A small town in southern Bradford County, close to the Alachua County line and roughly on the Gainesville side of Starke. Rural residential, real acreage, county boat ramps on two lakes, and one of Bradford's most affordable submarkets.
Hampton is a very small incorporated town in southern Bradford County, sitting on the Gainesville side of the county with a county boat ramp on Hampton Lake inside the town and Santa Fe Lake — the largest lake in the area — a short drive south3747. Its total millage is 17.7095, third of the county's four municipalities, but it carries the county's highest median effective property tax rate at 0.89% of market value1114. What you buy here is quiet rural acreage with genuine water access nearby, in a town with a colorful and thoroughly documented history of very small government.
There is no published market data for Hampton. No median sale price, no days on market, no price per square foot. That isn't laziness — it's arithmetic. Bradford County as a whole recorded about 21 closed sales in October 20254. A town Hampton's size contributes a handful of transactions a year, which is nowhere near enough to compute a median anybody should make a decision on.
So everything in the snapshot below is county-level or Starke ZIP 32091, and I say which. If another site shows you a confident "Hampton median home price," ask how many sales it's built on. I'd rather give you the county picture honestly and then talk about your specific parcel.
| Measure | Figure | Geography & as-of |
|---|---|---|
| Median sale price | $283,000, up 10.8% year over year4 | Bradford County, October 2025 — the latest month Redfin publishes for this county |
| Homes sold per month | 21, up from 15 a year earlier4 | Bradford County, October 2025 |
| Median days on market | 56 days, up from 344 | Bradford County, October 2025 |
| Price per square foot | $155, down 2.5%4 | Bradford County, October 2025 |
| Zillow Home Value Index | $219,876, down 1.3% over the year5 | ZIP 32091 (Starke), through January 31, 2026 |
| Median sale price, Starke ZIP | $230,0006 | ZIP 32091, most recent month shown 2026 |
| Active listings, countywide | 188 (Zillow)7 vs 225 (Homes.com)8 | Bradford County, August 3, 2026 — same day, 20% apart |
| Months of supply | Roughly 9 — directional only7 | Mismatched periods: Aug 2026 inventory over Oct 2025 sales pace |
| FHFA house price index | 292.80 in 2025 vs 288.25 in 2024 (+1.6%); 209.71 in 20219 | Bradford County, annual, all transactions (2000=100) |
| New housing units permitted | 66 in 2025, down from 90 (-26.7%)10 | Bradford County, 2025 annual |
| Median asking price per acre, land | $19,999/acre; average listed parcel 41.7 acres29 | Bradford County, August 3, 2026 — asking, not closed |
| Unemployment rate | 5.5%; annual average rose 3.2% (2023) → 4.5% (2025)28 | Bradford County, April 2026 |
The trend matters more than any single figure. Days on market went 34 → 56, price per square foot slipped 2.5%, permits fell 26.7%, unemployment has climbed three years running. That's a market cooling off a strong run — not a market breaking. And note the disagreement between sources: Redfin's county median sale of $283,000 against Zillow's $219,876 ZHVI for the Starke ZIP. Both are legitimate; they measure different things across different footprints, and at 21 sales a month one unusual closing swings a county median several percent. Showing you the spread is more useful than picking the flattering number.
Hampton sits in the southern part of Bradford County near the Alachua County line, just off US-301. It's the classic small Florida rural town: a compact town center, a few churches, homes on generous lots, and a landscape that turns to timber, farmland and lake edges almost immediately outside the town limits. In the reporting around its 2014 audit, the town's population was 47753. Current Census QuickFacts for Hampton town1 put it in the same neighborhood, but be careful with any precise figure for a place this small — place-level estimates at this population carry margins of error wide enough that the point estimate is close to meaningless. What's reliable is the order of magnitude: a few hundred people.
What sets Hampton apart from the county's other small towns is water. The county maintains a public boat ramp on Hampton Lake at SW 101st Street right in town, plus ramps on Santa Fe Lake at 42500 NE State Road 26 in Melrose and Little Lake Santa Fe at 3858 SE 20th Avenue in Keystone Heights37. Santa Fe Lake is the largest in this part of North Florida and borders Alachua County on its southern side47. Not every rural town in Florida can put you on a real lake without a membership or a private easement; Hampton can, through county ramps that anyone can use.
The county context: Bradford's homeownership rate is 73.3% across 11,143 total housing units, with a median owner-occupied value of $212,500 and a median gross rent of $8632. This is an owner-occupied, low-density county of 28,307 people across 293.96 square miles of land — the third-smallest county in Florida by land area252. Hampton is one of its quieter corners.
Commute reality: Bradford is a genuine bedroom county — 50.6% of workers 16 and over commute outside the county, with a mean travel time of 32.4 minutes3. Hampton sits on the Gainesville side of that split, which is the shorter side.
This is the section I'd want if I were buying here, because "lake" is the word that costs buyers the most money in North Florida.
Bradford County Parks & Recreation maintains four public boat ramps37:
Crosby Lake lies west of Starke as well47. County parks in the area include Pleasant Grove Park, Speedville Park (879 SE 35th St, Melrose) and Lincoln City Park, and the 7,272-acre Santa Fe Swamp Wildlife Management Area off SE 11th Avenue near Starke offers fishing, wildlife viewing, horseback riding, hiking and biking37. There's also a 32-mile Santa Fe Lake Loop bicycle route through the southern county, and a 61-mile Starke-to-Lake Butler loop that runs through Hampton and Brooker.
Buyers hear "Kingsley Lake" and light up. Here's the reality: Kingsley is a nearly circular, roughly 2,000-acre solution-collapse sinkhole lake reaching 82 feet deep, sitting on Trail Ridge about 174 feet above sea level — the "Silver Dollar Lake." But it is in Clay County, roughly half its shoreline lies inside Camp Blanding, the rest is private residential with about 180 private docks, and there are no public boat ramps and no public beaches48. Camp Blanding itself — the 73,000-acre Florida National Guard training center — carries a Starke mailing address but is located in Clay County, not Bradford49. A Starke address does not mean a Bradford County parcel. If any listing advertises Kingsley Lake access, make the seller put the specific right in writing.
You will find this if you search the town's name, so let me put it in front of you rather than let a stranger's article be your first version of it.
In 2014, Hampton — population 477 — became a national news story. The town had annexed a 1,260-foot strip of US-301 a mile outside its own limits and used it to run what CNN called one of the country's most notorious speed traps, with roughly one police officer per 25 residents. A state audit that year found 31 violations of local, state or federal law, including misuse of public funds, cronyism and nepotism. The mayor was arrested in an oxycodone sting. All city employees resigned. Florida lawmakers moved to dissolve the city charter outright before ultimately sparing it53.
Now, what does that mean for you as a buyer more than a decade later? Honestly: very little day to day. The police force that made the news is gone, the charter survived, and Hampton today is a quiet rural town with generous lots and a county boat ramp. Nobody's writing you a ticket on a strip of highway the town no longer patrols.
But there are two practical reasons to know it. First, municipal capacity is a real thing when you own property. Hampton's town levy is 2.0623 mills11, which is not a lot of money to run a government with. Ask what the town actually provides — and what it doesn't — before you assume a service exists. Second, you will sell this house someday, and some buyer from out of state will search the town name and find the CNN story. Being able to say "2014, state audit, the mayor was arrested, the town cleaned house and the charter survived" in one calm sentence is worth more than being surprised by the question.
There's a broader Bradford County pattern here worth noting: Lawtey, eight miles up US-301 in the same county, carried AAA's speed-trap designation from 1995 until AAA lifted it in 201835. Small towns on a busy highway with small budgets found the same revenue idea, and the state eventually pushed back on all of it. It's history, not present tense, but it's the county's history and you should hear it from your agent first.
The county's institutions have had their own recent housecleaning too. The Bradford County Agricultural Fair returned February 26 to March 8, 2026 after a scandal involving accusations of financial mismanagement, alleged land-ownership schemes and alleged Sunshine Law violations; the county appointed twenty-one new board members, hired Harlee Hutchinson as fair manager, opened board meetings to the public and contracted a new midway company46. I mention it because it's the same story shape: small institutions, real problems, actual corrections. That's a healthier sign than pretending nothing happened.
Older single-family homes on quarter-acre to half-acre lots along Hampton's central grid. Modest prices, older construction. Inside town limits you pay the 2.0623-mill Hampton levy on top of county and school.
1-20+ acre parcels beyond town limits. Well and septic, timber, small farms. Bradford County's most affordable land per acre often shows up in this submarket — and outside town limits, no municipal millage.
Lake-adjacent and lake-view parcels near Hampton Lake and toward Santa Fe Lake. Priced above raw acreage — so verify shoreline rights and boat-launch access in writing before you pay the premium.
Manufactured and modular homes on 1-5 acre parcels — a real share of Hampton inventory. Financing is available but requires the right lender, and Bradford requires a permit to move a used mobile home.
Countywide, land listings show a median asking price of about $19,999 per acre with an average listed parcel of 41.7 acres across roughly 129 listings29. Read that carefully: those are asking prices on marketed listings, not closed sales, and a 41.7-acre average tells you the sample is dominated by large timber tracts rather than the five-acre homesite most buyers here are actually shopping for.
The farming context is real. The 2022 Census of Agriculture counted 418 farms in Bradford County on 61,282 acres — about a third of the entire county — averaging 147 acres each, up 22% from 2017. Market value of products sold was $22,372,000, up 71% since 2017 but ranking only 49th among Florida counties. The mix is 58% livestock and 42% crops, led by 7,506 head of cattle and 6,408 acres of forage and hay. Farm count actually fell 15% since 201738 — fewer, larger operations, which is exactly the pattern that puts parcels on the market.
Worth knowing if you come for the county's branding: strawberries do not appear among Bradford County's leading commodities in the 2022 Ag Census38. The Bradford County Strawberry Festival has run in Starke for nearly three decades and the 2026 edition was held in late March / early April54, but this is a cattle-and-hay county now. Strawberries are heritage and festival identity, not current production. I'd rather you know that than buy land expecting a berry economy.
Bradford County's own Building FAQ does not publish zoning district names, minimum lot sizes or setbacks — it tells you to call the Zoning Department at (904) 966-6213, and I could not locate the Land Development Regulations document online. If minimum lot size or setbacks matter to your plan, that's a phone call, and I'll make it with you rather than guess on a web page.
Hampton's total millage is 17.7095 mills: Bradford County 10.0000, Public Schools 5.3660, Town of Hampton 2.0623, and the Suwannee River Water Management District 0.281211. Among the county's four municipalities that ranks third — below Starke's 20.0351 and Lawtey's 17.8984, above Brooker's 15.884211.
But here's a wrinkle worth knowing, because it cuts against the millage ranking: Hampton has the highest median effective property tax rate in Bradford County at 0.89% of market value, with a median annual bill of $1,143 — against Starke's 0.84% ($1,074), Brooker's 0.81% ($1,002) and Lawtey's 0.80% ($1,015). Countywide the median effective rate is 0.85% with a median bill of $1,176, below Florida's 1.10% median14. Effective rates run below nominal millage everywhere in Florida because of homestead exemptions and Save Our Homes caps on long-held homes. Hampton's effective rate sitting highest while its millage sits third suggests a housing stock with proportionally less accumulated Save Our Homes shelter. The practical lesson is the same one I give everyone: the current owner's tax bill is not your tax bill. Ask for just value, not last year's bill.
The Property Appraiser's page is labeled "current millage" and states no tax year anywhere on it. The County Commission only set the county rate for fiscal 2026-27 on roughly July 22, 2026, and Florida millage isn't certified until the fall TRIM process12 — so these are most likely 2025 certified rates. Confirm the year with the Property Appraiser at 904-966-6216 before you build a budget on them. I'd rather say that plainly than stamp a year on the most consequential number on this page.
Florida's standard homestead exemption applies: the first $25,000 comes off all property taxes including school district taxes, and a second $25,000 applies to assessed value between $50,000 and $75,000 but does not apply to school taxes. Applications are due March 1 of the tax year, with late filing accepted through the 25th day after TRIM notices are mailed if justified, and you must be a Florida permanent resident who owns and occupies the home15.
Save Our Homes then caps annual assessment increases on your homestead at 3% or the change in CPI, whichever is lower — 2.7% for 2026, down from 2.9% in 2025. Non-homestead residential and investment property is capped at 10% a year, excluding school district levies16. If you already hold a Florida homestead you can port up to $500,000 of accumulated Save Our Homes savings, and you now have three tax years to do it instead of two — Florida voters extended that window with Amendment 5 on November 3, 2020, passing it 74.49% to 25.51%17.
Homesteaded, full $50,000 exemption applied. School taxable = value minus $25,000; non-school taxable = value minus $50,000. Rounded.
| Assessed value | Hampton (17.7095 mills) | Unincorporated Bradford, SRWMD (15.6472 mills) | Hampton premium |
|---|---|---|---|
| $150,000 | ~$1,905/yr · $159/mo | ~$1,699/yr · $142/mo | ~$206/yr |
| $200,000 | ~$2,791/yr · $233/mo | ~$2,481/yr · $207/mo | ~$310/yr |
| $250,000 | ~$3,676/yr · $306/mo | ~$3,264/yr · $272/mo | ~$412/yr |
Estimate — my arithmetic, not a published figure. Calculated from the millage posted by the Bradford County Property Appraiser11 and Florida's homestead exemption structure15. Assumes assessed value equals column one and full homestead. Your actual bill depends on assessed value, exemptions you qualify for, and any non-ad-valorem assessments. Verify with the Property Appraiser at 904-966-6216.
Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey put the 30-year fixed at 6.66% and the 15-year at 6.04% for the week of July 30, 2026, up from 6.58% and 5.96% the prior week18. At 10% down on $200,000 — a $180,000 loan:
| Line item | Monthly | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Principal & interest | ~$1,157 | $180,000 at 6.66%, 30-year fixed18 |
| Property tax | ~$233 | 17.7095 mills, homesteaded11 |
| Mortgage insurance | ~$75 | Illustrative 0.5% annual PMI at 10% down |
| Homeowners insurance | Unverified placeholder | See the note below — I won't put a fake number here |
| Subtotal before insurance | ~$1,465 | Estimate; excludes insurance, flood insurance, HOA (rare here) and non-ad-valorem assessments |
The only Bradford-specific homeowners insurance figure I could find is a broker guide quoting $1,700-$2,400 a year for $300,000 in dwelling coverage19. That page carries no publication date, no methodology, no carrier sample and no named publisher. I'm not willing to run your affordability math off an anonymous lead-generation page and hand you the result as fact.
What I can source: Florida's Office of Insurance Regulation reported that home insurance rates decreased in 51 counties in 202620. Separately — and this is Insurify's estimate, not the regulator's — the statewide average runs about $6,060 a year for $300,000 dwelling coverage20. That statewide figure is weighted heavily by coastal wind exposure, and Bradford sits inland in wind Zone 1 with a 100-110 mph design wind speed and low flood and sinkhole risk19, so local premiums should run well below it. "Should run well below it" is not a budget. Get a real quote on the specific address early — and near the lakes, price flood separately, because that's a different policy and a different answer.
Income needed. Using the subtotal above and a 30% housing-to-income ratio, a $200,000 Hampton purchase needs roughly $4,883 a month, or about $58,600 a year, before insurance — and insurance pushes it past $60,000. Bradford's median household income is $63,0502, so at $200,000 the median local household is right at the line. Each additional $25,000 of price adds roughly $190 a month, which is why the gap between a $200,000 and a $250,000 house here is the gap between comfortable and stretched.
Renting, or buying to rent? Be careful with rent numbers here. Census puts Bradford's median gross rent at $863 a month2. Zumper shows a median asking rent for Starke of $1,499 — but that's a rolling 30-day median from roughly 20 available listings on one platform30, measuring current asking prices for marketed units, not what tenants countywide actually pay. The gap between $863 and $1,499 is mostly a sample difference, not a market move, and I'm not publishing the year-over-year percentages off a 20-listing sample because they're noise. Underwrite off the ACS median and real comparable leases.
Financing. Hampton is the kind of address USDA's rural program exists for, but eligibility is drawn by mapped boundary and I won't tell you a town is blanket-eligible — run the exact address on USDA's official eligibility map26. The 2026 USDA guaranteed loan standard income limits are $122,800 for a 1-4 person household and $162,100 for 5-8, and Bradford isn't on the elevated-limit list27. Against a $63,050 county median income, most local buyers clear that comfortably.
Business owners: Bradford requires an annual tangible personal property return, but a $25,000 exemption applies, so many small businesses owe no TPP tax15.
Where taxes are heading. On roughly July 22, 2026 the County Commission held the county rate flat at 10 mills for fiscal 2026-27 — but flat millage on rising values still captures about $1.1 million more in revenue12. The longer arc: county operating millage went from 9.1104 mills in FY2021 to 10.0000 in FY2024-25, and ad valorem revenues grew from $34.16 million in FY2021 to $40.48 million in FY2024 — an 18.5% increase. The 2025 rolled-back rate was 9.517813. Budget for your bill to drift upward even in years the rate doesn't move.
Hampton is part of the Bradford County School District, which enrolled 2,848 students PK-12 in 2024-25 across 11 school entities, with 148.97 FTE classroom teachers, a 19.12 student-teacher ratio and 421.54 total FTE staff. District office: 501 West Washington Street, Starke, FL 32091, (904) 966-686021. Florida's Office of Economic and Demographic Research counts 6 traditional public schools for 2025-26 — 4 elementary, 1 middle, 1 senior high3 — and the district also runs North Florida Technical College as its postsecondary arm.
Zoned schools for Hampton families:
Because Bradford is a single-high-school county, every Hampton teenager rides to Bradford High in Starke. Drive that route once before you buy — it's a daily fact of family life here, not a detail.
Three things I'm flagging rather than papering over. First, the school grades page states no school year anywhere on it, so I can't tell you whether those letters are 2024-25 or 2025-26. Second, published rosters don't reconcile: NCES counts 11 school entities, Florida EDR counts 6 traditional schools, the state grades page lists 7. Third, individual enrollment is only published for Bradford High — I have no verified enrollment for Hampton Elementary specifically.
Schools are usually the top filter for a family buyer, so guessing isn't acceptable. Call the district at (904) 966-6860 and confirm the current grade year and your address's attendance zoning before you write an offer. Boundaries change, and a web page is not a zoning determination.
County education context, because it shapes the local wage base: 83.4% of Bradford residents 25 and over are high school graduates, but only 15.2% hold a bachelor's degree or higher — roughly half the Florida rate2.
Published drive-time data exists for Starke, the county seat — not for Hampton. So here's the honest construction: the table below is verified Starke-to-anchor mileage, and Hampton sits south of Starke, which shortens the Gainesville and Keystone Heights runs and lengthens Jacksonville by roughly that same Hampton-to-Starke leg. I'm labeling that offset as my estimate, not dressing it up as data.
| From Starke to | Distance / time | Route & halfway point |
|---|---|---|
| Gainesville | 26 miles, about 37 minutes33 | SR-24 south; Waldo at the halfway mark. Hampton is on the Gainesville side — shorter from here |
| Keystone Heights | 13 miles, about 17 minutes45 | SR-100 southeast — the nearest town of size and the gateway to the Clay County lake district |
| Jacksonville | 46 miles, about 1 hour32 | US-301 north; Baldwin roughly midway at 27 miles. Add the Hampton leg |
| Palatka | 40 miles, about 55 minutes55 | SR-100 southeast; Grandin at the halfway point |
| Lake City | 37 miles, about 50 minutes34 | SR-100 northwest; Lake Butler halfway |
Practically: Gainesville is the commute that works from Hampton. Jacksonville is a genuine hour-plus each way and makes sense only for hybrid or occasional in-office schedules. If your job is in Gainesville, Hampton is one of the cheapest places within reasonable range of it.
The road story worth watching. SR-16 runs from Raiford past the correctional facilities into downtown Starke, crosses US-301, curves around the northwest shore of Kingsley Lake and past Camp Blanding, then on through Penney Farms to Green Cove Springs and St. Augustine39. That matters because the First Coast Expressway — SR 23, a planned 46.5-mile toll route across Duval, Clay and St. Johns counties costing roughly $2 billion — opened its US-17 to SR-16 segment on June 29, 2026, putting its current terminus on the same SR-16 that runs into Starke. Phase 3 to I-95, including a new St. Johns River bridge replacing the two-lane Shands Bridge, is expected 2031-203240. It doesn't transform Hampton tomorrow. Over a ten-year hold it's a tailwind rather than a headwind. Bradford carries just 75.6 state highway centerline miles and 204.9 lane miles3 — a small network where one corridor improvement moves the needle proportionally more than it would in a metro county.
Most weekly errands from Hampton mean a drive north to Starke or south to the Waldo / Gainesville corridor.
The map above pulls live and will show current groceries and restaurants. What follows is the fixed infrastructure — the places still standing in five years, with addresses so you can drive them yourself.
Emergency care in this county is HCA Florida Starke Emergency, 922 E Call St, Starke — 904-368-2300. Know exactly what that is: a 24/7 freestanding emergency room operating as an extension of HCA Florida North Florida Hospital in Gainesville. It offers CT, digital radiography, a full-service lab, and stroke and pulmonary embolism treatment — but it is not a full inpatient hospital campus41. For primary care, UF Health Family Medical Group – Starke, 1550 S. Water Street, Monday-Friday 8:00 to 5:00, closed weekends — an outpatient family medicine clinic, not a UF Health hospital. There is no "UF Health Starke" hospital42. I'll be straight about the edge of my research: I could not confirm against a state licensure source whether Bradford retains any licensed inpatient beds county-wide, so I'm describing what I verified rather than making an absolute claim. Hampton's advantage here is that Gainesville's full hospital system is closer than it is from anywhere else in the county — that's a real point in Hampton's favor for older buyers.
Beyond the boat ramps above: Santa Fe Swamp WMA (7,272 acres, off SE 11th Avenue near Starke — fishing, wildlife viewing, horseback riding, hiking, biking) and Raiford WMA (9,141 acres along the New River off NW County Road 125 near Lawtey — hunting in season)37. Countywide there are 10,349 acres of state or regionally owned conservation land, 5.5% of the county's land area3 — a meaningful amount of permanently undeveloped ground for a county this small, and part of why the quiet here is likely to stay quiet.
Comcast is extending multi-gigabit symmetrical internet to more than 3,500 homes and businesses in Hampton, Lawtey, Starke and surrounding areas, with completion expected by Fall 2026. It's backed by a public-private partnership with Florida's Broadband Opportunity Program and the federal Capital Projects Fund, and County Manager Scott Kornegay is quoted in the announcement36. Hampton is named first in that list. Context: 90.4% of Bradford households had a broadband subscription and 94.2% had a computer as of ACS 2020-20242 — meaning roughly one household in ten had no broadband at all beforehand. For a town whose main constraint has always been "you're far from everything," a real fiber connection changes what's possible here. Still verify service at the specific address before closing; a countywide build does not mean every driveway.
I'd rather you hear this from me than find it after closing.
So you know where the edges of my knowledge are: I could not source a Bradford-specific average insurance premium from a primary regulator; a percentage of active listings with price cuts; new listings per month; a sale-to-list ratio; the share of county housing that is manufactured/mobile (a significant gap in a rural county — it needs a manual pull from ACS table B25024); FEMA flood-zone acreage or the share of parcels in Special Flood Hazard Areas; FDOT traffic counts for US-301; named major employers with headcounts; or IRS county-to-county migration and net AGI figures. Competitor pages sometimes display these. If they display them for Bradford County without a working citation, ask where they came from.
Live MLS feed. If Hampton inventory is thin, the widget widens to the rest of Bradford County. Land parcels are common — most appear in the MLS residential feed.
Southern Bradford County, off US-301 south of Starke toward the Alachua County line. Starke to Gainesville is 26 miles, about 37 minutes via SR-24 with Waldo halfway33, and Hampton sits on the Gainesville side of Starke so it starts that drive shortened. Starke to Jacksonville is 46 miles, about an hour32 — add the Hampton leg. Published drive-time data exists for Starke, not Hampton; those offsets are my estimate, not sourced figures.
17.7095 mills total — Bradford County 10.0000, Public Schools 5.3660, Town of Hampton 2.0623, Suwannee River Water Management District 0.281211. Third of the county's four municipalities. But Hampton carries the county's highest median effective rate at 0.89% of market value with a median annual bill of $1,14314. The Property Appraiser's page states no tax year — confirm at 904-966-6216; these are most likely 2025 certified rates.
Yes, through county ramps. Bradford County maintains a boat ramp on Hampton Lake at SW 101st Street in town, plus Santa Fe Lake at 42500 NE State Road 26 in Melrose, Little Lake Santa Fe at 3858 SE 20th Avenue in Keystone Heights, and Sampson/Rowell at 14300 SW 75th Avenue in Starke37. Santa Fe Lake is the largest in the area and borders Alachua County to the south47. Waterfront on a listing does not automatically mean legal water access — get access rights confirmed in writing.
In 2014 the town — population 477 — annexed a 1,260-foot strip of US-301 a mile outside town and ran what CNN called one of the nation's most notorious speed traps, with one officer per 25 residents. A state audit found 31 violations of local, state or federal law including misuse of public funds, cronyism and nepotism; the mayor was arrested in an oxycodone sting; all city employees resigned; and lawmakers moved to dissolve the charter before ultimately sparing it53. A decade on it doesn't affect daily life. It's worth knowing because the town levy is only 2.0623 mills — ask what services the town actually provides — and because a future buyer will search the name.
No, and anyone showing you one built it on too small a sample. Bradford County as a whole recorded about 21 sales in October 20254. Every figure on this page is county-level or Starke ZIP 32091, labeled as such.
Bradford County School District — 2,848 students PK-12, 19.12 student-teacher ratio in 2024-2521. Hampton Elementary grades C; Bradford Middle C; Bradford High B, the district's only school above a C23. Bradford High enrolled 785 students with a 23.79 ratio22. Important: the grades page states no school year and published rosters don't reconcile, so confirm the grade year and your zoning with the district at (904) 966-6860.
Estimate only, from cited inputs. A $200,000 homesteaded home at 10% down and Freddie Mac's 6.66% 30-year rate for the week of July 30, 202618: about $1,157 principal and interest, about $233 property tax at 17.7095 mills after full homestead11, about $75 PMI — roughly $1,465 before insurance. I've left insurance blank on purpose: the only Bradford-specific figure I found is an undated, unattributed broker range19. Near the lakes, price flood coverage separately.
Outside the town grid, assume well and septic; Bradford requires a septic number before building plans are submitted24. No published county-wide count of well/septic versus municipal service exists, so verify at the address. On flood: I could not retrieve authoritative FEMA acreage or parcel data for Bradford County, so I won't publish a percentage. Near lakes and low ground, pull the FEMA map for the specific parcel and get a survey.
Hampton is named in Comcast's build — multi-gigabit symmetrical service to 3,500+ homes and businesses in Hampton, Lawtey, Starke and surrounding areas, completion expected Fall 2026, supported by Florida's Broadband Opportunity Program and the federal Capital Projects Fund36. Confirm at the exact address before closing; a countywide build doesn't mean every driveway.
Check the address, not the town — USDA draws eligibility by mapped boundary26. The 2026 standard guaranteed-loan income limits are $122,800 (1-4 person household) and $162,100 (5-8), and Bradford isn't on the elevated-limit list27, so against a $63,050 county median income most local buyers clear the income test.
Free 15-minute call. Real facts about the specific parcel or area you're considering.
Bradford County was created in 1858 as New River County out of Columbia and Alachua counties and renamed in 1861 for Confederate Captain Richard Bradford. It covers 300 square miles — 294 land, 6.5 water — third-smallest in Florida by land area, second-smallest by total area, bordering Baker, Clay, Putnam, Alachua, Union and Duval counties52. Four incorporated municipalities. If Hampton isn't the fit:
Page last updated August 3, 2026. Dollar figures marked "estimate" are my own arithmetic from the cited inputs and are not published figures — they are illustrations, not quotes. Confirm parcel-level facts with the Bradford County Property Appraiser (904-966-6216), the Zoning Department (904-966-6213) and the school district (904-966-6860) before writing an offer. Chris Moore, Licensed Florida Real Estate Sales Associate SL3389080, brokered by Momentum Realty.