Buying a Home in Tallahassee, Florida

Yes. Florida Housing Finance Corporation offers statewide help that must be paired with a Florida Housing first mortgage. Florida Assist provides up to $10,000 as a zero-interest, deferred second mortgage with no monthly payment. The Florida Hometown Heroes Housing Program can provide up to 5% of the first mortgage (minimum $10,000 and maximum $35,000) for eligible workforce, military, and veteran buyers. Florida Housing also offers a $12,500 Florida Homeownership Loan Program second mortgage that does have a monthly payment, and a 3%, 4%, or 5% forgivable second mortgage when used with certain conventional Florida Housing first mortgages. In the Tallahassee area, Leon County and the City of Tallahassee also run local down payment assistance programs, administered through the Tallahassee Lenders' Consortium, with terms and funding that change, so ask which options are open for the property you want.

Florida charges a documentary stamp tax on deeds and other documents that transfer an interest in Florida real property. In Leon County, and in every Florida county except Miami-Dade, the rate is 70 cents per $100, or portion thereof, of the consideration. Promissory notes and recorded mortgages are taxed at 35 cents per $100, and Florida also charges a nonrecurring intangible tax of 2 mills on an obligation secured by a Florida mortgage. By custom the seller often pays the tax on the deed and the buyer pays the taxes tied to the loan, but the purchase contract can allocate these costs differently.

For 2026, the FHA limit in Leon County is $541,287 for a single-family home, and higher for two- to four-unit properties ($693,050, $837,700, and $1,041,125). That is the national FHA floor. The conforming limit for conventional loans is $832,750 for a one-unit home in Leon County, the same baseline that applies in most of Florida. If you need to borrow more than that on a conventional loan, it's a jumbo loan, which usually has stricter credit and down payment rules.

It's negotiable in your purchase contract. By Florida custom, the seller often pays the documentary stamp tax on the deed and the owner's title insurance policy, and the buyer pays the documentary stamp tax on the note and mortgage, the nonrecurring intangible tax, the lender's title policy, and loan-related costs. Closings are typically handled by a title company, sometimes with an attorney. Sellers can also agree to pay some of the buyer's costs as a credit.