The forecast for Jacksonville, economically speaking, has been pretty sunny for years. But lately, some clouds have been forming on the horizon. (more…)

The second quarter numbers on home sales in Florida showcase the details of the slowdown in the housing market. (more…)

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. (more…)

The Florida housing market woes are well documented by now. (more…)

The Jacksonville housing market foreclosure epidemic is widespread among all neighborhoods and income groups. But in one community on the Northside, a battleground of owners, investors, and lenders is strewn with the casualties of a Florida mortgage industry in turmoil. (more…)

The Jacksonville housing market remained relatively strong in April, but the future of the local economy is a bit uncertain, according to reports. (more…)

We’ve already talked this week about how the Puerto Rican population is migrating from the Central Florida housing market to the Southwest.

Now, the Jacksonville Daily Record reports that the Northeast portion of the state is also experiencing an influx of Hispanic home loan applicants.

(more…)

Realtors and those associated with the real estate industry may claim the Jacksonville housing market has been on a bit of a slide. However, according to a report recently issued by the Duval County Property Appraiser, things are actually going very well the past 10 years.

And, there’s no indication the future isn’t bright.

“Jacksonville has a very resilient real estate market,” said Property Appraiser Jim Overton. “The activity may have slowed some, but the prices have not slowed down much. The median price of a home has fallen only slightly.”

The report isn’t just an indicator of the health of the area real estate market. It’s also a detailed explanation of exactly how and where the tax dollars generated by residential and commercial real estate appraisals and transactions go. Of the City’s $900 million-plus budget, nearly half was generated by property taxes alone. In fact, if you look closely at the numbers, your property taxes (49.4 percent of the budget) went almost exclusively to paying for public safety (48.9 percent of the budget).

Looking at other major cities across the state, Jacksonville has by far the lowest millage rate — a formula used to determine the exact tax on specific properties. In Duval County, the millage rate in 2006 was 18.1825. Compare that to other counties: Orange, 19.9190; Hillsborough, 23.4370; Miami-Dade, 24.6443; and Pinellas, 26.1552.

“The local taxing authority has been very aggressive about reducing the millage rate,” said Overton. “We continue to not push on assessments in an effort to keep the millage rate low.”

Perhaps one of the most telling stats in the report is the growth of the county’s operating taxable value of property over the past decade. Since 1997, the value has more than doubled from $24.6 billion in ‘97 to $52.5 billion last year. Much of that can be attributed to new home construction and sales, especially the past three years.

While the growth was steady from ‘97 until 2004 ($40.4 billion) and 2005 ($45.6 billion), Overton said that theme is prevalent all over the state due to several other factors including the lack of a personal income tax and other factors that have made Florida such a desirable place to live and retire to.

“A lot of cities in Florida can say that based on what the market is doing. There’s a lot of demand for Florida real estate,” said Overton. “I’m not sure how many in the country can say that. I’d think not many.”

While Overton doesn’t prefer to estimate how quickly Jacksonville will crack the $100 billion mark, he did say, “I don’t see the trend changing much.”

Other items from the report:

• Local taxes accounted for $424 million of the Duval County School System’s budget. However, that figure is only 28.29 percent of the school system’s overall budget. The state pays for 58.5 percent of the budget.

• Last year, there were 73,289 real estate transactions processed in Jacksonville. Ten years ago, that number was 39,354. Tops in the state is Miami-Dade County with 133,228 Florida mortgage transactions.

• The median price of a home in Jacksonville last year was $180,000. That’s up $3,100 from 2005.

• In 2006, there were 232,620 single family homes in Jacksonville with a total market value of just over $39 billion.

• According to the report, new construction in 2005 added more than $2.2 billion to the taxable value of the 2006 tax roll.

• Last year, the total market value of all taxable property in Duval County was just over $70 billion. That same property had a taxable value of just over $47 billion.

SOURCE: Jacksonville Daily Record

Business Journal readers are solidly behind a proposal to eliminate the state’s property tax and replace it with a higher sales tax.

Last month the Speaker of Florida’s House proposed dropping the property tax and raising the sales tax from 6 cents to 8.5 cents. The proposal is the subject of an online survey that asks Florida mortgage loan holders: “Should the property tax be replaced with an increased sales tax?”

Of the 474 respondents to the poll, 67 percent were in favor of the proposal, with 33 percent opposed.

Some readers who support the proposal see benefits beyond lower housing costs.

“The more that property ownership is encouraged, the more ownership people have in their community,” wrote one reader, “the more responsibly they will act.”

Opponents think the move will shift the tax burden onto the poor.

“Raising the sales tax will hurt everyone else, but it will be felt by the poor, low-income households, single mothers, single adults or the working class who have already been squeezed out of the Florida housing market,” wrote one opponent.

However, the majority of readers favored the proposal, and several argued that property owners, along with Florida mortgage holders overall, foot a disproportionate share of the tax burden

“Why should those who don’t own property get a free ride?” wrote one reader. “A tax on consumption is always preferable to a tax on property.”

Population growth and building permits aren’t the only record-breaking statistics in Flagler County.

The number of lis pendens, or recorded notices of pending litigation relating to real estate, rose 89.7 percent to 575 in 2006 in the fastest-growing county in the nation, according to information provided by the Real Estate Strategy Center of North Florida Inc.

“It’s a statistic that gets your attention, and I think it certainly should,” said Rogers Towers attorney Bob Cuff, who lives and works in Flagler County. “It certainly reflects a downturn in the residential real estate market.”

Lis pendens are filed for a number of real estate-related lawsuits, the most notable of which is to begin the foreclosure process. They are also filed to recoup delinquent homeowner association dues and for construction liens.

Cuff cautioned against putting too much emphasis on a single percentage, particularly in a county that has experienced a tremendous amount of population growth - 108.4 percent from 1990 to 2006.

“The total number is still significant, but relatively small,” he said, particularly when compared with neighboring counties.

In St. Johns County, 620 lis pendens were filed last year, which was a 35.9 percent increase over 2005. Clay County had 898 filed, a 3.9 percent jump, while Duval County had 5,086, a 3 percent jump on its Florida mortgage holders.

Still, of the lis pendens filed in Flagler County last year, 83 percent were for foreclosures, according to data provided by the Flagler County Clerk of the Circuit Court.

Ray Rodriguez, president of the Real Estate Strategy Center, said many of the foreclosure lis pendens were probably filed on out-of-state investors who bought vacant quarter-acre lots in the core growth area, Palm Coast, and when the market softened simply stopped paying the mortgage.

“I hope it’s vacant land,” Rodriguez said, “because if it’s homes, it’s a whole different story.”

It could take months, and in some cases years, for a Florida mortgage loan lis pendens to result in a foreclosure, and the defendant has until three days after the foreclosure auction to pay the debt back in full to retrieve his or her property. But the fact that so many mortgage-related lis pendens were filed last year, coupled with the 28.7 percent jump in the number of tenant evictions from 2005 to 2006, concerns some county officials.

“I wouldn’t have predicted that this was going to happen,” said Flagler County Clerk of the Court Gail Wadsworth, adding that she had predicted a 20 percent increase in cases in 2006, but her office has been significantly more busy.

Many of those residents who have been foreclosed upon or evicted relied on the county’s once booming residential construction industry for income, Wadsworth said. A bevy of unaffordable housing costs has also contributed to the problem.

“That’s a gut reaction,” Wadsworth said of her conclusion based on the number of construction-related businesses that have closed in the county. “Can I prove it? No, not at all.”

The county’s per capita income is $22,674, according to the Cornerstone Regional Development Partnership, a seven-county economic development agency that includes Flagler County.

Local Realtor Nate McLaughlin of McLaughlin Realty said part of the problem is skyrocketing home prices in Jacksonville. The median price of a home in Flagler County increased from $138,000 in 2003 to $252,250 in 2006, according to Gotoby.com LLC. The Flagler County Association of Realtors reported that the average price went from $189,200 to $324,000.

As a Realtor, McLaughlin said, he wants prices to increase, but as a concerned resident, he knows that the community cannot sustain that increase.

“I’m a big proponent of Palm Coast, I love Palm Coast,” said McLaughlin, who is also the chairman of the city’s Planning and Land Development Regulation Board. “What really needs to happen is that the buyers are just going to have to say no to these properties.”