Why Jacksonville's Median Home Price Is Misleading

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 June, we’re past the halfway mark of the year, and many people are talking about the Jacksonville market, interest rates, and where things are heading. Here’s a straight breakdown of what our First Coast market looks like right now and what to expect for the rest of the year.

Why the median sales price is misleading. The first thing most people ask about is pricing, and the headline number looks reassuring: the median sales price is up 13.7%, to $400,000. But that rise is hiding what’s really going on. In a market that’s tightening economically, the higher-priced homes are moving a little faster than the lower-priced ones.

Buyers who aren’t as affected by the economy are still buying and selling, while the average person shopping in the $300,000 to $600,000 range is seeing things move more slowly. All those million-dollar-and-up sales pull the median upward, so the number looks healthier than the day-to-day reality. On almost every deal right now, very few are getting the full list price.

What closed sales reveal about the market’s real pace. A better gauge of how fast the market is actually moving is closed sales: 489, down 11.6% from a year ago. These figures move in peaks and valleys, but the trend is clear when you zoom out. Monthly totals tell the same story, back at the 2021 peak, we were closing almost 3,600 deals in June; this May, we did about 2,500 total. We’re nowhere near the volume of the boom years, and homes are taking longer to move.

New pending sales are the real signal. New listings and new pending sales tell you more than almost anything else, because pending sales are the homes going under contract each week. March and April were genuinely strong. Then activity fell off heading into May and through the summer, and it’s kept dwindling even in this last week of June. Compared to last year, we’re down 33.7%, to 360 properties going under contract. That’s the clearest sign the market has slowed.

Inventory is climbing back toward boom-era levels. Here’s how it all connects. We’re still putting plenty of homes on the market, roughly 1,723 in the last two weeks, and only about half of those are going under contract. The rest stay on, and that’s rebuilding our inventory. At one point, Jacksonville and the First Coast were down around 2,000 active listings.

For perspective, during the frenzy, we dropped to about 3,600 listings, and today we’re nearly triple that. Inventory is growing, buyers are getting more room to negotiate, and I expect that number to keep climbing toward the 12,000 range before the end of the year, especially depending on where interest rates go.

What this means if you’re buying or selling. Pulling all of this together, buyers still have the real ability to negotiate. If you’re selling and you get an offer, you’ll probably want to work with it, because there’s a good chance another one isn’t right behind it. Be patient on both sides. There likely aren’t seven to ten buyers banging down the door for any given home, simply because of how many options buyers have right now.

It’s a much different market, still firmly a buyer’s market, and I expect those trends to continue into the fall and winter. I don’t see anything on the horizon that points to better conditions for sellers anytime soon. We’re heading toward a more balanced market, but for now, the leverage is back in the buyer’s hands.

If you want to know exactly what this means for your home or your next purchase, I’m glad to walk you through the numbers for your specific situation and price range. Call or text me at 904-650-3890, email me at matty@pursuitrealestate.com, or visit mattymillerrealestate.com. Let’s figure out the smartest move for you in this market.