida-based employer. A homebuyer education course is part of the program, and applications go through a participating lender or broker. Florida Housing help is a once-in-a-lifetime benefit, so put it toward the right St. Johns home with the right lender. Call 888-601-8344 first and we’ll confirm Hometown Heroes is reserving funds and what it pays on your price.

Official program page

FL Assist and HFA Preferred / HFA Advantage (statewide)

These sit behind a Florida Housing first mortgage: FHA, VA, USDA or Conventional HFA Preferred or HFA Advantage. FL Assist, a 0% deferred second, has no monthly payment and is repaid when you sell, refinance, transfer the home or move out. FL HLP is a second with a small fixed payment over 30 years, and HFA Advantage PLUS adds a second that’s forgiven over 5 years while you live in the home.

Florida Housing reserves these one loan at a time, so they can run dry. Call us and we’ll match one to your loan and check that it’s funded for your closing date.

Official program page

Schools and colleges

Public schools are run by the St. Johns County School District, with its office at 40 Orange Street in St. Augustine (904-547-7500).

Colleges include Flagler College in downtown St. Augustine, the St. Augustine campus of St. Johns River State College (founded in 1958, with other campuses in Palatka and Orange Park) and First Coast Technical College.

Getting around

I-95 runs the length of the county with six interchanges. US 1 and scenic SR A1A run north and south near the coast, and SR 16 runs east from the Shands Bridge past World Golf Village.

Commercial flights mostly go through Jacksonville International, about 35 miles north. St. Augustine Airport, at 4796 US 1 North, has an 8,000-foot runway, a control tower, flight schools, charters and on-site customs. The Florida East Coast Railway carries freight only; there’s no passenger rail.

Castillo de San Marcos

The coquina fort went up between 1672 and 1695, became a National Monument in 1924 under the name Fort Marion, and has been run by the National Park Service since 1933.

Anastasia State Park

The park at 300 Anastasia Park Road has 4 miles of protected beach and 139 campsites. Spoonbills and wading birds work Salt Run, and the old Spanish coquina quarries here supplied stone for 17th-century St. Augustine.

GTM Reserve and Fort Matanzas

The Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve protects more than 76,000 acres of estuary and coast, with its site at 505 Guana River Road in Ponte Vedra Beach.

Fort Matanzas, a coquina watchtower finished in 1742 on Rattlesnake Island in the Matanzas River, guarded the approach through Matanzas Inlet.

Nights of Lights

Downtown St. Augustine lights up every night for free during Nights of Lights, which runs from late November into January.

THE PLAYERS Championship

THE PLAYERS Championship comes to the TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course in Ponte Vedra Beach each March, as it has since 1982.

Winter festivals and attractions

January brings the Saint Augustine Film Festival and the Jimmy Jam BBQ Slam at the county fairgrounds, and February has the Spanish Food & Wine Festival and the Fort Mose Jazz & Blues Series. The Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park, the St. Augustine Lighthouse, Villa Zorayda Museum and Fort Mose are among the attractions Visit St. Augustine features.

Palatka-to-St. Augustine State Trail

The rail-trail follows the former Florida East Coast Railway line through Hastings, with a trailhead at the Cora C. Harrison Preserve.

Buying a home

FHA works for a lot of St. Johns buyers, with 3.5% down, flexible credit guidelines and the county SHIP and state programs above. On higher-priced St. Johns homes we’ll often price a Conventional loan next to it. Eligible veterans can use VA with no down payment, and we also close Hometown Heroes loans and FHA 100% financing.

AAA Capital Funding has been a licensed Florida mortgage broker since 1997, lending statewide in all 67 Florida counties, St. Johns included. We shop your loan with multiple wholesale lenders and tell you what you qualify for before you walk into a model home.

Refinancing the home you have

A refinance can lower your monthly payment, take cash out for a new roof or an addition, pay off higher-interest debt, or buy out someone else’s share of the home. It puts the equity in your St. Johns house to work.

Call 888-601-8344 and we’ll show you the new payment, the cash you’d walk away with and the full closing costs together, priced on your St. Johns home’s current value.