You just closed on a house in WaterColor, Seagrove, or Santa Rosa Beach and you have no idea how many keys to it are floating around. Rekeying on closing day is the first thing to do, and this page explains that and everything else a new owner should think about at the door.
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A house on 30A changes hands with a history. Previous owners, their cleaners, contractors from the last renovation, the rental company that managed it, the pool service, the pest control company, and the neighbor who watered plants have all held a key at some point. When you buy, you inherit every one of those copies unless you change what the lock accepts. This page is for owners and second-home buyers along Scenic Highway 30A and US 98: what rekeying is, why it belongs on closing day, how contractor keys should work during a renovation, what to upgrade at the door, and how to handle the sliders, garage entries, and outbuildings that most people forget.
Rekeying means changing the pins inside the lock cylinder so a new key operates it and every old key stops working. The lock itself, the hardware you see on the door, stays. It is faster and less expensive than replacing hardware and it accomplishes the one thing that matters on day one: nobody from the house's past can open the door anymore.
We recommend doing it the day you get the keys from the closing agent, before the movers, before the first contractor walks through, before the first night you sleep there. A rekey visit for a typical 30A house covers the front door, the door from the garage, any side or back door, and the owner's closet if the house was a rental. Bring every key you were handed at closing; we will tell you which ones fit what and which are to locks that no longer exist.
If the house was managed as a vacation rental, assume the number of keys in circulation is high and the keypad code has been shared with dozens of guests and vendors. Rekey every cylinder and change every code the same day. If the house has a smart lock, remove the previous manager's account and any codes you did not create.
Most houses arrive with a pile of mismatched keys: one for the front, another for the garage entry, a third for the back porch, and a fourth that nobody can identify. When we rekey we can key every exterior lock alike so a single key opens all of them. That is the standard we suggest for a primary residence and it is nearly essential for a second home where you may hand a key to a caretaker.
Keying alike works across most residential brands as long as the keyways match. Where they do not, we can swap cylinders so everything ends up on one key. If you want one door to stay separate, an owner's closet or a workshop, we key that one differently on purpose.
A lot of 30A houses go straight from closing into a renovation. Painters, tile crews, the electrician, and the cabinet installer all need access for weeks, and the easiest thing is to hand out copies of the house key. Do not. There is a better pattern.
We set the exterior locks so that a temporary construction key works during the project. When the work is done, one turn of the owner key resets the cylinders and the construction key is dead. You do not need to collect anything from anyone and you do not need a second rekey. This works with many common residential cylinders and we will tell you if your hardware supports it.
If a lock box is unavoidable, mount it somewhere not visible from the street, use a code you do not use anywhere else, and change it the day the project ends. Better still, use a keypad deadbolt with a temporary contractor code that you delete when the last invoice is paid.
Many houses on the coast were built or last updated with builder-grade hardware. It looks fine and it turns, but the deadbolt has a short throw, the strike plate is held by short screws, and the cylinder is easy to bump. Move-in is the natural moment to upgrade the front door.
For a second home, a keypad deadbolt removes the whole problem of keys. You get a code, the caretaker gets a code, the plumber gets a code that expires on Friday. We install and program them, set them to lock automatically, and show you how to manage codes from your phone if the lock supports it. We also make sure you keep a physical key, because batteries die.
The door facing the Gulf or the pool is usually the weakest lock in the house. Standard slider latches are small hooks that can be lifted, and many French doors have a flimsy flush bolt on the inactive leaf. On move-in we add a proper slider lock, a pin or bar that stops the door from being lifted off its track, and for French doors a real deadbolt on the active leaf with solid bolts top and bottom on the other.
Sliders in salt air also need their rollers and tracks looked at; a door that has to be slammed to latch will not lock reliably and will fail in the first storm of the season.
The door from the garage into the kitchen or hallway is an exterior door, and most houses treat it like a closet. It should have a deadbolt keyed with the rest of the house. The overhead garage door itself needs its emergency release protected so it cannot be fished from outside, and the keypad on the outside of the garage should get a new code the day you move in. If the previous owner left openers in cars they sold, the opener's memory should be cleared and reprogrammed.
A 30A property is more than the main house. Outdoor showers with a locking door, storage rooms under elevated houses, golf cart sheds, pool equipment enclosures, pool gates, and side yard gates all have locks that came with the house and keys that did not. We rekey or replace these on the same visit and can put them on the house key or a separate outbuilding key, whichever fits how you will use the property.
Pool gates in particular should self-close and self-latch; if the latch is worn, fix it on move-in day, both because it is required and because it matters.
If you will not be in the house most of the year, plan the locks around the people who will: a caretaker, a cleaner, family who visit, a pool company. Give each their own code on a keypad deadbolt, keep one physical key with someone local you trust, and keep a written record of who has what. When someone stops working for you, delete their code that day. Before you close the house for a long stretch, turn every lock once so the mechanisms stay free.
Houses that were rentals almost always have an owner's closet: a locked room or cabinet where the previous owner kept personal items away from guests. That lock came with its own key and its own history. On move-in we rekey it to a key that is separate from the house key if you plan to rent, or fold it into the house key if you will live there full time. Interior locks on bedrooms, offices, and the laundry room are worth a look too; many were installed with simple privacy latches that can be opened with a coin, which is fine for a bathroom and not fine for a room where you keep documents or equipment.
Then think about who will need to get in when you are not there. A cleaner, a pool company, a handyman, and a neighbor who checks after storms each need a way in that you can take away later. The cleanest answer is a keypad deadbolt with one code per person. If you prefer physical keys, we can cut a small number on a restricted keyway so copies cannot be made at a hardware counter without your authorization, and we keep a record of how many exist.
Every lock on the Gulf side of a 30A house lives in a fine mist of salt. Standard residential hardware from a big-box store is built for a suburb, not a dune line, and the difference shows within a year: pitted finishes, stiff cylinders, and latches that grind. When we replace hardware during a move-in we steer toward stainless or coated finishes, sealed cylinders where they are available, and deadbolts whose bolt and strike are made from materials that do not corrode into each other. A light dry lubricant in each keyway twice a year keeps everything moving; oil-based sprays attract sand and should stay in the garage.
We work along the full length of Scenic Highway 30A, from Dune Allen Beach and Gulf Place through Blue Mountain Beach, Grayton Beach, WaterColor, Seaside, Seagrove Beach, Watersound, Seacrest Beach, Alys Beach, Rosemary Beach, and Inlet Beach, and along US 98 through Santa Rosa Beach, with County Roads 393, 283, and 395 in between.
If you have a closing date on the calendar anywhere along 30A, put a rekey on the same date. Call (850) 740-4224.