Call them optimistic, but Florida mortgage loan brokers and mortgage companies are expanding in Jacksonville. They aren’t afraid of a perceived sales slowdown in the city.

Area employment in the home loan industry increased 13.4 percent in 2006, compared with 2005, according to the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation’s Labor Market Statistics. Jacksonville had 811 Florida mortgage loan brokers in January, the latest data available. There were 715 brokers in 2005.

Inside the Jacksonville housing market

The decrease in new home sales this year to a steady pace is noticeable in the industry but not detrimental, said experts, who added that Northeast Florida still has a lot to offer in terms of being a vibrant home sales market.

“We’re probably back into the typical marketplace,” said Patrice Yamato, president of the Florida Association of Mortgage Brokers, a nonprofit organization.

The resale of existing homes decreased by more than 21 percent to 17,514 sales as of Aug. 31 compared with the previous year. But new home sales in North Florida have continued to increase, going from 9,587 sales in Aug. 31, 2005 to 12,605 sales in 2006 for the same time period, according to the Real Estate Strategy Center of North Florida Inc. in Jacksonville.

The mortgage industry has become more bullish in the Jacksonville housing market, said Ben Bishop, president of the Jacksonville chapter of the Florida Association of Mortgage Brokers.

Bishop, who is also president of Bishop Lending Group LLC, a full-service broker in Jacksonville Beach, said low, adjustable interest rates, the real estate market and the competitiveness of new Florida mortgage loan products positively affect the growth of the mortgage industry.

Affordable Florida housing

Yamato said Jacksonville, especially, is a flourishing mortgage market because of the affordable housing compared with cities in Central and South Florida. It’s a “viable city. Meaning we have everything that makes people want to stay here.”

The area’s affordable housing and market growth has given incentive to national mortgage companies to select Northeast Florida as a market for expansion in the state.

As a result, it follows that buyers would be next. These companies will attract applicants that are looking for Florida home loans in the city.

Builders in Jacksonville are faced with the same dilemma as many others around the state: how we do encourage Florida mortgage loan applications? The answer is similar throughout the regions:

By offering incentives.

Most are cash related, such as zero down and no closing costs at the Colony at San Jose; up to $78,000 off the sale of Mattamy Homes products; and no homeowner association fees for one year at the Palms of Amelia, according to the Northeast Florida Builders Association.

“A year ago these same builders wouldn’t have even considered that; they didn’t need to,” NEFBA past president and Brylen Homes Ltd. President Bryan Lendry said.

But this year is different. Some builders are adding extras such as a 42-inch plasma screen TV and an entertainment center with the purchase of condominiums at OakLeaf Plantation or a Vespa scooter with a purchase in Chelsea Lofts.

The push for Florida home mortgages

Robin Hurst, senior director of sales at Lifestyles Realtors, said that although cash-related incentives for homes in the lower price range could make or break a deal, the plasma screen TVs and the Vespas won’t be the deciding factor for those buying in the higher price range.

The Florida Association of Realtors’ most recent Florida Sales Report indicates that the Jacksonville housing market, like the rest of the state, is continuing its downward real estate spiral.

In August, 1,368 existing single-family homes were sold, which is down 19 percent from the same period last year, while the median sale price rose by 4 percent. Likewise, 142 existing condominiums were sold in August, down 45 percent from the 260 sold last August and sale prices were down 4 percent. These numbers did not include home sales in St. Johns County.

“The market was running 90 mph; now it’s running much slower,” said Ray Rodriguez, a real estate analyst and president of the Real Estate Strategy Center of North Florida Inc. in Jacksonville.

He said it will take months for the market to recover after years of low Florida mortgage rates, low construction-material costs and record-breaking population growth that sparked a speculative builder market in 2004 and 2005 when homes and residential developments were built before buyers were secured.

Homeowners profited in the short run, too, he said, by choosing nontraditional Florida home mortgage products and flipping, or buying and selling homes in a short time span to make a profit. The market became inundated with speculative homes, while the average price continued to rise. The median sale price for a single-family house in Jacksonville has almost doubled in six years, increasing from $106,100 in August 2000 to $202,300 in August 2006.

Housing slowdown: The beginning

Housing began to slow after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast last August, Rodriguez said, when construction material costs went through the roof and the rehabilitation of that area caused a construction work force shortage in Florida.

Since the beginning of 2006 both Realtors and builders have reported a decline in sales and lower-than-projected earnings. But Linda Sherrer, president and CEO of Prudential Network Realty of Northeast Florida, isn’t worried about the downturn.

“People feel like we were in a time that was not real; it was euphoric,” Sherrer said of 2005. “The minute anything changes or minimizes, it’s the sky-is-falling concept.”

Agents at Lifestyles Realtors are undergoing special training, said Carmen Edwards, vice president of retail sales, to ensure that homes are sold at the correct price points and lower-income borrowers can afford a Florida home loan.

Some developers are changing their marketing strategies, too. D.R. Horton Co. is marketing beyond Jacksonville in search of prospective buyers, said George Swisher, president of the marketing firm SwisherBurgos, and using a more grass-roots approach to marketing that includes blogs.

Meanwhile, a handful of agents are heading overseas; anything to find buyers that can afford a Florida home mortgage loan and propel the market to recent standards.

Possibly due to its low-interest Florida mortgage financing program, the Jacksonville housing market was among the top 10 markets in the country for growth in minority homebuyer growth.

A report issued by Genworth Mortgage Insurance and Compliance Technologies ranked Jacksonville 10th in the country. The rankings are based on the difference between the increase in home mortgage lending to minorities and the increase in lending to whites.

Jacksonville was 10th in the all-minorities category, with a 52 percent increase in minority
Florida mortgage loan lending, more than three times the 16 percent increase for whites.

The city was seventh in the country for the increase in lending to African-Americans, with the 42 percent increase in lending to blacks about 2.5 times the increase in lending to whites.

“Despite the nationwide cooling in homebuying, minorities represented a significantly larger percentage of new purchases in 2005 than they did in 2004,” said Kevin Schneider, president of Genworth Financial’s U.S. mortgage insurance business. “We’re determined to close the homeownership gap, and it’s good to see that progress is being made.”

** If you’re thinking of a home purchase, consider the cost-free form atop this page. It will connect you directly with a Florida mortgage broker that can explain various loan options and financing possibilities.

With any luck, we won’t have to write about affordable housing dilemmas in the state for much longer. As the market slows and buyers are offered incentives by developers and sellers, the aim is for purchasing property to become a more appealing option.

Also helping the cause? Help from the federal government. For example, $300,000 has been awarded to an affiliate of the Housing Partnership of Northeast Florida for homeownership preservation in Jacksonville; the sole purpose of this money is to provide for capital for Florida home loans for low- and moderate-income families.

Jacksonville Affordable Mortgages will receive it. The Florida home mortgage company will be required to provide at least a one-to-one match with private, nonfederal funds. Consequently, this will allow the agency to leverage about $1.2 million in private capital.

“With the additional capital, we will be able to reach out to more families and assist them with affordable housing options that preserve and sustain neighborhoods,” said Carolyn Ettlinger, president of the Housing Partnership.

The funds will be used to provide second mortgages to low-income families and first mortgages to Florida home loan refinance homeowners who have been victimized by predatory lenders and are facing foreclosure.

Unfortunately, there were more than 4,000 foreclosures or delinquencies in Jacksonville last year and the city was seventh nationally in the first quarter of 2006. Aside from making buying easier for lower-income workers, this grant will be used to assist current home owners that are having difficulty with their exotic Florida mortgage products.

Attention, hopeful owners in the Sunshine State: things are looking up. First, Florida mortgage rates have decreased for the fourth straight week.

Now, word is speaking about various affordable housing issues in the state. For example, The Jacksonville Housing Finance Authority (JHFA) will issue bonds to help middle-income workers receive approval on Florida mortgage loans and buy homes in Duval County.

The JHFA will issue the single-family Florida home mortgage revenue bonds and use the proceeds to provide low-interest mortgage financing and down payment assistance. Individuals or families applying for the loans must meet income, credit and residency requirements, while being either first-time home buyers or buyers who have not owned a home in the past three years. Buyers must also maintain the home as their primary residence.

“As real estate prices across the country continue to rise, working professionals in our community have experienced difficulty purchasing a home for the first time,” said Mayor John Peyton in announcing the program.

Income limits vary depending on the size of the family and the home’s location. Annual household income for one- to two-member families cannot exceed $60,300, or $69,350 for families of three or more.

Potential home buyers can apply for the program through participating Florida home loan lenders starting in October.

The Jacksonville housing market, which has been churning along steadily in the past few months while the southern portion of the Sunshine State cooled off, is finally seeing its own signs of slowing, reports the city’s First Coast News.

As we have seen in areas such as Palm Beach and Broward counties, some builders in the Jacksonville area are starting to offer incentives to help sell homes. With unsold units sitting on the market longer, the people building them will go to great lengths to keep money coming in.

The area’s new construction permit activity is down when compared to a year ago, with 7,077 permits issued this year to date in Clay, Duval, Nassau and St. Johns counties, compared to nearly 8,800 during the same period a year ago.

One number that keeps moving upward, even as area sales decline, is the median price. Home prices continue to increase at a 15 percent clip even with fewer buyers eagerly snapping them up. In Jacksonville, the median price currently stands at $208,700, meaning half the city’s homes are on the market for more, and the other half for less.

That’s a bargain compared to the sizzling-turned-stagnant South Florida housing market, where single-family homes in most counties are going for $300,000 at the absolute least.

Despite the recent warning signs, the Northeast Florida Builders Association maintains that the local housing economy is still very healthy.

“I think in an adjustment period right now. I think going to get into what is a steady market,” said Jerry Linder, the group’s president.

Among the housing numbers that point to a healthy housing market is the number of homes that changed hands in May of this year. A strong 1,732 existing homes were sold in greater Jacksonville during the month, which actually represents an increase of four percent when compared to May 2005.

Bottom line? Northeast Florida far exceeds the South in terms of affordable housing. Even with the market in flux and Florida home loan rates on the rise, the price is right for first-time buyers. Now is the time to buy!

The Florida housing market may be cooling overall, but you wouldn’t know it by visiting the Duval County Courthouse, where the foreclosure market is booming.

According to the Jacksonville Daily Record, rising interest rates and an ample supply of inventory might mean that “For Sale” signs are lingering longer in front yards. But foreclosed property auctions attract crowds of buyers. An auction Tuesday saw eight properties sell in under an hour.

The number of foreclosed properties has been on the rise this year in North Florida, with several buyers attributing the increase to the popularity of adjustable-rate Florida home loans.

As interest rates climb, those mortgages have adjusted and are now becoming unaffordable for many middle- and low-income homeowners, according to April Charney, a consumer attorney for Jacksonville Area Legal Aid. Charney, who specializes in foreclosure defense, keeps clients out of the auctions by working ahead of time to settle their debts.

“Particularly in poor neighborhoods, we’re drowning in foreclosures,” she said, adding that the auctions are becoming commonplace.

It’s not just on the supply side that the auctions are growing, as many new buyers now crowd the Courthouse to bid on the properties. Cheap houses are hard to find in this state, so Florida foreclosure property draws a diverse crowd, ranging from real estate attorneys in suits to contractors in jeans and boots. The crowds make it harder to walk away with a bargain.

“I used to come out here and there’d be two or three people out here,” said John Kern, an entrepreneur who bid on his first foreclosed property four years ago. “Now you’ve got all these people just bidding up and bidding up.”

Many are lured by tales of the quick flipping and big profits.

“A lot of people think they’re going to make a lot money. Some call them speculators, some people have worse names for them,” said Mark Kessler, an attorney bidding on properties for his clients.

But even at half the market value, the homes aren’t always sure things, says Herb Rinderer, a title examiner who also invests in properties and believes novice bidders sometimes receive unpleasant surprises along with their winning bids.

“If you don’t do title research, you don’t know what you might be getting,” he said. “You could be buying a second mortgage on that property. I did a search for one client and the property had a $77,000 IRS lien attached.”

Title researchers like Rinderer are part of the spin-off business created by the auctions. The auctions for properties with loans in delinquent status attract buyers, and right along with them a slew of title search firms, contractors and real estate attorneys.

Charney wishes she could get all that manpower involved before properties end up on foreclosure rolls in the first place. Ironically, she thinks a lot of properties could be had early at a discount, before the foreclosure price is ramped up by fees from lawyers and lenders. Or, owners might be able to dodge this bullet via refinancing.

“There’s a lot of smart people in this room. It’s too bad the living they make comes along with a heavy human toll and a toll on the community,” she said.

While foreclosure rates are on the rise across the state, the increases have been moderate, more so than some analysts predicted. Florida ranks eighth nationwide in foreclosures per capita. But, if and when the average Florida home loan (currently the average 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage is 6.78 percent) rises into the 7-7.5 percent range — or the 8 percent range — we could see a deluge of new properties entering this undesirable stage.

The Florida housing market may be cooling, according to some, but select cities are still facing a hot, bright future. A good example of an area on the upswing: Jacksonville.

The city has attracted a top national luxury home builder, Toll Brothers Inc., because of the availability of land, the region’s amenities and the sheer number of people moving into the region, said an official with the company.

“Jacksonville has a lot of good things going for it,” said Brian Loftus, vice president of Toll Brothers’ North Florida division.

Enter Jacksonville: Florida home loan goals in the area

The builder aims for older empty-nesters and second-home buyers, a segment that has been gobbling up Florida home mortgage loans recently. It constructs luxury single-family and attached homes as well as golf course communities, usually on land it developed.

The business came to the Jacksonville market three years ago in September after having been building in South Florida communities since 1995. The Florida home loan market down south has been healthy for awhile now - now, buyers and business are moving northward.

Toll Brothers focuses on a niche that Loftus characterized as “move-up” buyers — those looking to buy second or third homes. Its dedicated to providing propert to those seeking lofty/luxurious listings.

The spread to North Florida

Toll Brothers now has about 60 employees in North Florida, but expects that number to expand. “It will be increasing as we open up more communities, definitely,” Loftus said.

According to Toll Brothers’ Web site, the builder also is constructing homes in several northwest St. Johns County communities. It’s hoping these make up for the oversupply and reduced prices in other areas of the state.

Northeast Florida may be a bright spot in an otherwise uncertain year in real estate, which some analysts believe is starting to experience a general bubble burst due to rising home prices and Florida home loan rates. It’s worth keeping an eye on if you have interest in a house in the area.

Whether you go through the Internet or the more traditional means of a real estate agent, Jacksonvillw Mayor John Peyton has a message for potential owners: look into a Florida home loan in his city today.

Specifically, the mayor is encouraging a neighborhood-strengthening initiative that will focus on Arlington and Northwest Jacksonville. The plan calls for collaboration between the city and existing community organizations in those areas.

Peyton said cleaning up the neighborhoods and encouraging home ownership through affordable Florida home loans will go a long way toward reducing crime.

“By planting trees, reducing blight, working with law enforcement and getting working professionals into homes in specific neighborhoods, we are helping citizens to take pride in their communities and eliminating the environments that harbor crime and lead to deterioration,” said Peyton.

The mayor announced Derek Igou, currently chief of the city’s property safety division, will oversee the implementation of the plan. He will report directly to Chief Operating Officer Alan Mosley and will start his new position June 5. With home prices on the rise in the area, hopefully this strategy will be a success.

As the condo conversions subside in Jacksonville, the ramifications will be felt in numerous ways around the housing industry in the area. A renter’s market will become an owner’s market - and an increased number of buyers will look to take out Florida home loans.

At the 10th Annual First Coast Real Estate Outlook Conference on Tuesday, real estate experts and Florida home loan analysts discussed these effects. Walchle Lear Multifamily Advisors offered an apartment, condominium and townhome forecast for the Jacksonville metropolitan area that included the anticipation of the following:

• Rising insurance
• Property tax
• Utility and labor costs for existing and prospective apartment complex owners

Those costs, coupled with a diminishing supply of apartment properties, will likely lead buyers to look for “value added” purchases of at least 200 units whose buildings were constructed in or before 1995.

Walchle Lear’s analysis also expects apartment occupancy to reach 96 percent this year and the J. Turner Butler Boulevard corridor to see more new rental units as the per month cost for a two-bedroom apartment has dropped $600 lower than the $1,700 average Florida mortgage payment for a condominium or townhome in that area of the Southside.

This is an encouraging example for those seeking affordable Florida home loans in the city.

Other news surrounding the Florida housing market

In other presentations, prominent Florida economist Henry H. Fishkind said for the second year the national economy would weaken in its second half, largely due to decreased consumer confidence from rising energy prices and interest rates.

Fishkind also referred to the controversy about whether a housing bubble exists in Florida as a given.

“There’s definitely some over-building,” Fishkind said. “But it’s concentrated in condominiums and in Miami and Fort Lauderdale.”

The Jacksonville area isn’t exempt from a surplus of housing starts as compared to population increases, Fishkind said, though its “competitive strengths,” such as continued interest from retirees and an increasing U.S. Navy presence, have helped the real estate market remain strong.