Rob Kearney, Owner & Broker, Kearney Real Estate Services

The Jacksonville region’s real estate market is showing a great deal of potential, with growth in sectors like medical, services for the aging population, and logistics, Rob Kearney, owner and broker of Kearney Real Estate Services, told Invest:. “Jacksonville is well positioned from a financial and geographical standpoint to handle new growth,” he said.

What is your perspective on where the residential real estate market stands in Northeast Florida?

The last two or three years have been phenomenal as people have been flocking to the state and obviously to North Florida as well. In the past four or five months of this year, inventories have risen considerably, so there are a lot more units on the market, both single-family and condo units. I’m speaking primarily about the beach areas of Northeast Florida or Jacksonville. At the beach, we get a combination of people who are coming to retire, those looking for single-family homes and moving here with families, corporate relocations, and people looking for investment property that is near the beach or the river. With that said, inventory has now gone up by three times versus a year ago, but if you look at it as a whole over the last five to 10 years, we’re still less than what we normally have on the market.

Do you find people are getting more concerned about issues like erosion and climate change?

Five years ago, nobody ever said anything about those issues. Few people still say anything about it now, although there are certainly more than before. I would say that maybe 1 in 6 buyers we’ve talked to or have been exposed to have asked for some clarification around elevation, chances of flooding, and homeowners’ insurance rates as a result of the proximity to the beach. 

Those considerations have become more known to most buyers. The awareness factor has probably gone up 100%. The actual concern factor, however, is at a low level.

How much of an impact is the insurance market having on buyers?

The first question used to be what are my property taxes going to be in this county or that county? What’s the cost of the property? Now, the first question is: Can I get insurance? How much is that insurance going to be? 

I think the legislature has been doing a good job, and I think five or six new companies have been allowed to enter the market after being vetted, and also after they’ve put up the required deposits to operate within the state. So, I think we’re starting to have better competition between the companies, which benefits those trying to get insurance. The state-funded funds for replacement, repair values, and everything else to cover the shortfalls from insurance companies have risen considerably over the last three to five years because we haven’t had as many storms as had been predicted. As a result, there are much bigger reserves than there have been.

Is Jacksonville ready for future growth?

In my view, it’s always based upon jobs and the available jobs – the well-paying jobs or jobs that are paying enough to make it sustainable for the people who are moving here.  Jacksonville has been good from a business community and a business growth standpoint. From that aspect, whether it’s the medical side, which is driven by Mayo Clinic and all the other facilities that are directly or indirectly related to it, that continues to grow from an aging population that needs more healthcare, to transportation logistics, which is ever growing, with CSX and the ancillary businesses of that. Then there’s the financial aspect of it. 

Jacksonville has a large landmass. It is able to grow to the north, to the west, and the south. As a result, we’re not penned in like the southeast or southwest sections of Florida. 

We’ve also always been more of a working community as opposed to just being for empty nesters coming down for the Florida sunshine. So, Jacksonville is well positioned from both the financial and geographical standpoints to handle growth. There is also the new stadium for the Jacksonville Jaguars that is going to go through, or at least there is an agreement between both sides to get the stadium completed. The NFL is one of the biggest businesses in the country. To have one of 32 teams in your city and your Northeast region is a big thing, and they bring a lot of money to the area. Keeping them here with a new stadium over the next 10 to 15 years creates a better environment for all the residents of Jacksonville and Northeast Florida, and not just for football fans.

What is the landscape in terms of affordable housing?

There has not been a lot of change regarding the discussions on the zoning and the density. We’re still blessed with a lot of acreage up here and an expanse of lands that can be bought and developed. Builders and developers, just from an economics standpoint, end up doing smaller lots all the time. But if you were paying $10,000 for an acre and now, you’re paying $40,000 for an acre, then that acreage has got to yield more home sites. Otherwise, the price of houses is going to be beyond reach for the vast majority of people. The only way to do it is to have more yield out of that acreage from a development standpoint. Therefore, the lots are going to get smaller, and they have gotten smaller within a total development, within a PUD, or a planned unit development. 

The city of Jacksonville controls the whole county. Everything is from a county standpoint. You don’t have cities in the middle of those counties doing their own thing. That being said, as they’re getting further and further away from the city of Jacksonville, the core aspects of core working areas, they have a lot of acreage that can still handle big projects with a lot of units in them.