Latest Real Estate News

A Florida home does not get insured on the strength of its list price. Three documents usually decide whether it gets insured at all, and at what cost: a 4-point inspection that checks the roof, the wiring, the plumbing and the HVAC system, a wind mitigation inspection that documents the features that can earn a premium discount, and, if the private market passes, an application to Citizens Property Insurance, the state-created insurer of last resort. None of that is optional in most Florida home purchases, and all of it needs to happen inside your inspection period, not after you have already waived your financing contingency.

Buyers moving into Volusia and Flagler County hear these terms from their lender, their agent and their insurance agent almost interchangeably, as if the...

Read More

A community cannot become "55+" just because a sign at the entrance says so. Federal law sets a specific test, at least 80% of occupied homes must have a resident 55 or older, and Florida law adopts that same test for its own fair housing statute. Everything else, the age rules for a spouse or a visiting grandchild, the fees, whether you own the land under your home or just rent the lot, comes from the individual community's own documents, not from the age-restriction itself.

Volusia County has 55+ communities built two different ways: deed-restricted neighborhoods governed by a homeowners association, and manufactured-home communities where residents own the home but lease the lot. Both kinds are legal, both kinds are real estate you can buy today, and both come with paperwork...

Read More

Florida rewrote the rules for condo buildings after the Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside in 2021, and the law keeps changing. If you are shopping for a condo anywhere in Volusia County right now, from a high-rise on the Daytona Beach Shores oceanfront to a mid-rise in New Smyrna Beach or a low-rise along the Halifax River, two documents matter more than the view from the balcony: the building's milestone inspection report and its structural integrity reserve study. Florida law entitles you to both before you close, and reading them tells you more about what you are actually buying than the listing photos do.

This guide walks through what the current statutes require, what the 2025 legislative update, House Bill 913, changed, what a resale seller has to hand you before...

Read More

A pool changes three things about owning a Florida home: what an inspector needs to look at, what your insurance agent needs to ask, and what your tax bill can do the year after you close. None of those three things are optional, and none of them are reasons to walk away from a pool home. They are just facts a buyer in Volusia County should know before making an offer, whether the house sits on the mainland in DeLand or a block from the water in New Smyrna Beach.

Pool homes turn up across the county, from Daytona Beach to Deltona, and buyers search for them constantly. What those searches usually land on is a page of current listings, not an explanation of what a pool actually means for a closing, an insurance policy, or next November's tax bill. This guide fills that gap. It wa...

Read More

A new construction contract in Volusia County does not work like a resale contract. You are signing the builder's own paperwork, not the standard state form, and Florida law requires a specific deposit protection that most buyers have never heard of until they ask about it. Understand the contract, the inspection schedule and the real cost of owning the finished home, and a new build can be one of the more predictable purchases you make. Skip that homework and the surprises show up later, on the tax bill, the HOA statement or the punch list.

This guide walks through what to check in a builder's contract, how permitting and inspections actually work, what a Community Development District or homeowners' association disclosure means for you, and what a new home costs once the sale...

Read More

Commercial property in Volusia County plays by a different rulebook than the house next door. It gets no homestead exemption, its assessed value can climb by up to 10 percent a year under state law instead of the Save Our Homes cap a homesteaded house gets, which is 3 percent or the change in inflation, whichever is lower (2.7 percent for 2026), and until recently every dollar of rent collected on it carried a state sales tax. That tax is gone now. Florida repealed the sales tax on commercial rent for good, effective October 1, 2025. What replaced it, for a buyer, is a longer list of questions on zoning, financing, environmental risk and property tax that a house across the street never has to answer.

This guide is for anyone looking at office, retail, warehouse or other commerc...

Read More