30A rental property, researched honestly
The only 30A numbers worth your trust are the ones you can verify.
30A Investor is a research hub for people considering rental property on Scenic Highway 30A. We publish the market's real structure, the taxes and licenses by name, and the full cost stack as categories. We do not publish returns, projections, or anyone's revenue screenshots.
- 12towns, one corridor
- 18.6miles of 30A
- 5%bed tax south of the bay, per the county clerk
Most 30A rentals are individually owned homes run by local managers and syndicated to the platforms. The market is knowable. The shortcuts are not.
The facts under every page here
Three moves before any offer
Every guide on this site serves one of these three moves, in order.
Learn the rules by name
The bed tax, the state taxes, the license classes: what each is, who administers it, and where you register. Categories and authorities, never guesses.
Move 2Read the towns like an operator
Twelve towns, one road, very different demand postures. What each town structurally offers a rental, stated qualitatively and sourced.
Move 3Verify before you offer
The due-diligence checklist: license status, tax accounts, flood zone, HOA terms, and the rental history as documents, not marketing.
Every line on a 30A ownership ledger has an operating authority
Our signature habit: we never state a rule without naming who runs it. Here is the ledger we keep, with the doors to knock on.
| Ledger line | What it is | Operating authority |
|---|---|---|
| Tourist Development Tax | 5% south of the bay on rent plus required non-refundable fees, remitted by the owner | Walton County Clerk |
| State sales tax and surtax | 6% state rate plus any county discretionary surtax on short stays | Florida Department of Revenue |
| Vacation rental license | Condo or dwelling class, single, group, or collective | Florida DBPR |
| Flood zone | The parcel's official flood hazard information, looked up by address | FEMA Flood Map Service Center |
| Property tax | Assessed locally; the county appraiser and tax collector are the working contacts | Florida DOR county official locator |
| Guest beach conduct | Bonfires on the sand run on permits from the fire district, a detail guests will ask about | South Walton Fire District |
What we do differently
No return math, ever
No cap rates, no ROI, no appreciation curves, no revenue averages. Any of those would require inventing at least one input, and we do not invent inputs.
Categories, not estimates
We name every cost an owner carries and we refuse to guess its size, because your insurance quote and your management contract are facts we cannot see.
Dated, sourced, corrected
Every page carries its update date and its sources. Rules change; when they do, the page changes and the date moves with it.
Buyers we write for
The out-of-state buyer
Researching from another time zone and determined not to learn the rules at closing.
The spreadsheet builder
Wants the complete cost column before falling in love with a porch.
The listing skeptic
Has seen the gross revenue screenshots and wants the stack that sits underneath them.
The first-timer
Choosing a first town with a working budget and no appetite for folklore.
We will never publish a cap rate, an ROI figure, or an appreciation projection.
Every return number for a house you have not bought requires inventing at least one input: the rate, the occupancy, the repair year, the resale. We publish only what can be verified, which is the rules, the cost categories, and the market's structure. You bring the assumptions; our worksheet does the arithmetic in the open and predicts nothing. If you catch a projected return anywhere on this site, we broke our own first rule.
The carry-cost worksheet
Every field starts empty. You enter the numbers you researched, it does the arithmetic to gross and net in plain sight, and nothing you type leaves the page.
Hear when the research changes
The research list
An occasional email when a rule, a tax, or a guide on this site materially changes. No deal flow, no picks, no pitches.
No spam and no address sales. One list serves our small 30A publisher network, so signing up on any of our sites is signing up once. Unsubscribe anytime.