Bradley Pond. Know what matters before you buy.

The 60-Second Overview

Bradley Pond is what happens after a builder finishes well and leaves. Pulte opened sales here in May 2021, off New Berlin Road in Jacksonville's 32226 corridor, built the community out over the following years, and sold out, shifting its final area opportunities to nearby Wingate Landing. What it left behind is unusual for the Northside: a recent-build neighborhood where every home was constructed with natural gas, in a corridor where almost everything new is all-electric, with smart-home wiring and gigabit fiber standard and an on-site kayak launch onto the creek system as the signature amenity.

The numbers that frame the market come from the verified final phase: a 2,135-square-foot four-bedroom at $490,000, mid-size two-stories in the low-to-mid $500Ks, and a 4,117-square-foot, five-bedroom Easley recorded at $674,340. Underneath sits a light carrying stack: an HOA cited around $69 a month and, per third-party community data, no CDD, a genuine outlier among recent Northside masterplans.

The structure buyers need to understand is simple: this is now a resale-only market. There is no builder price sheet, no incentive package, and no inventory beyond what owners decide to list, a handful of homes a year in a community this size. That changes how you buy here, and it is the lens this guide uses throughout.

Bradley Pond is Pulte quality without the wait: a recent-build home with a gas range, fiber in the walls, and a kayak launch down the street, at a fee stack the CDD masterplans cannot touch.

The Fee Picture: A Light Stack Worth Verifying

For a recent-build amenity community, Bradley Pond's carrying structure is remarkably simple. Third-party community data cites an HOA around $69 per month, covering the common areas, the kayak launch, the playground, and the pond, and shows no CDD fee. Compare that to the corridor's big masterplans, where CDD assessments ride the tax bill for decades on top of HOA dues, and the math favors Bradley Pond by thousands of dollars a year, every year you own.

The honest caveats: published fee figures go stale, young associations transitioning from builder control can adjust dues or face their first real reserve studies, and "no CDD" is a claim to verify on the actual parcel, not a fact to assume from a portal. The third-party data also cites a tax rate of roughly 1.68 percent and up for the area, and recent-build homes get assessed at recent-build values, so model the full tax line, not just the millage.

Gas & Kayaks: The Two Differentiators, Decoded

Every community has a brochure; few have a genuine differentiator. Bradley Pond has two, and both deserve precise reading. Start with the gas. Builder and third-party records describe this as a natural-gas community, which is rare in the 32226 corridor, where nearly all recent construction is all-electric. In practice that means gas service to the home and, typically, gas where it matters most: the range that serious cooks insist on, water heating, and dryer hookups, with the exact appliance package varying by home and original buyer selections. The payoff is twofold: monthly utility math that often favors gas for water heating and cooking, and resale differentiation, because the buyer who wants a gas range cannot get it from the all-electric competition at any price. Our diligence note: confirm appliance by appliance what actually runs on gas in the specific home, and pull real utility history rather than estimating.

Now the kayaks. The community amenity list includes an on-site kayak and canoe launch pad, plus a community pond, waterfront lots, and walking and bike trails, in creek country a few miles from the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, the sprawling salt-marsh preserve that defines this side of the city. The honest framing: this is paddle access, not a marina. There is no boat ramp lifestyle here, no dockage, no deep water at your lot line. What you get is the ability to put a kayak on the creek without trailering anything, with marsh, wading birds, and tide doing the scenery, and that is exactly what a meaningful slice of buyers wants and cannot find in the corridor's pool-and-clubhouse masterplans.

Together the two differentiators define the buyer this community fits: someone who values what is in the walls and on the water over what is in a clubhouse calendar. Price them accordingly, a gas package and creek access are durable advantages, but they do not justify ignoring condition, lot, or comps.

The Resale Play: Buying Recent-Build Without the Builder

Buying in a sold-out, recent-build community is its own discipline, and done right it is one of the best plays in residential real estate: you get nearly-new systems, a modern floor plan, and remaining warranty coverage, without the build wait, the construction lottery, or the design-center upcharges. The original owners already paid for the sod, the blinds, the gutters, and the epoxy floor; you negotiate for all of it in one resale number.

The single most valuable piece of diligence is the warranty tail. Pulte homes carry warranty coverage whose structural term generally runs with the home, but what remains, what transfers automatically, and what requires paperwork varies by closing date and contract, and sellers rarely volunteer the details. We verify the remaining coverage in writing, pull any warranty-claim history (a record of resolved claims is information, not a red flag), and check whether the original smart-home and fiber accounts transfer cleanly. A 2022-built home with three years of structural tail left is a measurably different asset than the same floor plan with none.

The second discipline is pricing against the right anchor. Builder-era prices, the $490K and $674K prints above, are context, not comps: they include incentive structures, rate buydowns, and option packages that resales do not. The clean comp set is other Bradley Pond resales, plan-matched and lot-adjusted, supplemented by the corridor's recent-build resale market. And because inventory is a handful of homes a year, timing beats browsing: registered buyers with verified financing see listings the day they break, while portal refreshers compete at the Saturday open house.

The Homes: Consumer-Inspired Plans, One Vintage

The housing stock is Pulte's consumer-inspired lineup, built across three homesite sizes from the 2021 opening through build-out. Named plans in the records include the Tower, marketed at 2,264 square feet with four to five bedrooms from about $412,990 at launch, the single-story Spruce with its flex room and private owner's suite, the Ashby, and the Easley, the big two-story whose largest verified example here ran 4,117 square feet with five bedrooms and four baths. Verified examples across the community span roughly 2,135 to over 4,100 square feet.

The original spec level was strong for the price point: smart-home systems, fiber to the home with up to Gigabit speeds, sprinkler systems, sod, covered patios, high ceilings, and flex rooms appear throughout the records, plus the gas package discussed above. Because everything is one vintage, the resale market differentiates on three things: condition (how the first owners lived), lot (pond, creek-adjacent, and preserve-edge positions versus interior), and options (the design-center choices and owner additions since closing). Two identical floor plans here can fairly trade tens of thousands apart on those three variables alone.

One more recent-build honesty note: homes this young still deserve a full inspection. New-construction defects surface in years two through five, settling, flashing, HVAC commissioning issues, and a sharp inspector plus a verified warranty tail is how you turn that risk into negotiating material instead of a surprise.

Schools: Strong Start, Plan the Rest

Bradley Pond is zoned to Duval County Public Schools, and the corridor pattern is front-loaded in an honest way: New Berlin Elementary is one of the Northside's stronger elementaries, while the typical middle and high assignments, Oceanway School and First Coast High in the current corridor pattern, rate lower, and many families plan the secondary years around Duval's magnet programs, charters, or private options. That plan deserves to be made before the purchase, not after. Assignments change and are set by address, so confirm the current zoning for the specific home with the district; private options including St. Patrick Catholic School also serve the area.

What Living Here Is Actually Like

Daily life is quiet, new-neighborhood Northside: hardwoods and ponds inside the community, kayaks going in at the launch on calm mornings, kids at the playground, and the I-295 ramp a few minutes away handling everything else. Errands run to River City Marketplace; the preserve handles the weekends.

Five Costly Mistakes Bradley Pond Buyers Make

A resale-only, recent-build market generates its own failure modes. The five we see:

Where Value Hides in Bradley Pond

Relative value pressure, not prices. Condition, option packages, and remaining warranty coverage can move a home a full rung in either direction.

The Bradley Pond Buyer Checklist

• Verify the warranty tail in writing: what remains of the Pulte coverage, what transfers, and any claim history on the home.
• Confirm the gas package appliance by appliance: range, water heater, dryer hookup, and pull real utility history.
• Order a full inspection despite the age: years two through five are when recent-build defects surface.
• Confirm the HOA's current dues, coverage, and reserves directly with the association; portals have cited ~$69/mo, but verify, especially post-builder-turnover.
• Read the actual parcel tax bill to confirm the no-CDD picture and catch any special assessment.
• Pull the FEMA designation and an insurance quote for the specific lot; creek-adjacent and pond lots price differently.
• Comp against resales, not builder stickers: plan-matched, lot-adjusted, and date-fresh.
• Register the search: in a resale-only community, the next listing is won before the open house.

Bradley Pond vs. the Alternatives

For a buyer weighing recent-build living in the 32226 corridor and the airport quadrant, the shortlist looks like this:

The pattern is clean: the alternatives offer the builder price sheet, the bigger amenity campus, or the lower entry price, but none of them puts natural gas, a kayak launch, recent-build condition, and a no-CDD fee stack on one deed. If those four things are your list, the comparison ends quickly, and the constraint becomes inventory, not preference.

The Honest Pros and Cons

Our Bradley Pond Buyer Playbook

How we run a Bradley Pond purchase, in order:

• Register the search first: plan, size, and lot preferences on file, financing verified, so the next listing reaches you the day it breaks.
• Pull documents before touring: HOA dues and reserves, the parcel tax bill, and the home's warranty and claim history.
• Verify the differentiators: the gas appliance package item by item, utility history, and which smart-home components convey.
• Inspect like it is older than it is: full inspection with attention to years-two-through-five defect patterns, insurance quote running in parallel.
• Offer off plan-matched resale comps with the lot premium priced explicitly and the warranty tail valued in the number.

Questions We Ask Before You Sign

Six answers we get in writing on every Bradley Pond contract:

• What remains of the builder warranty, what transfers to this buyer, and what is the claim history on the home?
• Which appliances actually run on natural gas, and what does the real utility history show?
• What are the HOA's current dues, reserves, and any pending assessments, directly from the association, especially post-turnover?
• What does the actual parcel tax bill show, and does it confirm the no-CDD picture?
• What is the FEMA designation and insurance quote for this specific lot, pond and creek-adjacent positions read separately?
• What were the true plan-matched resale comps, lot-adjusted and date-fresh, not the builder-era stickers?

Is Bradley Pond Not For You?

The honest cut, both directions: