3 Questions to Ask Before Selling Your Jacksonville Home

By Matty Miller

With a track record defined by precision and local expertise, Matty Miller is a cornerstone of the Jacksonville real estate market. Since 2017, Matty has successfully navigated over 200 real estate transactions, earning his Broker’s license in 2019 to provide a higher tier of service to his clients. Currently overseeing a single-family property portfolio valued at over $50 million, Matty specializes in the strategic management and acquisition of high-value assets across the First Coast. His approach combines deep market data with a boots-on-the-ground understanding of Jacksonville’s unique neighborhoods. Whether working with institutional investors or individual homeowners, Matty delivers the seasoned perspective required to maximize value in Florida's most dynamic coastal markets.

It’s the middle of summer, and with the heat and more properties sitting on the market, things have slowed down a bit here in Jacksonville. So if you’re thinking about selling, this is the moment to get honest about what’s changed. We went through a real boom after COVID. Prices shot up, buyer demand went through the roof, and low interest rates had people making offers sight unseen.

That’s not the market anymore. We’re back to something much more balanced, and if you’re going to sell, you need to walk in understanding how that shift affects you. Here are the three questions I’d want you to answer first.

1. How will pricing reflect a balanced market? This is the big one. Over the last two and a half years, our market has been pretty flat. If you bought a house two years ago for $450,000, there’s a good chance it sells for close to that today, or, depending on the neighborhood, maybe a little less. So pricing your home right matters more than almost anything else. The days of listing high just to “see what happens” are, honestly, a terrible strategy now.

If you overprice your home, it sits, and when it sits, it looks stagnant, you lose your negotiating position, and buyers stop taking it seriously. Here’s a key stat: about 65% of homes in our market are selling at their original asking price, and nearly a quarter are having to take price reductions. That’s the complete opposite of four or five years ago, when you could slap a sign in the yard, list it wherever you wanted, and have five offers. Buyers today have access to a ton of information, and they’re being patient. The sharper your price from day one, the faster you’re likely to sell.

2. Are you ready for concessions and time? If you’re selling in this market, you have to ask yourself two things. Are you prepared to let the home sit for two, three, or even four months? And are you prepared to handle buyer concession requests? Right now, our days on market are running somewhere in the 54 to 67-day range, give or take, so figure around two months on average, and if you price high, that number climbs, sometimes to 90 or 120 days. Because homes are sitting longer, buyers have the upper hand, and they’re using it. They’re rarely waiving inspection contingencies anymore and are now requesting repairs.

A lot of concession requests are also tied to rates. Buyers are taking closing cost credits and rate buydowns to get their interest rate down to 5.75 or 5.85, instead of paying the going rate. So you’re likely to face either a concession request or an offer that comes in below asking, maybe 5% or 10% under to start, and you negotiate from there. Buyers simply aren’t in a blind rush anymore, and after the last four years, they’ve earned the right to be choosy.

3. Can your home beat new construction? This one’s always been a factor, but it’s a bigger hurdle now. In some areas around Jacksonville, especially St. Johns County and even Nassau County, you’re competing directly with new construction. Not as much inside Jacksonville proper, since most of our primary urban area is pretty built out, but out in those growth areas, it’s real. That’s a tough thing to overcome on a resale unless your home is in excellent shape, with strong curb appeal, upgrades, and landscaping that’s kept up.

When a buyer looks at a resale next to a brand-new home, the new construction is tempting, and builders are handing out incentives to move those homes fast because they want to build in a growing market, not a flat one. So your curb appeal and your online presence, meaning the photos and how the home looks online, matter as much as anything. If an agent tells you to add mulch, trim the bushes, pull that dead tree, and paint the front, and you’re not willing to do it, that’s going to seriously hurt your ability to sell.

So be prepared for all three. Listen to your agent, because they know this market and understand that selling a home here right now means being ready to put in a little work and spend a little money to get your home in position. If you’re considering selling and you want to talk through what that looks like for your home, give me a call.

Reach me at 904-650-3890, email me at matty@pursuitrealestate.com, or visit mattymillerrealestate.com. Let’s put a plan together and get it sold.