Florida Housing Market

House with a front porch

 How to read the listings under this page

Real Geeks places active listings under the body of this page from a saved search: Duval County, status active, newest first. Newest first answers one question. What came on the market recently in Duval. It does not answer what sold, what the seller accepted, or what a house in Clay is doing. If a card shows a price, that price is an asking price. Sellers ask. Buyers negotiate. The gap between those two numbers is the list-to-close comparison, and you cannot see it on an active card that has not closed.

Read each card for the facts that change the payment, not for the adjectives. Bedroom and bathroom count, garage or carport, year built, whether there is an association, and whether the remarks mention a flood zone, a special assessment, or a roof that is original. The MLS flood field is incomplete. A blank flood line is not a promise of Zone X. Look the panel up yourself. Two active houses at a similar ask can have wildly different insurance once one of them is in a Special Flood Hazard Area and the other is not.

Do not average the asking prices on the first screen and call it the market. The first screen is whatever listed most recently. A luxury listing and a small ranch can post on the same day. The average of those asks is not a median, and a median of asks is still not a median of sales. If you want the dated local report, use monthly market updates. If you want to keep scrolling what is new, just listed and Jacksonville homes are the inventory pages. Search by ZIP is how you stop treating the whole county as one neighborhood.

 How to read closed sales

A closed sale is a contract that made it to a deed. For one house you are about to offer on, the useful set is narrow. Same subdivision, or the closest streets if the subdivision is tiny. Same bedroom count. Closed in the last 90 days. If 90 days produces only one sale, say so, and then look a little farther back without pretending a sale from last spring is this week's market. Write down the list price, the closed price, and the days between list and contract if you can see them. List-to-close is the ratio or the dollar gap between what the seller asked and what the deed recorded. A house that asked one number and closed lower is a different fact from a house that asked and got it.

Concessions hide inside some of those closes. A closed price of a certain dollar amount with a large seller credit is not the same net to the seller, and it is not the same cash from the buyer, as a closed price with no credit. If the report you are reading does not show concessions, do not assume there were none. Ask for the concession line before you copy the closed price into an offer. Condition hides in the same way. A renovated house and a house with an original roof are not a pair just because they have the same bed count. Adjust for what you can see. Do not invent a dollar adjustment you cannot explain to the seller.

New construction and resale do not sit on the same shelf. A builder incentive, a rate buydown, and a lot premium change the headline price in ways a 40-year-old ranch does not. Compare builder to builder and resale to resale before you compare them to each other. Pending sales are not closed sales. A pending price, when it is even visible, is a contract that can still fall apart at inspection, appraisal, or financing. Do not treat pendings as the market. Treat them as a hint that buyers are writing offers, then wait for the close or read the closed set you already have.

What not to use

Do not use a national average. Do not use a Florida figure from a cable segment that does not name the month and the county. Do not use Zillow's automated value as a closed sale. An automated value is a model. A closed sale is a deed. Do not use the tax appraiser's just value as the price a buyer will pay this month. The appraiser's just value is a mass-appraisal number for the tax roll. It can be close to the market or far from it, and it is not your offer. Do not use the price per square foot from a house twice the size. Square-foot math punishes small houses and flatters large ones, and it ignores garages, flood zones, and the lot.

 The payment is the market you actually live in

Principal and interest are the loan. The rate is whatever the lender locks, and this page will not invent today's rate. Taxes are the local bill: county, school board, city, and special districts. The property appraiser sets value. The taxing authorities set millage. The tax collector sends the bill. Insurance is homeowners, and wind is part of that conversation in Northeast Florida. Flood insurance is separate from the homeowners policy. Association dues are a monthly or quarterly bill on top. A community development district assessment can ride on the tax bill as a non-ad valorem fee. A house with a lower asking price and a heavy insurance quote, a flood policy, and a CDD can cost more each month than a house with a higher asking price and a boring insurance quote.

Ask the lender to show you the full payment, not the principal-and-interest line alone. Bring a tax estimate from the collector or from the listing's tax history, and bring an insurance quote for that specific house. A quote from a different ZIP code is not a quote. If the house is in a flood zone, bring the flood quote too. Lenders on federally related loans have to require flood insurance when the building is in a Special Flood Hazard Area. Zone AE is that kind of zone, with a base flood elevation. Zone X is outside the Special Flood Hazard Area. Unshaded X is outside the 0.2 percent annual-chance floodplain. Shaded X is the 0.2 percent floodplain, or an area protected by a levee, or sheet-flow flooding under a foot. Zone X is not "no flood." Many owners in Zone X still buy a preferred-risk or private policy. This page does not quote a premium. Risk Rating 2.0 prices the building, not a flat zone price. Look up the panel at the FEMA Map Service Center. Background on flood insurance lives at FloodSmart and at the Florida Division of Emergency Management.

HOA dues do not go away because you plan to live there quietly. Read the estoppel or the resale packet for the amount, for special assessments, and for rental rules if you might PCS out and keep the house. A special assessment approved last year is part of the cost of this market, for this house, even if the neighbor's house in a different association does not have one.

 Duval is several markets

Duval County is Jacksonville, the three beach cities, and Baldwin. Inside that county the product changes by the mile. Mandarin and the south end are a different commute from the Northside. The Westside is a different price conversation from Riverside and Ortega, and a different one from Arlington. The urban core and Springfield are a different renovation conversation from a 1990s subdivision off Hodges. None of those sentences is a price. They are a warning not to pull three closed sales from three of those areas and average them.

When you read the active feed under this page, sort your own notes by area before you sort them by price. A newest-first county feed will jump from a Southside listing to a Westside listing to a Northside listing. That jump is the search working. It is not the market "being all over the place" in a way that forbids an offer. Tighten the map. Same beds, same area, then look at what closed there. NAS Jacksonville, NS Mayport, and Blount Island Command put buyers on a report date. That demand is real. It is not a reason to skip the inspection, the flood panel, or the insurance quote. Orders do not repair a roof.

 The beaches

Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach, and Jacksonville Beach are in Duval County. They show up in a Duval search. They do not behave like a Westside ranch. Older houses, flood and evacuation geography, insurance, and a smaller pool of listings are the usual themes, and this page will not pretend to count that pool. Ponte Vedra is not in those three cities. Ponte Vedra is in St. Johns County. A "beaches" search that quietly includes Ponte Vedra has changed counties, changed the school district, and changed the property appraiser. Keep them separate when you build comps. A closed sale in Jacksonville Beach is not a comp for a house in Ponte Vedra, and it is not a comp for a house in Mandarin.

Flood is part of the beach conversation more often than it is part of an inland Westside conversation. That does not mean every beach house is in Zone AE, and it does not mean every inland house is in Zone X. The panel is the panel. An elevation certificate can change a premium. It does not remove the zone. A Letter of Map Amendment is a FEMA process. This page does not promise one. If the payment only works when you pretend flood insurance is optional on a house the lender will require it on, the payment does not work.

 Clay County

Clay is Orange Park, Fleming Island, Middleburg, Green Cove Springs, and the rest of the county west and south of Duval's border along the river. Orange Park is the close-in commute toward NAS Jacksonville. Fleming Island is its own set of subdivisions and its own association pattern. Middleburg is more land and a longer drive. Green Cove Springs is the county seat, on the St. Johns River, on US 17. Those four are not one Clay median. A newest listing in Middleburg does not price a house on Fleming Island.

Clay has its own property appraiser, its own tax collector, and its own school district. A Jacksonville mailing address on an Orange Park house does not make the house Duval. The tax bill and the school locator follow the county. Insurance can be calmer or harsher than a Duval beach house on the same day, depending on the roof, the year built, and the flood panel. Get the quote. Do not borrow the neighbor's premium from a group chat. The active feed under this particular page is Duval, so Clay closed sales will not be sitting in that feed. Pull Clay comps on purpose. Do not stretch a Duval ranch across the county line and call it close enough.

 St. Johns County

St. Johns County is St. Augustine, the northwest part of the county along Race Track Road, Fruit Cove, Julington Creek, Nocatee, Ponte Vedra, and a great deal of new construction between them. It is not a suburb that shares Duval's tax roll. The school district is St. Johns County, not Duval County Public Schools. The property appraiser is Eddie Creamer's office, not the Duval appraiser. Buyers cross the county line for schools, for newer houses, and for a commute up I-95 or 9A, and they sometimes discover the CDD or the HOA on the second visit. Read the dues before you fall in love with the amenity.

Julington Creek is in St. Johns County. It is not in Duval, even when a listing says Jacksonville because of the mailing address. ZIP 32259 is bigger than one community. Do not use one ZIP as a whole market. Nocatee is not Julington Creek. St. Augustine's older streets are not a master-planned community off Race Track Road. Ponte Vedra is not St. Augustine Beach in a comp set, even though both can see water on a map. Keep the closed sales inside the same product. A builder credit in a new phase does not tell you what a ten-year-old resale will close for two miles away.

 Nassau County

Nassau is Yulee, Fernandina Beach, and Callahan, north of Duval. Yulee is the growth side off the interstate, with newer subdivisions and a drive south into Jacksonville. Fernandina Beach is the island and the historic town, with a different insurance and flood conversation and a different pace. Callahan is the west side of the county. They do not share a single Nassau price, and they do not share Duval's. Amelia Island flood and wind questions are house-specific. A Yulee subdivision behind a store on State Road 200 is a different panel and a different commute from a house downtown on Centre Street.

Nassau has its own property appraiser, A. Michael Hickox, its own tax collector, John M. Drew, and its own school district. A buyer who starts the search in Duval and drifts north should reset the comps at the county line. The active listings under this page will not do that reset for you. They are Duval. Nassau demand from people stationed in Jacksonville is real, because the drive is possible. Possible is not the same as a short commute at 6:30 a.m. Drive it before you treat Yulee and the Southside as substitutes.

 Homestead cap versus the tax bill

Buyers hear "the taxes are capped" and think the bill cannot rise. That is not what the statute does. Save Our Homes, section 193.155, caps how fast the assessed value of a homesteaded property can rise from year to year. For 2026 the cap is 2.7 percent, the lesser of 3 percent and the CPI change of 2.7 percent. Assessed value is the number the exemption is applied to. The tax bill is assessed value, after exemptions, times millage, plus non-ad valorem fees. Millage is set by the county, the school board, the city, and special districts. A cap on value is not a cap on the bill. If millage rises, the bill can rise even when assessed value rose only by the cap. If a non-ad valorem fee rises, the bill can rise with no change in value at all.

The 2026 homestead exemption, confirmed by the St. Johns County Property Appraiser and matching the Florida Department of Revenue CPI notice, is a full total of $51,411. The first $25,000 comes off every levy, including school. The additional $26,411 comes off non-school levies only, and only off assessed value between $50,000 and $76,411. The band from $25,001 to $50,000 stays taxable. A house assessed at $280,000 does not subtract $51,411 from the school taxable value. The school taxable value loses the first $25,000. The non-school taxable value loses the first $25,000 and the additional $26,411, if the value is high enough to reach that band. This page will not multiply those taxable values by a guessed millage. Read the TRIM notice. Two houses in the same county can sit in different cities and different districts.

When a house sells, the buyer does not inherit the seller's Save Our Homes cap. The next roll can move to a new just value. The first tax bill you see after a fall closing may still reflect the seller's exemptions and the seller's capped assessment. Budget from a realistic reset, then file your own homestead if you qualify, and watch the following year's TRIM. Portability, Form DR-501T, can transfer some of the assessment difference to a new Florida homestead. You file it with the new county's property appraiser, generally with the new homestead application. The amount that transfers is capped by statute. This page will not invent the dollar amount. Do not write an offer that only works if a specific portability savings appears. Ask the appraiser what the file supports after you own the house.

Florida has no state income tax. That fact does not make the property tax small. Property tax is local. A senior local-option extra exemption exists for someone who is 65 on January 1, with a 2026 household income limit of $38,686, in counties that adopted it. Do not assume every county grants an extra $50,000. A long-term senior exemption, 25 years and just value under $250,000, is a separate local option. Ask the county where the house sits. Neither senior exemption is a reason to skip the insurance quote.

 Where to file, by county

You must own legal or equitable title and occupy the house as your permanent residence on January 1 of the tax year you want. The timely deadline is March 1. In 2026, March 1 was a Sunday, so the timely deadline was Monday, March 2, 2026. The St. Johns County Property Appraiser and the Nassau County Property Appraiser both published that. As of September 28, 2026, the timely 2026 window is closed. Late filing is only for extenuating circumstances, generally until 25 days after the TRIM notice is mailed, which is mid to late summer. Do not assume that late door is still open. Ask the appraiser on the day you are reading this. A buyer closing in fall 2026 who will occupy by January 1, 2027 files for the 2027 tax year by March 1, 2027. Nassau has already opened 2027 applications.

One permanent residence. A residency-based exemption in another state can defeat Florida homestead. The Social Security number is mandatory under section 196.011. A wrongful claim can create a lien, a 50 percent penalty, and 15 percent interest under section 196.161. Clerical error by the appraiser is treated differently. After approval, homestead renews. The appraiser mails a renewal. Refile if ownership, marital status, or residency changes. If a trust holds the house, the applicant needs beneficial title. Bring the trust. Have the closing attorney or a Florida attorney confirm that the trust qualifies. This is not legal advice from a listing page.

Duval

Online homestead is homestead.coj.net. Phone (904) 255-5900. In person: 231 E. Forsyth Street, Suite 260, Jacksonville, FL 32202. The deed must be in your name before the online system will accept the application. The office says to allow about 60 days after closing for the deed to post. If it has not posted, file in person. The online session does not save. Plan about an hour. Bring a Florida driver license or ID showing the homestead address, including the ID number and issue date, the vehicle tag, voter registration if you are registered, date of birth, Social Security number, date of Florida residency, date of occupancy, purchase date, and the mailing address on the last IRS return. Adding a person or an extra exemption to an existing homestead is in person. The tax collector is at jacksonville.gov and duvaltc.com, phone (904) 255-5700, email taxcollector@coj.net, 231 E. Forsyth Street, Monday through Friday 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The collector published a 4 percent discount if the bill is paid by November 30, 3 percent by December 31, 2 percent by January 31, 1 percent by February 28, then due by March 31 before it is delinquent. Other counties follow the same Florida discount statute. Confirm the date on that county's bill. The deed records at the Duval County Clerk of Courts. This page does not invent a clerk URL.

Clay

Property Appraiser Tracy Scott Drake, ccpao.com, online at exemption.ccpao.com. Phone (904) 284-6305, extension 1. Second floor, County Administration Building, 477 Houston Street, Green Cove Springs, FL 32043, Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Timely applications can be online, by mail, or in person. After March 1 the office says you file in person with a late-file explanation, up to 25 days after TRIM. Proof is a Florida driver license or ID at the homestead address, plus one more item: voter card, vehicle registration, W-2, federal return, or utility bill. For 2026, timely applications were to be processed by July 1, 2026. Denials were mailed July 1. Approved exemptions show on the August TRIM. Tax Collector Diane Hutchings: claycountytax.com, phone (904) 269-6320, property tax phone (904) 269-6395, mail PO Box 218, Green Cove Springs, FL 32043.

St. Johns

Eddie Creamer, sjcpa.gov homestead and portability and exemptions. Phone (904) 827-5500. Email sjcpa@sjcpa.gov. The online portal handles homestead, portability, and other exemptions. The Florida driver license or ID must show the homestead address. Licenses updated after November 1, 2023 may have been reissued with a new number. Upload the new one. Non-U.S. citizens use a permanent resident card. Trust filings need the pages that show beneficial ownership. Neither spouse may hold a residency exemption in another state. Tax collector: sjctax.us, phone (904) 209-2250, 4030 Lewis Speedway, St. Augustine.

Nassau

A. Michael Hickox, ncpafl.com homestead. Phone (904) 491-7300. Toll free 1-888-615-4398. Offices from the county new-resident guide revised March 6, 2026: 96135 Nassau Place, Suite 4, Yulee, FL 32097. Also the Historic Courthouse, 416 Centre Street, Fernandina Beach, and the Callahan County Building, 45401 Mickler Street, Callahan. The 2026 applications closed March 2, 2026. The 2027 applications are open, online or in person. A 2026 purchase that is your permanent residence can be filed for 2027 through March 1, 2027, and it shows on the August 2027 TRIM. Bring both spouses' Florida residency documents: driver license with the address, vehicle registration, Nassau voter registration if you vote, and Social Security numbers. Tax Collector John M. Drew: nassautaxes.com, phone (904) 491-7400, 86130 License Road, Fernandina Beach.

Columbia, if the search drifted to Lake City

Lake City is Columbia County, west on I-10. It is not a Duval suburb for tax or school purposes. Property Appraiser Jeff Hampton: columbia.floridapa.com, phone (386) 758-1083, email contact@ccpafl.com, 135 NE Hernando Avenue, Suite 238, Lake City, FL 32055, weekdays 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The exemptions page at ccpafl.com says the initial homestead application must be filed in person. Do not use a third-party online filing site. The on-time window is January 1 through March 1. Late filing runs to the 25th day after TRIM. Bring the deed or contract, a Florida ID at the address, your Social Security number, and one more proof of residency. The Northeast Florida feed under this page may not be where you shop for Lake City. Do not pretend Duval active listings are Columbia inventory.

 A practical order of work

Pick the county and the area from the commute and the school district, not from a statewide headline. Pull active listings in that area and read them as asking prices with conditions attached. Pull closed sales for the same subdivision and the same bed count over the last 90 days. Write list price, closed price, and any concession you can document. Get the tax picture from the TRIM or the collector, not from a guessed millage. Get insurance and flood quotes on the address. Add the HOA or CDD. Take that full payment to the lender with a pre-approval that actually reviewed documents. Then write the offer. The houses under this article will still be a Duval newest-first feed when you come back. The one you wanted may not. That is the market, house by house, and it does not require a fake statewide number to be real.

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Military Realty of Florida. (904) 309-0609.