Buying New in St. Johns County: What Relocating Buyers Get Wrong About Florida Homes

If you're under contract in Nocatee, RiverTown, Shearwater or Silverleaf and you're moving here from somewhere else, the house is new — but almost nothing about how it behaves will be familiar.

St. Johns County has been absorbing new residents for years, and a large share of them arrive from out of state. The schools and the beaches do the selling. By the time most people call me they've already picked a lot in RiverTown or Shearwater or one of the Silverleaf villages, and they're deep in the design-center stage.

Here's what they usually say when we finally talk: "I've bought three houses before. I've never bought one here."

That's the real gap — not inexperience, unfamiliarity. And it cuts both ways.

Two ways this trips up buyers from out of state

The first is worrying about the wrong things. You arrive with a mental checklist built somewhere with frost lines, basements and ice dams, and you spend your attention on items that barely matter here.

The second is the expensive one: not knowing what you should be worried about. Florida houses fail in ways that are perfectly ordinary to people who've always lived here and completely invisible to people who haven't.

Both are fixable in about ten minutes of reading.

The lot is the risky part, not the house

This is the one I'd put first if I could only tell you one thing. On a brand-new home in a brand-new subdivision, the structure is generally the most predictable part of the purchase. The ground it sits on is not.

These communities are built on fresh fill. The lot gets graded, the swale gets cut, the retention system gets finished, and sod goes down over all of it — often in the last few weeks before closing, sometimes in the last few days. Grading is routinely the least-finished thing about an otherwise finished house, and new fill settles.

What I'm actually looking at is where water goes when it leaves your roof. Does the grade fall away from the slab or back toward it? Is the swale cut and functioning or just implied? Are the downspouts discharging somewhere useful or straight onto the foundation? Is that new sod sitting level, or hiding a low spot against the wall?

Which brings up the phrase that gives relocating buyers false comfort: "it's not in a flood zone." St. Johns County has real water — the Atlantic, the Intracoastal, the St. Johns River along the western communities, and a network of tidal creeks and low ground in between. A flood zone is a map and an insurance category. It is not a prediction about your lot. Plenty of houses well outside a mapped zone still take water at the foundation during a hard September afternoon, because of grading, not geography.

Three things your last house never taught you

There's no basement, so problems don't announce themselves

Your house sits on a slab, and the supply and drain lines run in or beneath that concrete. Where you came from, a slow leak showed up as a stain on a basement ceiling and you dealt with it that week. Here the first sign might be a warm patch on the floor, a water bill that climbed for no reason, or nothing at all for a very long time. The problem isn't that Florida plumbing is worse. It's that the building gives you far less early warning.

Humidity is a mechanical problem, not a weather complaint

An air conditioner here is doing two jobs — cooling and drying — and the second one is what people underestimate. A system that's oversized cools the air quickly, satisfies the thermostat, shuts off before it has pulled much moisture out, and leaves you with a house that's 72 degrees and somehow clammy. Undersized brings its own troubles. Ductwork leaking into a hot attic wastes what you already paid for. This is the single most common comfort complaint I hear in brand-new homes, and it is measurable rather than a matter of opinion.

Termites are a normal condition, not an emergency

In much of the country a termite finding is a crisis. In Northeast Florida they're simply part of owning a building, and a new house is not exempt. What matters is what protection was installed and who's responsible for it: ask what soil treatment or bait system went in, whether there's a renewable bond, and whose name is on it. Buyers from colder states have usually never had to ask.

About that radon paragraph in your contract

If you're coming from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, New York or New Jersey, a radon test was probably a routine line item in every transaction you've done. You may already be wondering why nobody here has mentioned it.

Then you'll open your Florida contract and find a paragraph that reads like a warning: "RADON GAS: Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas that, when it has accumulated in a building in sufficient quantities, may present health risks to persons who are exposed to it over time. Levels of radon that exceed federal and state guidelines have been found in buildings in Florida…"

That language is there because Florida law requires the disclosure in essentially every residential sale. It is not a statement about your particular house, and it is not the result of anyone testing anything. What Florida does not require — and what local practice does not treat as standard — is the test itself.

So the honest picture: radon does exist in Florida, the state's building code calls for radon-resistant construction techniques in certain designated counties, and only an actual test tells you what's in a specific building. But testing simply isn't customary in a Northeast Florida transaction the way it is in the radon belt, and most buyers here never do one. I don't offer radon testing myself — if you want the certainty, hire a certified radon measurement technician. Just don't read that contract paragraph as a red flag about your particular address. It appears in every contract in the state.

Two Florida terms you're about to hear constantly

Nobody in Ohio or New Jersey talks about 4-points and wind mitigations. In Florida you'll hear both within a week of arriving, usually from an insurance agent, and usually with no explanation attached. Here's what they actually are.

The 4-point inspection

A 4-point looks at exactly four things: roof, electrical, plumbing and HVAC. It exists for one audience — insurance carriers — who want to know whether those four systems are in a condition they're willing to write a policy on. It's short, it's narrow, and it's built around insurability rather than around you.

The wind mitigation inspection

A wind mit documents the construction features that affect how a building handles high wind: roof shape, roof covering, how the roof deck is attached, the hardware tying the roof to the walls, secondary water resistance, and whether openings are protected. Florida insurers price windstorm separately, and on homes near the coast that portion can be a large share of the total premium. The report is documentation — an inspector records what's there so your carrier can price it accurately.

Neither one is a home inspection

This is the part worth underlining, because the names sound similar enough to cause real confusion.

A 4-point examines four systems for insurability. A wind mitigation records construction features for a premium calculation. Neither one evaluates whether the house is a good purchase. Neither looks at the grading, the attic, the windows, the drainage, the finishes, the appliances, the crawl spaces, or the hundred other things that decide whether you're happy in year three. You can pass both with flying colors and still buy a house with a serious problem in it.

They answer your insurance company's questions. A home inspection answers yours. If someone offers you a 4-point or a wind mit instead of a home inspection, they've handed you the wrong document.

For what it's worth, I include both a 4-point and a wind mitigation with every home inspection I do, at no additional charge. They're useful, your agent will likely want them at some point, and I'd rather you have them in hand than get billed separately for paperwork later.

If you're looking west, your water may not come from a utility

The big master-planned communities are on municipal water. Head west and south — toward Elkton, Hastings and the more rural stretches of the county — and private wells become common.

For most people relocating here, that's a first. If you've always been on city water, someone else has been testing it, treating it and mailing you an annual quality report whether you read it or not. On a private well, nobody is doing any of that. The quality of what comes out of your tap is entirely your responsibility, and the only way to know what's in it is to test it.

Northeast Florida groundwater has its own character, too — sulfur is a common complaint, and hardness, iron, bacteria and nitrates are all worth knowing about before you're living with them rather than after.

I do water testing. If you're buying out that way, it's worth doing before closing, while you still have room to negotiate treatment equipment or walk away.

Ask what the CDD is before it shows up on your tax bill

Many of St. Johns County's master-planned communities are funded through a Community Development District — a mechanism that pays for roads, amenities and infrastructure and then appears as an assessment on your property tax bill for years afterward.

Some communities carry one, some don't. This isn't an inspection question and I'm not going to quote you figures that change — but it is one of the most common "nobody told me" conversations I have with people who moved here. Ask your builder, in writing, what the CDD assessment is on your specific lot and how long it runs.

The warranty clock is shorter than you think

Two moments decide how much leverage you have on a new build: an inspection before you close, while the builder is still motivated to reach the closing table, and one before your first-year workmanship warranty expires. After that, the same repair is yours.

I've written that out properly — what each looks at, why the timing matters, and how the warranty period works — in a separate piece on new construction in Clay County. The mechanics are identical here; only the communities change.

One practical thing: not every inspector can get on your site

Builders control access to active job sites and require the people working on them to carry general liability insurance at the limits they set, carry workers' compensation coverage, and hold a current state license. It's a real bar, and it's part of why some inspectors avoid new construction altogether.

I carry all of it and I'm already on most area builders' approved inspector lists, so arranging access is normally a scheduling conversation rather than an obstacle. If you're considering someone else, ask whether they're approved with your builder before you book.

Where I work in St. Johns County

I'm a Certified Master Inspector and I handle every inspection personally — no rotating team, no subcontractors. I cover St. Augustine, St. Johns, Nocatee and Ponte Vedra, Silverleaf, RiverTown, Shearwater, Trailmark, Bannon Lakes, and the rural western end of the county, with a photo-documented report the same day.

If you're relocating and under contract on a new build, the most useful call is an early one — well before closing week. Tell me the community and where you are in the build, and I'll tell you honestly what's worth doing and what isn't.