Florida First-Time Home Buyer Guide

Own and occupy the home as your permanent residence on January 1, then file Form DR-501 with your county property appraiser by March 1. Miss the deadline and you wait a full year for the exemption — most counties let you e-file in minutes.

If you already had a Florida homestead, you can transfer up to $500,000 of accumulated Save Our Homes savings to your next Florida home, as long as you establish the new homestead within three tax years (file Form DR-501T). The transfer is full when you buy up and prorated when you downsize. Buyers moving from out of state start fresh — portability requires a prior Florida homestead.

Usually, yes. A sale erases the seller's Save Our Homes cap, and the property reassesses to full market value the January 1 after you buy — so never budget off the seller's current tax bill. We estimate your post-reset taxes when we qualify you.

The Legislature placed an amendment on the November 3, 2026 ballot that would raise the homestead exemption for non-school taxes to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028, indexed to inflation after that. It needs 60% approval to pass, and school taxes would not change. Confirm current exemption rules with your county property appraiser — we'll update this page after the vote.

Not statewide anymore — Florida Housing no longer issues MCCs. Several county housing finance authorities still do, including Broward, Duval, Hillsborough, and the Escambia-led multi-county consortium, worth up to $2,000 per year as a federal income-tax credit. Ask us whether your county offers one before you close — an MCC has to be issued when you purchase.

Plan on roughly 2–5% of the purchase price. Florida-specific line items: a documentary stamp tax on the mortgage of $0.35 per $100 borrowed, a one-time intangible tax of $0.002 per $1 of loan amount ($700 on a $350,000 mortgage), and title insurance at state-promulgated rates. The deed transfer tax — $0.70 per $100 of the price ($0.60 plus a surtax in Miami-Dade) — is customarily paid by the seller. Every line is itemized on your Loan Estimate before closing.

County custom decides: in much of Central and North Florida the seller selects and pays for the owner's policy, in Miami-Dade and Broward the buyer typically pays, and in several Gulf Coast counties it's negotiable in the contract. Premiums are promulgated (set by the state), so you shop for service, not price.

The 2026 FHA floor is $541,287 for a single-family home in most Florida counties; Monroe County (the Keys) goes up to $990,150. Limits are higher for 2–4 unit properties.

In many master-planned communities, a Community Development District assessment rides your November tax bill: a bond portion repaying the neighborhood's infrastructure (typically 15–30 years) and an operations-and-maintenance portion that never expires. Lenders count CDD assessments in your debt-to-income ratio, so tell us early if a community you're considering has one.

Front-line workers in many qualifying professions — health care workers, K-12 school staff, first responders, law enforcement, court and child-care workers, and military members and Veterans (the 2026–27 cycle limits eligibility to these frontline groups, employed full-time by a Florida-based employer). Income and purchase-price limits also apply.

No. You select one DPA program per transaction. Most Florida DPA programs don't combine with each other.

Yes — FHFC programs have county-specific income limits. National programs (Chenoa, Arrive, Essex) typically have no income limits — useful for Florida buyers who exceed FHFC caps.

Condos require additional lender review of HOA reserves, financials, and post-Surfside structural integrity certification. Some Florida condos may not be lender-financeable currently.