Rural Northeast Florida on the US-301 corridor between Starke and Baldwin. A small city of roughly 700, real acreage on the edges, and a slower pace than anywhere in the Jacksonville metro.
Lawtey is a small incorporated city in northern Bradford County strung along US-301, the highway that runs 26 miles north from Starke to Baldwin and Interstate 1031. Its population is roughly 7001 in a county of 28,3072, and its total property tax millage of 17.8984 sits below Starke's 20.0351 and above unincorporated Bradford11. What you actually buy here is a rural parcel with a highway through the middle of it, at prices that are still the cheapest real estate within an hour of downtown Jacksonville.
There is no published market data for Lawtey. None. No median sale price, no days on market, no price-per-square-foot series. That is not me being lazy — it is arithmetic. Bradford County as a whole recorded about 21 closed sales in October 20254. Lawtey's share of that is a handful of homes a year, which is too few to compute a median anyone should act on.
So everything in the snapshot below is county-level or Starke ZIP 32091, and I label which. Any site that shows you a confident "Lawtey median home price" built it from a sample too small to mean anything. I'd rather show you the county picture honestly and then talk about your specific parcel on the phone.
| Measure | Figure | Geography & as-of |
|---|---|---|
| Median sale price | $283,000, up 10.8% year over year4 | Bradford County, October 2025 — the most recent 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 — a 20% spread on the same day |
| 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 prices, not closed sales |
| Unemployment rate | 5.5%; annual average rose 3.2% (2023) → 4.5% (2025)28 | Bradford County, April 2026 |
Two things worth staring at. First, the direction of travel: days on market went from 34 to 56, price per square foot slipped 2.5%, permits fell 26.7%, and unemployment has climbed three years running. That is a market cooling from a strong run, not collapsing. Second, the sources disagree — Redfin's county median sale is $283,000 while Zillow's ZHVI for the Starke ZIP is $219,876. Both are "right"; they measure different things over different footprints, and with 21 sales a month a single unusual closing moves a county median several percent. I show you the spread instead of picking the number that flatters the story.
Lawtey is a small city in northern Bradford County, sitting on US-301 north of Starke and south of the Duval County line at Baldwin. Population runs around 700 residents1 — it's one of the smallest incorporated cities in the county, and the character reflects it: a compact town center along the highway, a handful of churches, a post office, and a landscape that becomes rural farmland and pine timber almost as soon as you leave the highway.
For buyers, Lawtey works if you want small-town Northeast Florida but need to be closer to Jacksonville than Starke or points south. US-301 continues north from here to Baldwin and I-1031, and Baldwin sits roughly midway on the Starke-to-Jacksonville run at 27 miles from Starke32. Lawtey is north of Starke on that same stretch, so you start the drive with a piece of it already behind you.
The property mix leans rural: older single-family homes in the town center, manufactured homes on land, and larger parcels — 5 to 50-plus acres — outside town for buyers who want space, timber, or a small farm. That mix is the county's mix. Bradford's homeownership rate is 73.3% against 11,143 total housing units, with a median owner-occupied value of $212,500 and median gross rent of $8632. This is an owner-occupied, low-density county, and Lawtey is one of its lower-priced corners.
Context that matters for anyone thinking about the long game: Bradford County is genuinely a bedroom community. Half its workforce — 50.6% of workers 16 and over — commutes out of the county for work, with a mean travel time of 32.4 minutes3. Lawtey is on the Jacksonville side of that split.
Lawtey exists because of the road. US-301 became the spine of this county in the early 1900s, when it was the quickest route between Jacksonville and Tampa for travelers coming down from the northeast31. Every town on it — Lawtey, Starke, Hampton, Waldo south of the line — grew up facing the highway. A century later that same highway is the single biggest variable in what a Lawtey house is worth.
Here's the practical version, from standing in front of a lot of these houses. Frontage directly on 301 means through-traffic and truck noise, and it prices at a discount to an identical house three streets back. Buyers coming from a subdivision consistently underestimate this until they stand in the front yard at 4 p.m. on a weekday. Two blocks off the highway, the noise falls away and the price recovers. If you are comparing two Lawtey listings and one seems cheap, check the distance to 301 first.
The rail line. Lawtey's grid also runs alongside an active freight rail corridor, and this is the second thing I make buyers go check in person. I want to be straight with you about the limits of what I can document here: there is no published train-count, schedule or noise study for Lawtey. Nobody produces one for a town this size, and I am not going to invent a number to look authoritative. What I can tell you is what to do about it — go to the property at two different times of day, one of them in the evening, and stand outside. If a train comes through while you are there, you have your answer. If it doesn't, ask the neighbors, because they will tell you within thirty seconds. Rail proximity is not automatically a problem; plenty of buyers here genuinely do not care. It is only a problem when a buyer finds out after closing.
The speed-trap reputation, honestly. AAA designated Lawtey a speed trap in 1995 — along with Waldo just down the road in Alachua County — after concluding that profit rather than safety was the primary motivation for ticketing on US-301. AAA removed both designations in 2018, citing significant improvements35. Waldo's police department was disbanded back in 201435. So the formal designation has been gone for the better part of a decade, but the reputation has a much longer half-life than the designation did.
What does that mean if you actually live here? Very little, day to day. It means the posted limit drops as 301 enters town and you should drive it as posted. It also means that if you sell a Lawtey house in five years, some out-of-town buyer will bring the speed-trap thing up, because it's the first result a search turns up. Knowing the timeline — designated 1995, lifted 2018 — is how you answer it in one sentence instead of getting defensive.
Older single-family homes on smaller lots near US-301 and the town's central grid. Character homes with older systems — inspect carefully. Inside city limits you pay the 2.2512-mill Lawtey levy on top of county and school.
Manufactured and modular homes on 1-5 acre parcels — a substantial share of Lawtey inventory. Financing rules differ from stick-built; use a lender familiar with manufactured-home loans.
Five to fifty-plus acre parcels beyond town limits. Pine timber, small farms, homesteads. Well and septic standard. Bradford land lists at a median asking $19,999 per acre countywide.
Unincorporated area northeast of Lawtey along CR-125. Rural residential with larger lots — and outside city limits, so no municipal millage.
A meaningful share of Lawtey's real estate market is land: 1-acre residential lots, 5-10 acre homesteads, and larger timber or agricultural parcels. 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 — but understand what that is. Those are asking prices on marketed listings, not closed sales, and a 41.7-acre average tells you the sample is dominated by big timber tracts, not the five-acre homesite you're probably shopping for.
The agricultural context is real, not decorative. The 2022 Census of Agriculture counted 418 farms in Bradford County working 61,282 acres — about a third of the entire county — at an average farm size of 147 acres, up 22% from 2017. The mix is 58% livestock and 42% crops, led by 7,506 head of cattle and 6,408 acres of forage and hay38. Farm count actually fell 15% since 2017 while average size grew, which is exactly the pattern you'd expect when smaller operations sell out and neighbors consolidate. Some of those parcels come to market.
Bradford County's own Building FAQ does not publish zoning district names, minimum lot sizes or setbacks — it directs callers to the Zoning Department at (904) 966-6213. I could not locate the Land Development Regulations document online. If a listing's minimum lot size or setback matters to your plan, that is a phone call, and I'll make it with you rather than guess on a web page.
Lawtey's total millage is 17.8984 mills, built from four levies: Bradford County 10.0000, Public Schools 5.3660, City of Lawtey 2.2512, and the Suwannee River Water Management District 0.281211. That places Lawtey second-highest of the county's four municipalities, behind Starke at 20.0351 and just ahead of Hampton at 17.7095; Brooker is the cheapest incorporated address at 15.884211.
The Property Appraiser's page is labeled "current millage" and does not state a tax year anywhere on it. Meanwhile 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 here: 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 you can justify it, and you must be a Florida permanent resident who owns and occupies the home15.
Save Our Homes then caps annual assessment increases on your homesteaded property 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, and that 10% cap excludes school district levies16. If you already own a Florida homestead, you can port up to $500,000 of accumulated Save Our Homes savings to a new one, and you now have three tax years to do it rather than two — Florida voters extended that window with Amendment 5 on November 3, 2020, passing it 74.49% to 25.51%17.
That gap between the nominal 1.79% millage and what people actually pay is real: Bradford County's median effective property tax rate is 0.85% of market value with a median annual bill of $1,176, below Florida's 1.10% median. Broken out by city, Lawtey's effective rate is the lowest in the county at 0.80%, with a median annual bill of $1,015 — against Hampton's 0.89% ($1,143), Brooker's 0.81% ($1,002) and Starke's 0.84% ($1,074)14. The reason effective rates run so far below nominal millage is homestead exemptions plus Save Our Homes caps on long-held homes. A house that's been in the same family for twenty years is assessed far below what you'd pay for it — which means the current owner's tax bill is not your tax bill. Ask for the parcel's just value, not last year's bill.
Homesteaded, full $50,000 exemption applied. School taxable = value minus $25,000; non-school taxable = value minus $50,000. Rounded.
| Assessed value | Lawtey (17.8984 mills) | Unincorporated Bradford, SRWMD (15.6472 mills) | Lawtey premium |
|---|---|---|---|
| $150,000 | ~$1,924/yr · $160/mo | ~$1,699/yr · $142/mo | ~$225/yr |
| $200,000 | ~$2,819/yr · $235/mo | ~$2,481/yr · $207/mo | ~$338/yr |
| $250,000 | ~$3,714/yr · $310/mo | ~$3,264/yr · $272/mo | ~$450/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 the number in 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 | ~$235 | 17.8984 mills, homesteaded11 |
| Mortgage insurance | ~$75 | Illustrative 0.5% annual PMI at 10% down |
| Homeowners insurance | Unverified placeholder | See the note below — I will not put a fake number here |
| Subtotal before insurance | ~$1,467 | Estimate; excludes 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 am not willing to run an affordability calculation for you off an anonymous lead-generation page and present the result as fact.
What I can tell you with a 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 heavily weighted 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 under it. But "should run well under it" is not a number you can budget against. Get a real quote on the specific address early — insurance is now a deal-killer line item in Florida, and finding out at day 25 of a 30-day contract is a bad way to find out.
Income needed. Using the subtotal above and a 30% housing-to-income ratio, a $200,000 Lawtey purchase needs roughly $4,890 a month, or about $58,700 a year, before insurance is added — and insurance will push it past $60,000. Bradford County's median household income is $63,0502. So at $200,000 the median local household is right at the line. Every additional $25,000 of purchase price adds roughly $190 a month, which is why the difference between a $200,000 and a $250,000 house here is the difference between comfortable and stretched for a median-income buyer.
Financing note. Lawtey is the kind of address USDA's rural program was written for, but eligibility is drawn by mapped boundary and I will not 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 County is not on the elevated-limit list27 — so against a $63,050 county median income, the large majority of local buyers clear the income test comfortably.
If you own a business here: Bradford requires an annual tangible personal property return, but a $25,000 exemption applies, so many small businesses owe no TPP tax at all15.
Renting instead, or buying to rent? Be careful with the rent numbers floating around. The Census figure for Bradford County is a median gross rent of $863 a month2. Zumper shows a median asking rent for Starke of $1,499 — but that is a rolling 30-day median calculated from roughly 20 available listings on one platform30, not a market-wide figure, and it measures asking prices for units currently marketed rather than what tenants across the county are actually paying. The gap between $863 and $1,499 is mostly a sample difference, not a 74% market move. I would not size a rental yield off the Zumper number, and I'm not going to publish its year-over-year percentages, because month-to-month swings on a 20-listing sample are noise. If you're underwriting a rental here, use the ACS median as your floor, get actual comparable leases, and treat anything else as a headline.
Where taxes are heading. On roughly July 22, 2026 the County Commission held the county rate at 10 mills for fiscal 2026-27, unchanged — but flat millage on rising values still captures about $1.1 million more in revenue12. Longer view: the county's 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% increase13. The 2025 rolled-back rate was 9.517813. Translation for a buyer: the county has been comfortable letting values do the work. Budget for your bill to drift up even in years the rate doesn't move.
Lawtey is served by the Bradford County School District, which enrolled 2,848 students PK-12 in 2024-25 across 11 school entities, with 148.97 full-time-equivalent 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 operates North Florida Technical College as its postsecondary arm.
Zoned schools for Lawtey families:
Because Bradford is a single-high-school county, every Lawtey teenager rides to Bradford High in Starke. That's a real daily logistics fact for a family, and it's worth driving the route once before you buy.
I'm flagging three things rather than papering over them. First, the school grades page does not state a school year anywhere on it, so I can't tell you whether those letter grades are 2024-25 or 2025-26. Second, the published school rosters do not reconcile: NCES counts 11 school entities, Florida EDR counts 6 traditional schools, and the state grades page lists 7. Third, individual enrollment figures are only published for Bradford High — I have no verified enrollment for Lawtey Community School (K-6) specifically.
School quality is usually the number one factor for a family buyer, so guessing here is not 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 page on the internet is not a zoning determination.
Broader education context on the county, 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 Lawtey. So here's the honest construction: the table below is verified Starke-to-anchor mileage, and Lawtey sits north of Starke on US-301, which shortens the Jacksonville and I-10 runs and lengthens everything to the south and west by that same Lawtey-to-Starke leg. I'm labeling that offset as my own estimate rather than dressing it up as data.
| From Starke to | Distance / time | Route & halfway point |
|---|---|---|
| Jacksonville | 46 miles, about 1 hour32 | US-301 north; Baldwin roughly midway at 27 miles |
| Baldwin & I-10 | 26 miles north on US-30131 | Lawtey is on this stretch — shorter from here |
| Gainesville | 26 miles, about 37 minutes33 | SR-24 south; Waldo at the halfway mark |
| Lake City | 37 miles, about 50 minutes34 | SR-100 northwest; Lake Butler halfway |
| Keystone Heights | 13 miles, about 17 minutes45 | SR-100 southeast — the nearest town of size |
The road story worth watching. SR-16 runs from Raiford past the correctional facilities into downtown Starke, crosses US-301, then curves around the northwest shore of Kingsley Lake and past Camp Blanding, on through Penney Farms to Green Cove Springs and St. Augustine39. That matters now 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. Its current terminus is on SR-16 east of Green Cove Springs: the same SR-16 that runs into downtown Starke. Phase 3 to I-95, including a new St. Johns River bridge replacing the two-lane Shands Bridge, is expected 2031-203240.
I'd be overselling if I told you that transforms Lawtey tomorrow. It doesn't. What it does is shorten the practical drive from western Clay County to the southside Jacksonville job centers, and Bradford County sits one road connection away from that. Over a ten-year hold, that's a tailwind rather than a headwind. Bradford also carries 75.6 state highway centerline miles and 204.9 lane miles3 — a small network where a single corridor improvement moves the needle proportionally more than it would in a metro county.
What's within reach of Lawtey. In practice, most weekly errands mean a drive south to Starke or north to Baldwin/Jacksonville.
The map above pulls live and will show you current groceries and restaurants. What follows is the fixed infrastructure — the places that are still going to be there in five years, with addresses so you can drive them.
Emergency care in this county is HCA Florida Starke Emergency, 922 E Call St, Starke — 904-368-2300. Understand what it 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 there's 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 limit 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. If someone in your household has a condition that means routine hospital admissions, this is a conversation to have before you buy, not after.
Bradford County Parks & Recreation maintains public boat ramps at Sampson and Rowell Lakes (14300 SW 75th Avenue, Starke — the two lakes are connected by a canal passable by small boat and are known for fishing3747), Hampton Lake (SW 101st Street, Hampton), Little Lake Santa Fe (3858 SE 20th Avenue, Keystone Heights) and Santa Fe Lake (42500 NE State Road 26, Melrose). County parks include Pleasant Grove Park, Speedville Park and Lincoln City Park. Two wildlife management areas sit in the county: Santa Fe Swamp WMA at 7,272 acres and Raiford WMA at 9,141 acres along the New River, off NW County Road 125 near Lawtey — hunting in season37. Raiford WMA is the one closest to Lawtey, and CR-125 is a road plenty of Lawtey buyers end up looking at anyway.
Countywide there are 10,349 acres of state or regionally owned conservation land — 5.5% of the county's total land area3. That's a meaningful share of permanently undeveloped ground for a county this small.
Buyers hear "Kingsley Lake" and get excited. Here's the reality: Kingsley is a nearly circular 2,000-acre solution-collapse sinkhole lake reaching 82 feet deep, sitting on Trail Ridge about 174 feet above sea level — 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 or beaches48. If a listing anywhere in Bradford advertises "Kingsley Lake access," ask exactly what that means in writing. Same goes for 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 put you in Bradford County, and buyers conflate this constantly.
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. The build is supported 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. Lawtey is named in that build. For context on why it matters: 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 before this. If you work from home, this single project is the most concrete positive on the horizon for rural Bradford property values. Still verify service at the specific address before you close; a countywide build does not mean every driveway.
I'd rather you hear this from me than find it after closing.
In the interest of you knowing 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; a new-listings-per-month figure; a sale-to-list ratio; the share of county housing that is manufactured/mobile (a significant gap in a rural county — it should be pulled from ACS table B25024); FEMA flood-zone acreage; FDOT traffic counts for US-301; named major employers with headcounts; or IRS county-to-county migration and net AGI figures. Competitor pages sometimes show these. If they show them for Bradford County without a working citation, ask where they got them.
Live MLS feed. If Lawtey inventory is thin (it often is), the widget widens to the rest of Bradford County. Land listings appear here too when the MLS categorizes them as residential.
Northern Bradford County on US-301, north of Starke and south of Baldwin. US-301 runs 26 miles north from Starke to Baldwin and I-1031, and Starke to Jacksonville is 46 miles, about an hour, with Baldwin roughly midway at 27 miles32. Lawtey is north of Starke on that stretch, so subtract the Lawtey-to-Starke leg. Published drive-time data exists for Starke, not Lawtey — that offset is my estimate, not a sourced figure.
Not officially. AAA designated Lawtey a speed trap in 1995 after concluding profit rather than safety drove ticketing on US-301, and removed the designation in 2018 citing significant improvements35. The reputation has outlived the designation by years. Practically: the posted limit drops as 301 enters town, so drive it as posted. And expect an out-of-town buyer to raise it when you eventually sell.
17.8984 mills total — Bradford County 10.0000, Public Schools 5.3660, City of Lawtey 2.2512, Suwannee River Water Management District 0.281211. Below Starke (20.0351), above Brooker (15.8842) and unincorporated county. The Property Appraiser's page states no tax year, so confirm at 904-966-6216 — these are most likely 2025 certified rates.
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 $235 property tax at 17.8984 mills after full homestead11, about $75 PMI — roughly $1,467 before insurance. I've deliberately left insurance blank because the only Bradford-specific figure I found is an undated, unattributed broker range19. Get a real quote early.
No, and anyone showing you one built it from 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. Lawtey Community School (K-6) 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 year and your zoning with the district at (904) 966-6860.
Often, but not with every lender. FHA, VA and USDA all have manufactured-home programs with rules on home age, HUD tags and permanent foundation. Locally, Bradford charges mobile home installers a one-time $50 county registration fee plus proof of workers' comp and general liability, and a permit is required to move a used mobile home24. Use a lender who writes these routinely — and be aware that chattel versus real-property financing changes your rate materially. I couldn't source lender-specific Bradford terms, so that's a conversation with a loan officer.
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 is not on the elevated-limit list27, so against a $63,050 county median income most local buyers clear the income test.
Outside the town grid, assume well and septic; Bradford requires a septic number before building plans are submitted24. No county-wide published count of well/septic versus municipal service exists, so verify at the address. On internet: Comcast's multi-gig build names Lawtey specifically and targets completion by Fall 202636, but confirm service at the exact driveway before closing.
Very few. Most Lawtey homes sit on individual parcels with no association, which is one of the main reasons buyers choose it. Verify on the specific parcel — occasionally a small platted subdivision carries restrictions.
Free 15-minute call to talk through what's available and what to check on a specific parcel.
Bradford County was created in 1858 as New River County out of Columbia and Alachua counties and renamed in 1861. It covers 300 square miles — 294 land, 6.5 water — making it third-smallest in Florida by land area and second-smallest by total area, and it borders Baker, Clay, Putnam, Alachua, Union and Duval counties52. There are four incorporated municipalities. If Lawtey isn't the right fit, one of these might be:
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.