Could Duval be heading for a housing crisis? Jacksonville among 7 Florida cities cited in new study

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Local realtors are responding to what a study conducted by a national research team called “alarming signs” that could show a housing crisis is in the future for cities in the Sunshine State.

According to a recent study by GoBankingRates, Jacksonville ranked number five out of the seven Florida cities mentioned.

In the study, GoBankingRates pulled data from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Consumer Protection Bureau, and RealtyTrac and reviewed the percentage of mortgages that are delinquent and renter vacancy rates.

Local realtors, however, said the data doesn’t paint a full picture of the North Florida market, at a time when projecting the future of real estate is increasingly difficult with multiple factors.

Orlando was ranked number one on the list as a city in danger of facing a housing crisis.

While people may be flocking to Disney World, researchers at GoBankingRates said homeowners are starting to leave Orlando, pointing to spiking vacancy rates for both renters and homeowners.

MORE: Jacksonville housing market sees big slowdown, home purchases fall through at highest rate in nation

The study showed nearly 50% of the homes for sale in Orlando are in foreclosure.

Fort Lauderdale was number two, following Gainesville, Miami and Jacksonville.

Howard Flaschen with Round Table Realty said it’s always hard to make predictions and doesn’t agree with Jacksonville’s rankings, noting that pre-foreclosures were considered in the data, which aren’t necessarily an indicator of what could happen in the future.

“Someone may have been late on a payment. Or we’re negotiating with a bank for a forbearance or a loan modification or maybe they were even doing a refinance out of a HELOC and missed the payment or late payment, it’s going to be paid off at closing that shows up on many of the portal websites because they just do it in an automated fashion. A box gets checked somewhere it shows up as a pre-foreclosure,” Flaschen said.

The report shows that out of the 3,664 Jacksonville homes on the market, 1,706 of those homes are foreclosed, according to GoBankingRates.

• 0.8% of mortgages were delinquent 30-89 days

• 0.6% of mortgages were delinquent 90 days

The rental vacancy rate is at 6.6%, and the homeowner vacancy rate is at 2.0% in Jacksonville. The national homeowner vacancy rate for quarter 3 of 2022 was 0.9%.

Flaschen, who brokered his agency through the foreclosure and short sales crisis in 2010, said the dynamic is different in today’s real estate market. He said 12 years ago leading up to the housing crisis, home prices dropped up to 50%, and home inventory was high, which is the opposite of today’s real estate outlook, which Flaschen said should provide consumers with some comfort.

“Now we have the opposite. We have very, very little inventory. We have buyers who can buy homes and have jobs for the most part. It’s really a question about negotiations a year ago, buyers really didn’t have a leg to stand on when it came to negotiating. They basically had to pay list price.”

News4JAX reached out to GoBankingRate about the real estate analysis but has not heard back yet.