Your mortgage is only part of the picture. In a Florida master-planned community, property tax, the CDD assessment, and HOA dues can add hundreds to over a thousand dollars a month on top of your loan. Estimate the real carrying cost here. Every figure is an estimate for planning, not a guarantee.
When buyers budget for a Florida home, they price the mortgage and stop there. Then the first tax bill arrives with a CDD assessment they did not know existed, and the real monthly cost is several hundred dollars higher than planned. The CDD, short for Community Development District, is how Florida master-planned communities finance their roads, utilities, and amenities. The developer issues bonds to build the infrastructure, and homeowners repay those bonds through an annual assessment on the tax bill.
A CDD assessment has a debt-service portion that repays the construction bonds over a fixed term, often 20 to 30 years, and an operations and maintenance portion that funds the ongoing upkeep of the amenities. The debt-service portion ends when the bonds are paid off, which lowers the assessment, but the maintenance portion continues. That is why an older community's CDD is often lower than a brand-new one's.
Florida has no state income tax, so it leans on property tax. Your bill is the local millage rate applied to your assessed value, minus exemptions. The catch for buyers is that the assessed value resets to near your purchase price when you buy, so your year-one bill is usually far higher than the seller's, whose value was capped under Save Our Homes. The homestead exemption removes $50,000 of assessed value on a primary residence, saving most Northeast Florida buyers $565 to $650 a year. Always estimate on your purchase price, not the seller's bill.
The exact CDD assessment for any home is on its property tax record, and the millage rate depends on the specific city and special districts. We confirm both for every home we show a buyer, so you write an offer knowing the true monthly cost. Look up a community in the HOA and CDD database, check the property tax map, or read the CDD bond glossary entry for the full mechanics.
Tell us the home or community you are considering and we will confirm the exact CDD, the current tax rate, and the HOA before you write an offer. No obligation, no spam.
Call (904) 351-6461