"I'm afraid you are not going to tell me what to do with my house."

A DeFuniak Springs resident said that to the city council at an October 2025 meeting, objecting to a document the city's Community Redevelopment Agency was finalizing. The document wasn't a new law. CRA Director Josh Ervin told the council it didn't add or remove a single regulation. It just took rules that already existed across three separate historic district documents and put them in one place, so a homeowner could actually find them.

That distinction, between new rules and clearer rules, is worth sitting with if you're shopping DeFuniak Springs against the Walton County beach towns and wondering why the price tags are so different. The gap is real. So is the reason it exists, and it has less to do with square footage than with what you're allowed to do to the outside of the house once you own it.

The Gap Everyone Already Sees

Walton County's countywide numbers tell a growth story. Over the three months ending May 2026, the county's median sale price ran $748,000, up 27.8% from the same period a year earlier, according to Redfin. That's a county absorbing a lot of demand at once.

Split the county in two and the story gets more specific. As of Zillow's May 31, 2026 update, the typical home value in Santa Rosa Beach sat at $857,794, down 2.3% over the prior year, with homes going to pending in around 61 days. In DeFuniak Springs, the same dated snapshot put the typical home value at $238,298, down 0.5% over the year, pending in around 37 days.

Both markets cooled slightly over that stretch. Neither is on fire. But the gap between them, roughly 3.6 times, has nothing to do with momentum and everything to do with what each dollar is attached to: Gulf frontage and 30A proximity on one side, a spring-fed lake and a 19th-century townscape on the other.

Buyers usually stop the analysis there. That's the part the median doesn't finish telling you.

What the Price Doesn't Buy You

DeFuniak Springs has two historic districts, not one town-wide rule. The original district wraps Circle Drive around Lake DeFuniak, home to nearly 200 buildings from the Chautauqua era, roughly 40 of them individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In July 2023 the city council created a second one, the Dorsey Avenue Historic District, giving it its own name and boundary rather than simply expanding the first.

Buy a house inside either boundary and the city's code of ordinances puts a building-zoning official between you and any exterior change. Per the ordinance language on file with Municode, before altering, adding to, or demolishing anything visible from the street inside the district, an owner needs a Certificate of Appropriateness. The official weighs the work against the architectural style, materials, texture, and color of the structure and its neighbors before signing off.

A few specifics worth knowing before you write an offer on an older DeFuniak Springs home:

• Certificate of Appropriateness required: new siding, windows, roofline changes, additions, and any other change to the exterior architectural features of a structure inside the district.
• Extra review for demolition: tearing down any structure over 75 years old, or one otherwise flagged as historically or architecturally significant, requires the site to be surveyed before demolition can proceed.
• What's exempt: ordinary maintenance and repair, and anything you do to the inside of the house. The ordinance is explicit that interior alterations aren't the city's business.

That last point matters more than it sounds. A DeFuniak Springs Victorian priced at a third of a Santa Rosa Beach cottage can still get you a full interior renovation without a design hearing. It's the outside, the porch columns, the roofline, the paint scheme visible from Circle Drive, that goes through review.

Two Districts Now, and the Rulebook Just Got Rewritten

The Dorsey Avenue designation didn't merge with the original Circle Drive district when it was created in 2023. The city noted at the time that a full survey of both areas hadn't been done, so rather than expand one boundary, it stood up a second district under the same standards. That's a detail a title search or a quick drive around town won't surface. A parcel that looks like it's outside the historic zone from the street may sit inside a boundary that was drawn separately from the one everybody assumes exists.

At that same October 2025 meeting, Ervin presented the newest version of the Historical Preservation Design Standards, folding the three prior documents, one for each district, into a single reference. Councilman Todd Bierbaum, who told the room he owns a downtown building himself, said he's a strong advocate for property rights but also understands the town's historic character needs protecting. Mayor Bob Campbell said the council and code enforcement would be as gracious as possible, while adding that doesn't mean there's no line at all.

None of that changed what's allowed. It changed how easy it is to find out what's allowed, which is exactly what makes the timing worth knowing if you're closing on a historic district property this year. The rulebook a buyer references six months from now may read differently than the one a seller quoted when the listing went up, even if the underlying regulations haven't moved.

What You Get Instead of Beach Frontage

The other half of this comparison is what the lower price actually buys, beyond the number itself.

Lake DeFuniak is a nearly round, spring-fed lake with a walking loop around Circle Drive, past the Walton-DeFuniak Library, in continuous operation since the 1880s and generally cited as the oldest still-operating library in the state. Baldwin Avenue closes to host a Saturday farmers market, and recent years have brought a run of new restaurants along the same stretch, including Iron and Grape, an Italian spot that took over the old Bogey's space, alongside Sweet Southern Comfort and Perla Bakery. Chautauqua Vineyards and Winery sits a short drive out of downtown. Golfers have two courses to choose from, Eagle Springs and Blackstone, each with a restaurant on site.

The town also runs an annual event built directly around its Chautauqua-era identity. Summit on the Circle returned for its second year April 23 through 26, 2026, with programming centered on storytelling through music, art, food, and architecture, staged in and around the historic district itself.

None of that replaces Gulf access. It's a different kind of daily life, one built around a lake instead of a shoreline, and it's the actual product behind the discount, not just an absence of beach.

If You're Comparing These Two Walton County Markets

The practical move, if a DeFuniak Springs historic home is on your list alongside something in Santa Rosa Beach or elsewhere on 30A, is to find out before you write an offer whether the specific parcel sits inside the Circle Drive district, the Dorsey Avenue district, or neither. The city's planning staff can confirm this directly, and it takes a phone call, not a guess based on the street.

If the answer is yes, the next question isn't whether you can renovate. Interior work is yours to do. It's whether your plans touch the exterior, and if they do, building that review step into your timeline rather than discovering it after closing. This is where having someone who's spent time on both sides of a building permit helps: knowing which projects are routine maintenance and which ones need a Certificate of Appropriateness before a contractor can start is the difference between a smooth renovation and a stalled one.

The county median won't tell you any of this. Neither will a listing photo of a wraparound porch on Circle Drive. But it's exactly the kind of detail that determines whether a DeFuniak Springs bargain stays a bargain once you own it.

FAQ

Does the historic district review apply to interior renovations? No. The ordinance is specific that interior alterations and ordinary maintenance and repair fall outside the review process. The Certificate of Appropriateness requirement covers exterior architectural features only.

What if the house isn't 75 years old yet? The 75-year threshold applies specifically to demolition review. A younger home inside the historic district boundary can still require a Certificate of Appropriateness for exterior changes like additions or new siding, even if it doesn't trigger the demolition survey requirement.

Is the whole town under historic review, or just Circle Drive? Just two defined districts, Circle Drive's original historic district and the Dorsey Avenue Historic District created in 2023. Most of DeFuniak Springs sits outside both boundaries and isn't subject to this review process at all.

If you're weighing a lake-town value play against a beach-town premium anywhere in Walton County, that's exactly the kind of comparison Johnnette Acree spends her time on, with a contractor's eye for what a property will actually let you do once it's yours. Let's connect.