Jacksonville is one of Florida's easier cities to save for a first home — but not for everyone.
A new national report on housing affordability puts Jacksonville in an unusual spot. While Florida's home-buying crisis is deepening statewide, this city is one of the more forgiving places in the state to save up for a first home for some workers. For others, though, it's just as out of reach as Miami.
According to the report titled "Which Jobs Are Being Priced Out of Homeownership?" from Neighbors Bank, a typical Jacksonville family earning a combined $102,818 a year and saving for a 3% down payment on a $219,725 starter home will take about less than a year to save for that downpayment.
The report takes estimated saving timelines by starting with
a profession's local median pay, subtracting typical rent and living costs and calculating how long the leftover income would take to cover a 3% down payment on a local starter home with the price based on median sales.
This ties Jacksonville for 21st in affordability among the 50 largest U.S. metro areas, alongside Houston, Atlanta, Denver, Charlotte, Richmond and Salt Lake City.
It's also a dramatically shorter timeline than Florida's other major metros such as Miami, over 40 years; Orlando, about 7.4 years; and Tampa, just under 2 years.
But, results also depend heavily on the job.
The citywide average hides a wide gap by profession. Based on the report's mid-career estimates for Jacksonville specifically, registered nurses, police and sheriff's patrol officers, and elementary school teachers would take only a few months to save for a down payment. Meanwhile, office and administrative support workers, construction laborers, and waitstaff would take a year or longer.
For retail salespeople, the report claims it would take over 40 years to save for a downpayment, effectively putting it well out of reach for many workers.
So while a nurse or officer in Jacksonville can plausibly save a down payment within a year, a retail worker faces the same multi-decade wall as counterparts in Miami, Orlando and Tampa.
However, the report likely understates the problem, according to experts.
Ken Johnson, who chairs the real estate studies program at the University of Mississippi and tracks Florida housing markets, noted the analysis only measures the down payment — not the monthly mortgage payment, taxes, insurance and mortgage insurance that also determine whether a purchase is realistic.
He said in a Daytona Beach News-Jounral article that accounting for those costs would make homeownership look even harder for first-time buyers.
There's also the question of what's actually for sale.
Multiple Listing Service data in Jacksonville found roughly a thousand active listings under $219,000 in the city after the report came out, and only 567 of them are houses.
Buyers trying to save a down payment also are competing with cash buyers, who make up close to a third of that segment of the market.
Statewide, the report framed Florida's divide bluntly: families need under a year to save in Jacksonville, but more than 40 years in Miami — a split that adds to a broader pattern of uneven economic outcomes across the state.
USA TODAY Network-Florida journalist Clayton Park contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Who can afford a first home in Jacksonville right now?
