What a CDD really adds to your monthly payment in St. Johns County
A CDD assessment is not a bill you get. It rides on the tax line of your escrow, which means it lands in the same place as your principal, insurance and flood premium — and it is the line buyers forget until the lender runs the numbers.
Why I run this as a monthly number, not an annual one
Nobody qualifies for a mortgage annually. When a lender builds your payment they take the county tax bill — ad valorem taxes plus the non-ad valorem CDD assessment — divide by twelve, and add it to principal, interest and insurance. So the honest way to look at a CDD is what it does to the payment.
On the coast that matters more than it does inland, because the CDD is not competing with nothing. It is stacking on top of a flood premium and a windstorm-exposed homeowners policy. Two St. Johns County homes at the same list price can be $300 a month apart before anyone discusses the interest rate, purely from the assessment and insurance stack. That gap does not show on the listing.
The assessment, by community — annual and monthly
Every figure below is transcribed from that district's own adopted assessment schedule. The monthly column is simply the annual divided by twelve. Ranges are wide because lot size and bond series both move the number.
| Community | District of record | Annual | Per month | What drives the spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aberdeen | Aberdeen CDD | $407 – $1,230 | $34 – $103 | O&M only — debt not published per lot |
| Beacon Lake | Meadow View at Twin Creeks | $1,307 – $4,026 | $109 – $336 | Several bond areas carry no debt at all |
| Durbin Crossing | Durbin Crossing CDD | $1,339 – $4,050 | $112 – $337 | Publishes debt and O&M split by lot |
| Nocatee | Tolomato CDD | $599 – $2,499 | $50 – $208 | Many parcels show no debt — bond retired. Two villages published. |
| RiverTown | Rivers Edge CDD | $1,958 – $4,881 | $163 – $407 | Three separate districts; figures are district one |
| Shearwater | Trout Creek CDD | $2,322 – $2,965 | $194 – $247 | Four assessment areas, tightest spread of the group |
| SilverLeaf | — none — | $0 | $0 | No CDD |
| Beachwalk | Twin Creeks North CDD | not published | — | District confirmed; schedule not posted in readable form |
Sources: each district's adopted or approved assessment schedule — Tolomato, Trout Creek, Rivers Edge, Meadow View at Twin Creeks, Durbin Crossing and Aberdeen CDDs, retrieved August 2026. Aberdeen is FY2027; Shearwater FY2025/26; the rest FY2026. Districts re-adopt every year, so confirm against the current schedule before you rely on a number.
Four things worth knowing before you write the offer
1. Half of it can end. Half of it never does. The debt half repays construction bonds and disappears when the bond matures or is prepaid. The O&M half funds the pools, ponds, gates and landscaping and runs forever. On an 80-foot Durbin Crossing lot that is the difference between roughly $4,050 a year and roughly $1,886 once the bond clears. Ask which half you are looking at.
2. The bond series matters more than the lot. In Beacon Lake a 43-foot home sits at about $1,470 a year in one assessment area and about $2,858 in another — the parcels in the 2019 and 2020 areas carry no debt assessment at all. Same builder, same street grid, nearly double the number.
3. You can pay the debt off early. Districts will quote a payoff. Whether that is smart depends on how long you are staying and what else the money could do — and it is worth asking whether a seller has already prepaid, because that is a real and quantifiable feature of the house that rarely makes it into the remarks.
4. On the coast, run the whole stack. CDD, flood, wind, and the tax bill move together. I would rather show you the full monthly on three houses than the list price on thirty.
Where the CDD is zero
It is worth saying plainly that not every large St. Johns master plan has one. SilverLeaf has no CDD. That is unusual for a community of its size here, and for a payment-sensitive buyer it can be worth more than an amenity list — a $300-a-month assessment is roughly what a meaningful chunk of purchase price costs to carry. Whether the trade is right depends on what you actually want out of the neighbourhood.
Send me an address and I will run the real payment
Lot size gets you in the neighbourhood of the right number. The parcel's assessment area, its bond series, and whether the debt has already been prepaid decide the rest — and none of that is on the listing. I will pull the district schedule for the specific parcel and build the full monthly, assessment and insurance included, before you write, not after.
SilverLeaf does not have a CDD, per the developer (silverleafflorida.com). HOA dues are separate; confirm current HOA with the association. Still confirm the St. Johns County tax bill.