By David Cawton, Staff Writer
Northeast Florida’s real estate market is off to a good start in 2017, especially for sellers.
That doesn’t mean buyers should beware.
“North Florida is still considered a value compared to the rest of the state,” said Northeast Florida Association of Realtors President Marc Jernigan.
He said two story lines emerged in the first quarter of the year — lower inventory for new and used homes and higher home prices across the board.
Supply and demand
NEFAR compiled information for the six counties in Northeast Florida — Duval, St. Johns, Clay, Nassau, Baker and Putnam — through March.
It shows housing inventory down 21.1 percent year over year.
That may seem like a large dip, but Jernigan cautions the data can be a misleading because foreclosures and short sales have dwindled to near pre-recession numbers.
“Since the recovery, and over the last 3-4 years, those homes have been scooped up,” Jernigan said. “It just feels like inventory is lower than it should be.”
One area that continues to climb across most of the region, however, is median home prices — up 10.6 percent year over year.
Here’s how that breaks down so far in 2017:
• Duval County, median home prices are up 12.7 percent to $169,000.
• St. Johns County residents haven’t seen too much change since 2016, with prices up just 3.4 percent. The median price is around $300,000, the highest in the area.
• Clay County, prices are up 10.7 percent. As of March, the median home price is around $172,700.
• In Nassau County, the median home price is $220,000, an increase of 10 percent.
According to the most recent snapshot from the Florida Association of Realtors taken in February, homes in the Jacksonville metro market are more affordable than those in Miami, Orlando or Tampa.
Area Realtors say this is a sign that Jacksonville is thriving right now, and for good reason.
“It’s the traditional things, as boring as that sounds, that attract people to move here,” said Dane Leslie, vice president and mortgage broker at Watson Realty Corp. “It’s a great place to raise a family and it’s a better value than the rest of the state.”
That’s good news for buyers and sellers, Leslie said.
“It was probably one of the busiest first-quarter periods that I’ve seen,” said Leslie, who’s been working in the Jacksonville real estate market since the early 1990s.
While a considerable amount of new construction is commercial, it’s hard to ignore larger housing developments popping up all over town.
“I’d say that’s one of the best indicators that we’re in a good market,” Leslie said.
New construction represents about 17 percent of home sales this year, and experts say that’s business as usual.
If there’s one complaint with new area construction, it’s that there doesn’t seem to be much available for under $220,000. The average new home is going for around $280,000.
Lee Arsenault, president of the Northeast Florida Builders Association, said it’s because there’s not much incentive for developers to build at a lower price point.
“If you want to build an affordable community within a certain area or city limit, you’re going to end up paying impact fees, mobility fees and other types of costs,” Arsenault said. “There’s a lot of loaded costs that the homeowner never sees, but they end up absorbing as a part of the sale price.”
This year could have gotten off to a much rougher start coming off a hotly contested election season. Instead, the first quarter showed strong signs of growth, according to NEFAR.
Leslie says the market did well despite any perceived negatives caused by the results of November’s presidential election.
“The one thing people fear is uncertainty, the fear of not knowing what’s going to happen,” said Leslie. “Once that’s over, which I believe it is, then you move on.”
Leslie doesn’t see any other major hiccups ahead for the market, adding that it should be business as usual in 2017.
In NEFAR’s March report, the association points to a strong U.S. economy, wage growth and retail consumption, and low unemployment as reasons to be optimistic about the housing market in 2017.
Jernigan says Jacksonville’s metro market continues to be a great value for home buyers, especially compared to other areas of the state and our neighbors to the north
“Jacksonville is on the rise,” he said.