Unsold Homes Linger in Jacksonville Housing Market
Northeast Florida real estate agents are asking sellers to give them up to 12 months to sell their homes, twice as long as they did a year ago in many cases.
The average time on the market has stretched out from six months to nine to 15 months, depending on the area and other factors, said Prudential Network Realty Broker Associate Michelle Cummings.
“It is taking longer for these homes to sell,” she said simply.
The Florida mortgage broker gives sellers realistic expectations: “I don’t tell them what they want to hear. I tell them the truth.”
Sellers typically sign one of two types of agreements: an exclusive right to sell listing or an exclusive agency listing.
An exclusive right to sell listing gives the real estate agent the exclusive right to collect commission, on average 6.5 percent in the Jacksonville housing market, if the property is sold by anyone, including the owner, during the term of the agreement. An exclusive agency listing gives a single real estate agency the exclusive right to sell the property during the term of the agreement, but allows the owner to sell the property alone without paying the commission.
Most listed properties are exclusive right to sell listings, but not all real estate agents are requiring sellers to list their homes exclusively for longer, real estate agent Ken Harris said.
“If you’re not doing a good job selling the house, a year is a long time to wait,” Harris said. “They basically handcuff the seller.”
Harris, the owner of a one-man agency, Harris Realty Inc., said he typically asks sellers to sign six-month, open-ended contracts. Last year he averaged 20 listings at a time; now he has 44 listings because Florida mortgage activity has slowed considerably.
The demand for homes is still there, Harris said, but there’s an oversupply. “It’s not that business is really bad. We’ve just got way too many listings.”
The Florida Association of Realtors does not track average time on the market or contract time frames, but it does track existing house and existing condominium sales. In June 2007 existing house sales dropped 25 percent in the Jacksonville metropolitan statistical area from 1,700 in June 2006 to 1,270.
Condo sales fell 39 percent in the area from 245 in June 2006 to 149 in June 2007.
Melanie Green, the Northeast Florida Association of Realtors communications director, said she has not heard about longer contracts, but it doesn’t surprise her.
“I suspect in this changing [Florida mortgage] market there are probably a lot of things being done differently.”
