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St. Johns County · Property management
Property management in St. Johns County.
In unincorporated St. Johns County, the Intracoastal Waterway is a regulatory boundary, not just a channel. The county's short-term vacation rental registration under Ordinance 2021-23 reaches properties east of the Intracoastal and exempts those west of it, so two houses in the same county, ten minutes apart, can carry entirely different obligations for the same booking.
What St. Johns County rents for right now
With roughly 18% of St. Johns households renting, the rental base here is thin, and published averages lean on a small number of larger apartment communities clustered near the I-95 and CR 210 corridors. Those figures say very little about a Ponte Vedra Beach house or a Nocatee townhome, where the honest comparable set may be a handful of units. Aggregators also blend the city of St. Augustine with the unincorporated county, and those are different products under different rules.
| Bedrooms | Typical range, houses & condos |
|---|---|
| 1 bed | $1,475 - $1,525 |
| 2 bed | $1,750 - $1,875 |
| 3 bed | $2,265 - $2,300 |
| 4+ bed | $2,795 |
Ranges are drawn from RentCafe's St. Johns County market data (August 2026) and Zumper's St. Augustine rent research (September 2026); the four-bedroom figure is a single-source Zumper city median. Countywide ranges, not a valuation. We run comps on your specific address.
A registration requirement that stops at the Intracoastal
The rules live in the St. Johns County Land Development Code, Article II, Section 2.02.04.B.19, adopted as Ordinance 2021-23, and they apply to unincorporated county only. Each dwelling unit used as a short-term vacation rental east of the Intracoastal must be registered with the county and renewed every 12 months, with the application package requiring a completed form, a sample rental agreement, a local business tax receipt, a Florida Department of Revenue tourist development tax certificate, a DBPR licence as a transient public lodging establishment and an executed affidavit. Occupancy is capped at two transient occupants per sleeping room or common area to a maximum of ten, excluding children twelve and under. Off-street parking runs at one space per three transient occupants, and the total number of vehicles may not exceed the number of off-street spaces. The rental agreement itself must carry the tenant's acknowledgement of the county's right to reasonably inspect. Properties west of the Intracoastal and certain owner-occupied dwellings are exempt, and a vesting schedule in subsection 19.h covers units already operating.
The jurisdiction map here is unusually simple and unusually lopsided. Only two municipalities remain — St. Augustine and St. Augustine Beach — after the Town of Hastings' voters chose by 82% in 2018 to dissolve the town charter and return to unincorporated county government. Nearly everything else is county. That matters because the housing itself is unlike the rest of Northeast Florida: ACS 2024 one-year estimates put the county's median household income at $116,421 and median owner-occupied home value at $547,600 across about 132,465 households, with roughly 82% of households owning rather than renting. On flood, St. Johns holds a CRS Class 5 rating, which the county states places it in the top 17% of CRS-participating communities nationally for 2025 and delivers a 25% NFIP premium discount applied automatically; the county has participated in the NFIP since 1973.
What that means if you own here: establish which side of the Intracoastal the parcel sits on before you do anything else, and do it from the parcel geometry rather than the neighborhood name, because Ponte Vedra, Palm Valley and Vilano addresses sit on both sides of the water in places. If you are east, build the county's inspection-acknowledgement language into your standard rental agreement template now instead of bolting it on at renewal, and treat the 12-month renewal as a hard calendar item with the full document package reassembled each time. Count sleeping rooms, common areas and actual driveway spaces before you advertise a headcount, because on most beach-side St. Johns houses the parking cap — one space per three occupants, with vehicles never exceeding spaces — binds well before the ten-person ceiling does. And before you underwrite anything in a master-planned community, pull the parcel's tax bill and read the non-ad valorem lines: Community Development District assessments ride on that bill and change the real carrying cost in a way the listing never shows.
Four things that make this county its own animal
East of the Intracoastal, west of the Intracoastal
The county's short-term vacation rental registration applies to unincorporated property east of the Intracoastal Waterway; property west of it is exempt from the registration requirement. Nothing about that exemption touches the separate state obligations — DBPR licensure, Department of Revenue registration and tourist development tax still apply. Confirm the side of the water from the parcel, not the neighborhood.
Two cities, and a town that voted itself out of existence
St. Johns is governed almost entirely by the county. Only St. Augustine and St. Augustine Beach remain incorporated, after 82% of Hastings voters chose in 2018 to dissolve the town charter and return to unincorporated status. For most owners here, that means one code department and one set of land development regulations — a genuinely different situation from neighboring Duval.
Occupancy and parking are the binding constraints
Two transient occupants per sleeping room or common area, capped at ten, excluding children twelve and under. Off-street parking at one space per three transient occupants, with the total number of vehicles never exceeding the number of spaces. On a three-bedroom beach house with a two-car driveway, the parking rule is what actually sets your maximum — not the bedroom count.
A Class 5 flood community since 1973
St. Johns County has participated in the NFIP since 1973 and holds a CRS Class 5 rating, which the county states puts it in the top 17% of CRS communities nationally for 2025 and produces a 25% premium discount effective April 1, 2023, applied automatically to NFIP policies. The county is also running a state-funded Resilient Florida vulnerability assessment on flood and sea-level-rise exposure.
Cities we cover in St. Johns County
Each city page carries its own rent ranges, its own local rules and the thing about that market that actually changes what an owner should do. They are not this page with the name swapped.
| City | What makes it different |
|---|---|
| St. Augustine | In the historic district here, nothing may be rented for less than a month. |
Where we work in St. Johns County
Ponte Vedra Beach and Palm Valley, Nocatee, Vilano Beach and the North Beaches, Anastasia Island and Crescent Beach, St. Augustine Beach, Fruit Cove, Julington Creek and Switzerland, the Bartram and CR 210 corridor, World Golf Village, SilverLeaf, Rivertown, Trailmark, St. Augustine South and Shores, Elkton, Armstrong, Molasses Junction, the now-unincorporated Hastings area, and the city of St. Augustine itself.
Encore has bought, sold and managed property across Central Florida for over a decade. We work this market the same way we work our own portfolio.
What you get
- Rent analysis on your actual address — not a countywide average
- Marketing and leasing — MLS, every major rental platform, showings handled, applicants screened against written criteria applied identically to everyone
- HOA coordination — lease approval packets started the day we list, not the week the tenant wants to move
- Maintenance — licensed, insured vendors; you approve anything over your spending limit
- Accounting — online rent collection, monthly statements, year-end financials and 1099s, owner portal
- The hard parts — late rent, violations, notices, evictions, turnovers
Backed by five written promises, including a 30-day leasing promise and a rent promise: if the tenant doesn't pay, we don't take a management commission that month. Full terms are in the management agreement.
What would your St. Johns County property rent for?
Send us the address. You'll get a real rent analysis and the owner packet — every service tier, what's included, and what it costs.
St. Johns County owner questions
- My rental is west of the Intracoastal. Do I still need the county short-term rental registration?
- The Land Development Code exempts unincorporated properties located west of the Intracoastal Waterway from the registration requirement. That exemption is geographic and nothing else changes: the DBPR transient public lodging licence, Florida Department of Revenue registration, tourist development tax and county local business tax obligations all stand on their own. Confirm the parcel's actual position relative to the waterway rather than relying on the neighborhood or the mailing address.
- How many guests can I legally put in a short-term rental here?
- Two transient occupants per sleeping room or common area, to a maximum of ten, excluding children twelve years of age and under. Separately, off-street parking must be provided at one space per three transient occupants, and the total number of vehicles may not exceed the number of off-street spaces. On most beach-side houses the parking cap is the real ceiling, so count driveway spaces before you advertise a sleeps-number.
- Is the county registration a one-time filing?
- No. Each registered dwelling unit must be renewed every 12 months, and the renewal calls for the same package as the original: application, sample rental agreement, local business tax receipt, Department of Revenue tourist tax certificate, DBPR transient lodging licence and an executed affidavit. Build it into an annual calendar rather than reacting to a notice.
- Why does my St. Johns tax bill have charges that aren't property tax?
- Many of the county's master-planned communities sit inside Community Development Districts, whose debt service and operations assessments appear as non-ad valorem line items on the county tax bill rather than as property tax. They are a real and recurring cost to the owner and they are not visible in a listing price. Pull the actual tax bill for the parcel before you underwrite — we do this on every St. Johns property we take on.