Overall, Jacksonville, FL is 84.2% cheaper than San Francisco, CA
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Your Money Goes Farther in Jacksonville
Jacksonville, FL
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$231,800 Jacksonville, FL
84.2% less
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$1,471,200 San Francisco, CA
$2,178Jacksonville, FL
76% less
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$9,415 San Francisco, CA
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Everything you need to know about Jacksonville, FL real estate
FULL TEXT TRANSCRIPTION:
- Hi everybody, Scott Fuller here, founder of leavingthebayarea.com and welcome to another edition of our Market Insider Series where very episode we travel the country to different areas to show where people are moving to from California and also from other areas as well. Today, I'm super excited. We are going to Jacksonville, Florida. We're talking with Lauren Summers and Steve Croy in Jacksonville with EXP Reality, welcome guys.
- Hey.
- Hey, how you doing today?
- I'm fantastic, how about yourself?
- So far, so good.
- So far a great day, it's Friday.
- Fantastic. I see the background there, the backdrop, looks like a little windy, but some nice weather, so good way to start the Friday right.
- Absolutely, a little cooler out, nice.
- Excellent, well hey, appreciate you guys joining us today. For those of you who are watching us, this is your first time watching, we're gonna take about 45-50 minutes and we're gonna do a high level overview, everything that we think is important to you to know about Jacksonville, including cost of living, housing prices, taxes, industry employment, climate, all of that good stuff. We're gonna pack this in and hopefully give you a very good overview of what's happening and then if you want to get some more detail of course we can get you in touch with our partners to go a little bit deeper into some of that information. Guys, thanks again for joining me. So, let's talk a little bit, before we get into some of the areas and the prices and things like that, I've heard of a lot of people moving into Florida. We have people that are coming from California and some of them make their way over to Florida. I'm sure you guys have a lot of people from the northeast that are coming down to your area, tell us a little bit about the profile of people that you're seeing come in. Are they coming in for jobs? Are they coming in for retirement or maybe a mix?
- Definitely a mix. I would say here, we're kind of seeing three main people. The people who are relocating for jobs, people who are coming for retirement and then those that are also looking to have a little bit better cost of living. Jacksonville is still reasonably affordable and your dollar goes quite a bit further here. We've had a couple people from up north who've been looking at taxes and stuff like that who have found it really attractive down here.
- Military.
- And the military.
- Always having military people coming in. We have three different stations here in Jacksonville. One at Mayport Jax with NAS Jax, Cecil, also the submarine base just a little north of here.
- Yep.
- So that brings them.
- Awesome and it always amazes me because I see and we're gonna get a taste of this in a minute, you're gonna show us what you can get for a certain price point. I don't understand it because California, we're on the coast, we've got beaches, we've got the ocean here. You guys have the same thing over there, but at a fraction of the cost and it just blows my mind how it's so affordable there. So I'm excited to kind of look at that a little bit further.
- I'm a Jacksonville native, so I've managed to enjoy that for all of my years, in my years in business, but yeah it is something that is great about our community here is that you are able to have that dollar go a little bit further.
- Awesome, let's jump into it. I know that you guys put together a few different communities that you're seeing a lot of growth in or you've seen people move to, if you want to go ahead and screen share and kind of give us a taste of what you can get for what price and maybe where some of these areas are located in proximity to the downtown area.
- Sure.
- Absolutely, we'll start here. This is our custom surf site we start off with. This is where we can showcase a lot of our homes and the areas and the properties that we actually participate in selling and buyers and also listing for our sellers. The area itself, the Jacksonville area, as Lauren likes to say it's a big small town.
- [Lauren] It is.
- [Steve] It's one of these things where you can drive for what, Lauren, 20?
- [Lauren] 20, 45, an hour and you're still in Jacksonville.
- [Steve] And this is traffic and you're still in Jacksonville.
- [Scott] Got it.
- [Steve] So Jacksonville is, I guess you would call this, the largest--
- [Lauren] It's the largest land mass city in the Continental United States.
- [Steve] Yep.
- [Scott] Is that one--
- [Lauren] It is, it's the largest in land mass and there's a couple in Alaska that are bigger that are still part of the United States, but as far as continental, we're it.
- [Steve] Absolutely, so like the downtown core area, the urban core, that is very nicely done. They have some nice, you saw the picture we just had. Shoot back, the downtown view, South Bank, North Bank area, but you go away from downtown, you got the beaches, you've got some west sides, you've got some north sides, and some of the fishing areas and then down south you got some of the nice booming areas of St. Johns County. That's the big, popular move point and the schools down there have been just expanding exponentially, absolutely. On this screen, we're highlighting the beaches area. This is the first area we're gonna kind of talk about. The beaches, this intercostal waterway runs just north and south through Jacksonville. I mean, there's a lot of water in Jacksonville. Let me just zoom out for a second. The river, the St. Johns River runs right through downtown and it's only one of the few rivers in the world that actually flows North. All the streams--
- [Scott] Is that right?
- [Steve] Yeah actually most rivers flow south. This one is actually an interesting river because it actually flows north, you know, coming down from south and in the south areas, down the land there's a lot of springs and all these springs feed the St. Johns River, so it's a very lively river. It comes right through downtown Jacksonville and because of that and the fishing, the saltwater action that we get, I mean, we get a lot of fishing here, a lot of water wigs, a lot of fun, a lot of water--
- [Lauren] There's some things around town that you'll see called Seven Bridges. There are seven bridges in Jacksonville that go over the St. Johns River just to get to one part of Jacksonville from another, so that doesn't include the intercostal bridges or anything else like that, so lots of water.
- [Steve] Seven Bridges starting down here in Orange Park and going through downtown and then swinging around to the east side, the Desoto Park Bridge also it's called the Dames Point Bridge. These bridges are seven bridges to get across the river. If you don't have those bridges, you're not going to much.
- [Lauren] You'll hardly go anywhere.
- [Steve] There is a ferry though, I will touch on that.
- [Lauren] There is a ferry.
- [Steve] Yeah, the Mayport Ferry has a ferry that goes across the actual river right here in the Mayport area. That's a very nice, they've tried for years, thinking about closing it down, but every time they do that, it's been an organization or something to step up to help it out, so the ferry's kinda nice.
- [Lauren] Just a little fun fact.
- [Steve] Yeah.
- [Lauren] What Steven started talking about that we're gonna go into here, is the actual beaches. It's one strip of land, but it's actually several different cities. You've got Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach, Jacksonville Beach, and then Ponte Vedra Beach. All down that waterfront side of the state, so I'm gonna let you take--
- [Steve] Yeah, the beaches right now, there are some properties in there that you can get in for under $400,000, very few because that market during the downturn, it went like many areas, but it came back. It was one of the first areas in Jacksonville that came back the healthiest and we're seeing prices continually go up. Right now, we're seeing the market change a little bit, a little more correction, but you see on the map here, you can get anywhere from threes and fours, there's some fives, some sevens, some eights. There's even some ones over the million dollar mark. Here on the left screen, these are some of the most current ones that are just hitting the market. Obviously, 485, 399, 500, there's some condos on the beach as well. Like this one here is actually on first street, which actually overlooks the ocean. Some new construction for 550. Got some beautiful views. The beach here in Jacksonville has a lot of beach. It's not like South Florida. I actually grew up in South Florida, Fort Lauderdale. The beach is very short. This, you can get to the beach, get to the sand and you've got sometimes a football field to get to the water. It's kind of nice. A lot of area to play, ride, bike, a lot of areas to kind of have family outings, kind of get together, things like that. It's a little bit different. Some people don't like the extra walk to the water, but at the same time, it has a lot of fun area.
- [Lauren] And it's easily accessible. There's a lot of great city parking, so if you decide to go to the beach, a lot of these places that we're talking about that are reasonable in those 400s, they're walking and biking distance to the ocean, but if you decide that you want to live in a different part of town, there's plenty of free beach accesses all along the waterway.
- [Scott] The properties that I'm looking at on your map here, east of it looks like the highway, A1A, are those detached, are those kind of a combo, are those like some of those mid-rise condos that we saw?
- [Lauren] Yeah.
- [Steve] Some are attached, some are detached, duplexes, and triplexes in Jacks Beach. A lot of the condos, the high rises on the beach, but a lot of the homes are gonna be single family detached.
- [Lauren] The ones that are on the ocean, down in Jacks Beach, those are typically the ones that are higher price, they're gonna be condos because they're gonna be actually on the sand
- [Scott] On the beach.
- [Lauren] Yeah.
- [Steve] Absolutely, clicking into here, I'll go to our features listings. This is one that we've pulled up. This is a newer construction home, cool home, you can see where it's located, just very easily walkable distance.
- [Scott] Oh yeah.
- [Steve] It's in an area called the Avalon Area, very popular area. It's got literally like a couple hundred yards to the ocean. A lot of new construction there. Has like the beach-y feel, the Key West-y feel. We find that a lot in Jacksonville. They brought that up in South Florida. The coastal absolute, more relaxed feel of the ocean, the inside, outside, the shiplap, the hardwood floors, or the coastal hardwoods and things like that.
- [Lauren] But these being newer homes, you have those two car garages, you have the open concept, you've got four bedrooms, two baths, 2500 square feet, walking distance to the beach and brand new construction under a million. You've got a 2500 - 3000 square foot house with a pool, so it's pretty reasonable.
- [Steve] Absolutely, I mean, a lot of the misconception about North Florida is people think, "Oh well you don't need a pool." Or a lot of people don't want a pool because you think it gets too cold here, we have kind of a nice mix here. I mean, we get cold, we get hot, but we don't typically get snow. I mean, once every what, 30 years we'll get snow. And the nice thing about the cold days is, wait a couple hours and then noon time you're not wearing a jacket and then you're back outside enjoying it.
- [Scott] So this house right here, what's the price again and the square footage?
- [Steve] This is 985 it's just under a million. It's like Lauren said, between 25 and 3000, just right at the 3000 mark, four bedrooms, three bathrooms. Definitely is priced accordingly based on the year it was built. This was built in 2013, so it's not brand new, but it's newer construction, considered new construction. They continue to change the codes here in Jacksonville and the codes are allowing us to get more wind proofing and storms that do blow in from time to time. They are upgrading the building codes.
- [Lauren] And we're-- knock on wood, Jacksonville has done fairly well. The last couple of hurricanes didn't even come close, so we continue to see that nice little pocket that Jacksonville falls into on the state, on the coast and continue to protect us.
- [Steve] Absolutely, so that's the first one of Jacks Beach that we want to touch on and then I think we mentioned there was this other one, Jacks Beach, which was a condominium, obviously it's a attached home. It's gonna be up on the, say it's the seventh floor. Yep, seventh floor, so it's got some elevation to it. It's not on the beach, it's looking out over the beach. Most the ones on the beach will be typically closer to the million, if not a little more than a million. This one here's got a really good value. Again, built in 2007 with newer codes, three bedrooms, four bathrooms, 2500 square feet.
- [Scott] That's a big condo right there.
- [Steve] It is and we find them sometimes in the 4,000. A lot of the professionals that are retiring or they're moving out of downtown, they'll come to the beaches and get a large condo.
- [Scott] Yeah, so you've got the view, you're a block away, you've got the view, well under a million, got a lot of square footage, it seems like that's a great opportunity, something like that.
- [Lauren] You're gonna put an offer in on this one?
- [Steve] Absolutely cool view.
- [Scott] Absolutely, let's do it, I'm ready to go. New vacation spot.
- [Lauren] You have the deck, you have the gorgeous view, you have the square footage, you're not trapped inside, you've got all the natural sunlight. So you have that dollar for under a million, basically on the beach.
- [Steve] Very panoramic with the two sides. You're not just having one sets of windows looking out. You've got mostly around the corners.
- [Lauren] But we do still have those started homes in Jacks Beach, in Neptune Beach that are in the threes and fours that are a couple more blocks off the ocean, that you're biking to. You can kind of move your way up into as your family continues to grow and you see your business continues to grow.
- [Steve] Yep, like in the Jacks Beach area, I'm gonna go with this one here, the 485 one. This is one that she just kind of mentioned. She mentioned one that's not too far from the beach, as you see, the coast is not too far. You're probably, what about six, eight, blocks away?
- [Lauren] It's definitely biking.
- [Steve] Definitely biking. You got the two car garage, you've got the paved driveway, the gazebo and the outdoor living, very coastal feel. You've got the nice coastal feeling of the floors. And this is not a new home. This has been renovated it appears. Got some newer styles, we're finding a lot of the white cabinets and the darker granite, different motions in it. That's part of the design. But this home here, for $485,000, it's 1,700 square feet, 1,708, three bedrooms, two baths, built in 1989, so just a little bit before the 2000 mark, but it definitely has a nice beach-y feel for a family that's dwelling into a nicer home.
- [Lauren] Yeah.
- [Scott] You know what I like about the photos, I think that this has been on all three properties you've showed us, it gives an aerial view, showing proximity to the ocean, that's great.
- [Steve] We find that being very helpful, having that aerial, kind of give us an idea. Our photographers that we work with, we specifically do that if we're close to downtown or waterways or if it's in Town Center, we have the Top Golf and all that that's there, we want to show the whole, get the good feeling. It's a lifestyle depending on .
- [Scott] Yeah, absolutely.
- [Lauren] Yeah.
- [Steve] All right, so moving on.
- [Lauren] There's some of the beaches. We're gonna jump into another community that is definitely, it's different, but Jacksonville, again, being that largest land mass city, but you will find a pocket of Jacksonville and that's where you live, that's where you stay, that's where you have your friends, that's where you have your kids go to school, and so on. So Nocatee is a brand new community and it is a master plan community, so it's basically all inclusive, meaning that you have your entertainment, your restaurants, your schools. It has a splash park, it's got a water park. It's got kayaks for the reserves. You can take your golf cart out there, your kids can run around. It's one of those, you live there, your friends are there, everything is there, so that is still building right now, but it's a pretty cool development. And a lot of what is nice about Jacksonville is we're in northeast Florida is you still have trees other than just palm trees and so you have preserve use, you have trees behind you and you still have a lot of privacy in some of those lots back in there where they're building new. They haven't cleared out entire miles of growth. They're making the neighborhood fit into the preserve and into the community and into the natural surroundings so that you're not just looking at a bunch of flat, desert dirt.
- [Steve] They are keeping a preserved feel for these homes.
- [Scott] So right now Nocatee is kind of a mix between new construction and then homes that are still being built, right?
- [Lauren] Yeah, and I would say it's newer construction probably around 2009 til now, so again, being that master plan community, everything is there. But you can still have a pool in your backyard, you can still have the trees and the preserve use. You can send your kids up to the water park, so they can go play in the splash play. And so we're finding that if you want an existing home, you want to move in right away, those are available. Those are still reasonable. Homes in this community, they've got mixed living communities. They've got some closer to the Town Center of Nocatee that are zero lot lines, so almost no upkeep, a little bit less expensive. Not quite a town home, but similar. And then you've got some existing constructions within the threes to sixes and then you've got new construction, which is still pretty reasonable, you're twos, threes, to sevens, to eights, depending on what size community that you want to do. So we've got some great builders out there, some national builders, like who's out there? My mind just went completely blank.
- [Steve] We've got the big ones in the nation. You've got KB, you've got Pulte, you've got--
- [Lauren] Dream Finders
- [Steve] D.R. Horton, Dream Finders has become more of the nation's builder over Jacksonville.
- [Lauren] Yeah, we've got--
- [Steve] But they've gotten really big.
- [Lauren] We also got some IPI is also out there.
- [Steve] David Weekly.
- [Lauren] David Weekly is out there and we've got some local builders as well that are unique to the community.
- [Steve] Providence Home.
- [Lauren] Providence, Riverside, which really understands what we're building out there. So you can go in and build what you want from scratch. And we do have a very high end builder out there called Pineapple that's building the million stuff, so it's truly a full range for whatever you wanna do.
- [Scott] So how much was this property again?
- [Steve] This one here, 2825 square feet, four bedrooms, three baths, 629 five.
- [Scott] Got it.
- [Steve] Minimal. Build in 2017, so it's just built basically.
- [Scott] Great finishes on that, yeah, that's nice.
- [Steve] This is a specific David Weekly Homes. The David Weekly builder does really well here in Jacksonville.
- [Lauren] Yeah, I had a couple just build in there with Riverside, which is one of our more local builders and they did a 2200 square foot, four bedrooms, two and a half bath and we were in the low fours when they picked everything and all the upgrades that they wanted to do with the builder.
- [Scott] Awesome.
- [Lauren] Pretty reasonable.
- [Scott] I would say it's very reasonable compared to what we see out here in California, very reasonable.
- [Steve] I would say that this one here on Willow Ridge is probably one of the smaller homes, still density all the things that Lauren talked about, with like the schools and the water parks and the master plan development. This is a little bit smaller, doesn't have the pool. Does have nice finishes. It is a newer home It looks like a Lennar actually. And Lennar is another builder that we have here in town.
- [Lauren] And also--
- [Steve] There's the preserve out back that we talked about earlier. That preserve view is what the builders really try to use that as an advantage to have that little bit of a buffer, so you're not up against homes left and right.
- [Scott] Yeah, no that's nice, good backdrop. Okay, so that's in like, what we said, like the mid-300s that's what you can expect and how big was that home?
- [Steve] This one is 2126.
- [Scott] Okay, really good size three bedroom, yeah.
- [Steve] Yep, for a three bedroom, that is oversized.
- [Scott] So talk to me about the typical profile buyer for maybe this type of a property, three bedroom, two bath, looks like it's relatively low maintenance, it's newer. Is this gonna be a family, maybe a starter home? Or is this going to be kind of a retiree last home?
- [Lauren] This is a great family home for somebody who's got those kids they wanna be . Jacksonville, Duval County and St. Johns County schools are rated A through F. St. Johns County and in particular Nocatee is building new schools and they are A rated. So a lot of people are moving to St. Johns County because they want their kids to go to that school system and because they're going this master plan community, the kids are developing relationships in elementary school, then middle school, then high school. So they're seeing that continuous that you really love your children to have. Nocatee, itself, does have a 55 plus community that's being built by a company called CalAtlantic in Artisan Lakes. I can touch on that now or we can touch base on it later.
- [Steve] The schools also in St. Johns County, they're doing what's called a K through eight. It's a different mindset, but a lot of parents do like that. It does help foster friendships and comradery with students in the lower levels, from kindergarten all the way to eighth grade. You still have the high schools after that. A lot of Duval schools will have K through five and then a middle school, sixth through eighth, six, seven, eight, then they have to jump again to high school nine through 12th.
- [Lauren] Still high rated in the city and the state.
- [Scott] The K through eight, is that a charter or is that a public?
- [Steve] Those are public schools. Those are public schools. That's why we to the St. Johns County. You get the A rated schools and they're brand new and they've got a really good mindset on how they're setting them up.
- [Lauren] In Duval County, you still have some charter schools, but you do have the election to send your kids to where they have scientific technology types of charter schools, art charter schools. They've got a couple of specific languages here in Jacksonville.
- [Steve] Vocational too.
- [Lauren] Vocational. There's a Russian charter school. Lots of unique things that you can put your kids into around here.
- [Scott] Very cool. Did you guys have another area that you wanted to show? Cause I do want to get into the adult community. I want to make sure we cover the areas that you guys were interested in showcasing.
- [Steve] Absolutely. Let me go ahead and move over to Mandarin now. Mandarin is sort of like the best of both worlds. It's got a lot of the preserve feel, but it also has some water, so there's some waterfront in there as well. There's some new construction and then there's some existing construction that are fairly good priced. You can turn around, you can get into Mandarin sometimes in the low twos, even sometimes very seldomly, but you will find under two, smaller, smaller homes, but in the 32223 zip code, which is what we're highlighting today in Mandarin, you'll see anywhere from the twos on up to the threes and then you'll see on the riverfront, obviously the million dollar homes.
- [Scott] That went up really fast.
- [Steve] Really quick. You have 234. My son actually, my younger son, bought a house literally like right here for 205 last year on the First Time Home Buyer Program.
- [Scott] That's awesome.
- [Steve] It was amazing.
- [Lauren] He finally got his act together at 21.
- [Steve] Very well.
- [Lauren] We were very pleased.
- [Steve] And then you have the 300s, the 400s. As you see, as it gets closer, but you do have some 200s closer to the water that are in smaller neighborhoods around the Mandarin point. And this is the area we like to flock to, a very peninsula style, kind of a nice nature--
- [Lauren] It's established. It's nature, there's gorgeous trees and roads out there, but it still has great schools. Again, those A rated schools and it still has that community feel, so people here, because Jacksonville is that large city, you drive for 20-45 minutes, you're still in Jacksonville, but when you ask somebody where they live, they say Mandarin, everybody knows what you're talking about. And Nocatee, everybody know what you're talking about.
- [Scott] Kind of like those suburbs, right?
- [Lauren] Yeah, when we were talking about the beaches earlier, those two little beaches, they all cross what we call the ditch, the intercostals call it the ditch here. So people on the beaches aren't--
- [Scott] That's the technical term for it, right? The ditch.
- [Lauren] It is.
- [Steve] Very much so and on the left side you'll see some of the price points here, I mean, 200s, 400s, I mean, even the 800s you go closer to the river. You get the best of both worlds with Mandarin. Very popular area.
- [Lauren] Yeah.
- [Scott] This area, how far would this be to downtown Jacksonville?
- [Lauren] That's the other joke with me. I always say that Jacksonville's the biggest small town and I also say that if you ask somebody how long it's gonna take you to get somewhere, they're gonna tell you 20 minutes. It actually never takes 20 minutes, but they're gonna tell you 20 minutes. But I would say from Mandarin to downtown Jacksonville, I've got a customer that was looking in Mandarin, they were about 25-35 minutes depending on traffic. So, not too far away from that. You are gonna do some driving in Jacksonville.
- [Steve] Yeah, same with the beaches. If you're out here at the beaches, you're in Mandarin, with no traffic, you're about 20-25. With traffic you get there 20--
- [Lauren] 35
- [Steve] About 35-40 easily and if you get in the danger traffic obviously even worse.
- [Scott] I mean, totally reasonable, right? Like for example, I had to drive from east of San Francisco to south of San Francisco this morning and it took me, I left at 5 a.m., so it only took 45 minutes, but typically it would take about two hours. So it's all relative distance to actually time spent on the road. You know, 20-25 minutes is very reasonable.
- [Lauren] Right, and Jacksonville has some great-- We have I-95 that runs through downtown and south. We also, they're continuing construction out there. They've build a loop, that thing that says 295 on our screen goes all the way around the city. You can jump on and off 295. It's really helpful.
- [Scott] All right, so let's talk a little bit about some of the 55 plus communities because a lot of the people that we're working with and that are moving out of California are looking specifically for 55 plus because they want to take advantage of some of the awesome activities and everything that they've built out in some of those communities. And frankly, some of those communities are just amazing. So walk us through maybe one of these communities and what a general price point might be and maybe what some of those amenities are, what you can get for your money there.
- [Lauren] Sure, I actually pulled up one here that you're looking at now called Artisan Lakes. It's over in Nocatee, that same development that we were talking about. That is that master plan community where you can be there and especially with the 55 plus community, you really don't have to leave. It has a clubhouse, it has a fitness center, it has a demonstration kitchen. They've got people coming in and doing events. They have a zero entry pool, which is really nice for when you get a little bit older, but you still want to swim. You have pickle ball and racketball, an event planner, they have putting greens. There's 196 home sites in this community, starting in the 300s, so it's still very, very reasonable. And because it is that 55 plus community, it does have those activities and that centers. They're taking care of the lawns and they're doing all of those things, so that you're really enjoying your life instead of worrying about that upkeep.
- [Scott] What would be an average HOA due that I would have in a community like this to have those amenities and activities?
- [Lauren] Sure, this one being a little bit different, I want to say that their HOAs and activities off a bit is around $190 a month for that community that they're keeping up with everything. Those can vary based on house size and based on neighborhood and again, based on if they are bringing somebody in or you're paying for that kind of thing, but they are pretty dang reasonable.
- [Scott] Got it, okay, perfect.
- [Lauren] About Nocatee is that it is pretty close to Ponte Vedra where you've got TPC, about 20 meters in you go Sawgrass Country Club, you've got some really great golfing out there as well.
- [Scott] You've given us some great examples of housing and then we've talked about a master plan, adult community, I know that there's several there that's great options for people who are looking for the 55 plus. Let's talk a little bit about health care. If you don't mind closing off your screen share. We can get a little bit more details. So tell us, a lot of folks are, if they're coming in and we hear this concern all the time. If they're moving to an areas, health care is really important to them, right? Because we want to make sure that they're close proximity to health care services and things like that. Tell us a little bit about what's popular. I think you guys have a Mayo Clinic there, which is huge. Give us some insight.
- Yeah, Mayo Clinic is here. We're very fortunate to have that. That hospital has actually continued to grow in the area. It doubled in sized, that Mayo Clinic, over the last couple of years, so that being that top-notch care that you can get in the hospital system, we're very fortunate to have that. Also, there are several other hospitals in town that you can go to that are partnered with other people. For example, Baptist Systems down here is a local hospital. It has about 9,000 employees. They've actually partnered with MD Anderson Cancer Center. And we also have specialties for children. We have Wolfson Children's Hospital, Nemours Children's Hospital. We have a Ronald McDonald House here, so we have lots of health care options for you and then the last big ones are St. Vincent's, which is again, another local one. And then we have UF Shands, which is actually partnered with the University of Florida. You can get pretty much any kind of health care you need here, and again, that Mayo Clinic, there's not too many of those around the country.
- We've had people come here just for the hospitals here. Specifically, partnership with Baptist, definitely add on to that.
- Right.
- And like you said earlier Lauren, everything is within 20 minutes, right?
- Right.
- You'll be within 20 minutes to a great health care service provider, hospital, clinic, whatever you need.
- You'll be well taken care of here in Jacksonville, yeah.
- Awesome, so for the people that are coming out, let's say, not retirees, but people that are coming out maybe for a job opportunity, talk to us a little bit about some of the industries there, some of the growth, and what you're seeing growth in, whether industry or company wise.
- There's actually quite a few companies located here in Jacksonville that people don't realize. Transportation is out of here. They run the train system up and down the east coast. We do have Naval Station JAX and Naval Station out of Mayport, so we are a military city. Amazon just opened a distribution center here. One of the funny companies that people don't realize how big it is is a company called Fanatics. It's about 6,000 employees and anytime that you order something online with any kind of football, MLB, any kind of sports stuff on it, you're getting it from here in Jacksonville. They're producing all of that.
- Got it, I've heard of that, yeah.
- They started here a couple years ago, about 80 employees and now they're 6,000, so we're continuing to see growth in multiple areas. We do have Jacks Port here, which allows us for that kind of community. The majority of the industry here in Jacksonville is health systems. Florida Blues is based out of here, so all Blue Cross Blue Shield out of Florida is based here in Jacksonville. And then investments. Fidelity is out here as well. So we've got quite a few things going on.
- Pretty diverse, right? A lot of growth going on there, a lot of employment opportunities.
- Yeah, we've seen employment go up by about 6% or so in various industries, so from 3 to 6%, depending on what industry you're looking for.
- What's that?
- We just need our football team to win.
- We just need our football team to win.
- Yeah, yeah.
- We've got a new quarterback in and then he got hurt and now we're hoping we have a better game this week in Houston.
- Right.
- Your times is coming It's got to go back to growth stage, right? Go back to the basics.
- We also have a big name in the financial industry. TIAA actually owns our stadium here. They own the naming rights to our stadium and they're a big employer here. They just bought a company called EverBank, which is a bank that was built here in Jacksonville that grew to about 6,000 employees that TIAA just bought out.
- Steve, you could be experience what we're experience here, your team could actually be leaving and be gone, which is the Oakland Raiders, soon to be the Las Vegas Raiders. Not necessarily my team, but for a lot of people around here there's a favorite. Let's talk about transportation a little bit because you mentioned that it's maybe 20-25 minutes wherever you're going, a continuous city, a lot of bridges. You have toll roads, I assume.
- We actually have not had toll roads for years. They just put in an option toll road down 295. It's the first toll road that's been here in 35 years.
- Yeah they vowed never to have toll roads ever again, but what they've done is like Lauren said, they've done this optional lane where you can travel longer distances within Jacksonville and get on this toll-- They call it SunPass and SunPass, the one thing I will say good about the SunPass system is that it does allow a more seamless entry and exit because it's all electronic. You put a sticker on your vehicle. Actually, I don't know how it does it, but it electronically picks it up.
- It's like the transponder.
- Yep.
- It started with this battery transponder with a light then they went with no light, now they've gone just a sticker and it's just crazy.
- Interesting.
- And then if you look at your viewing on your online account, you can see how many times you've hit the expressway or not. Sometimes you can actually know that's enough. But you can definitely have your account replenished. Mine replenish automatic.
- For the most part, the major travel system here in Jacksonville are not tolls. That's the only one that is, but you still get around in that 25 to 35 minutes, obviously a little bit longer with traffic, but the road systems here are pretty good. Other modes of transportation, Jacksonville does have an international airport, so you can go in and out of that. So it is international, it does go over to Europe and down south and stuff like that. And then I-95 goes straight through Jacksonville, A1A goes straight through Jacksonville, so there's the I-295 Loop that goes around the entire city.
- The loop goes around and then now with St. Johns County, they got some other roads tied into 295, 795 is coming, things like that that's gonna help the traffic flow. Definitely, they're keeping an eye on it and even though they are bringing back some tolls, I think it's going to be specialized by certain people that need to get on that longer run.
- And that can be a nice option to have and there aren't too many of that throughout the Bay Area. You have the toll lane, which you're gonna pay extra to be in it, which may or may not get you any further. It's usually at the same standstill otherwise. So south Florida is more likely to have a toll roads, right? At least at one time where you stop and throw some change in the bucket.
- Yeah
- Yep, that was in South Florida, the buckets, the dimes, the quarters, the big ol' bucket you just--
- We've been fortunate enough that we haven't had to go that toll road route with some of the expansion that we've had. Jacksonville has done a pretty good job of expansion correctly, so that when we're adding roads, we're not looking to tax our residents.
- That's a great segue. Let's talk about that then, Lauren. Taxes, the things that nobody likes to talk about, but we're gonna bring it up anyway just for fun. Let's do a comparison, so Florida does not have a state income tax, is that right?
- That's correct.
- Okay.
- No state income tax.
- So if there's not a state income tax, how much for the property taxes? If you had to say percentage or assessed value on a property, what would that percentage look like?
- They have what's called a mileage rate and you basically, for every $100,000 dollars of taxable assessed value, Duval County is a little bit more than St. Johns County. Duval's I think a little over 18 point--
- 18.31
- So for every 100,000, you're about 1800 in taxes and some change. Now, there is the homestead exemption that you would get taken off of that, so you do have up to $50,000 reduction, but schools don't get reduced, so you end up getting like in debt reduction 37 5 is what we say.
- For the houses that we've been looking at in St. Johns and Duval County, when you're look at a $400,000 house with a homestead exemption, what would you say that annual tax bill would be?
- Let's say the savings, the savings for a homestead is gonna be somewhere around seven, 750 a year. And you're saying the homes that we--
- 400.
- 400? If you're about 1800 a year. 18 times four times, what you're gonna be at? 7200.
- I would say you're looking at about $6500 a year in taxes.
- 55 a year in taxes, okay. Seems reasonable.
- We've had some people that have relocated from New York and New Jersey, where they're looking at their $200,000 house that they built 25 years ago, their tax bill is $17,000 a year. They're coming down here spending 6000 a year on a $400,000 house that's got a pool in the back, so people really enjoy that about our state and our city.
- Yeah, no that's nice. So that tells me you guys may somewhere 1% or over 1% on yours. Our effective rate is maybe one and a quarter percent. And if there's some assessments, things we call Mello-Roos, different types of additions on to that. Depending on the community that you're in, you might get up to 1.4%, but the big difference is California state income tax rate, the base is about seven and a quarter percent, goes up to about 13.3% of course on a sliding scale based on income. So, the state tax, you guys win, big winners there. What's a gallon of gas gonna cost right now out there? If I was to fill up premium.
- Premium, I know that basic is $2.29, so about $2.49 a gallon.
- $2.49?
- Yep, two dollars and 49 cents.
- Awesome, I think we just went under $4. It was a little bit higher earlier this summer, but we're back down, so I think we're maybe $3.90, $4 for premium, so in this game, lower wins. I think you guys won on that one. What would you say your sales tax is?
- Our sales tax actually is 7% And Duval County is 7% and--
- That doesn't change.
- That doesn't change. I know that's obviously on things that you're buying that are not basic goods. Groceries are So 7% if you're buying a new TV, you're gonna pay a couple cents for it.
- But if you're buying some eggs, gallon of milk, no tax, okay, that makes sense. We're at about, per county out here, eight and a quarter percent. Seem pretty reasonable, pretty much in line with a lot of other areas that we see. So, I think you guys win on that too. So tell us a little bit about what's going on with the weather out there. We've heard all about the recent hurricane that went through, which I think missed you guys and where you're at in Jacksonville, but tell us about what can you expect as far as high temperatures in the summer time, low temperatures in the winter, rainfall, humidity, anything like that.
- Summer here are real hot. We're in Florida, so we're called the Sunshine State for a reason, so we do see the temperatures rise in the three digits, so up to about 100 or so and sometimes humidity can be a little bit heavy here, but that's why we do have so many pools and the ocean and everything else. And then winters we're very fortunate. We do probably have a handful of days that maybe reach that freezing point, but nothing really super cold, The nice thing about Jacksonville and northeast Florida is we do still see a season change, unlike south Florida that just stays kind of summer almost 85% of the year. We do get a spring, summer and fall and winter here. We do see all four of those season. Our summers tend to be a little bit longer.
- Who doesn't want a longer summer, right?
- It's great for if you're going out tanning for the skin and again, we're called the Sunshine State for a reason, but in northeast Florida, we don't necessarily have leaves change, but we do have that temperature shift where it gets a little bit cooler at night. We're in the 60s and 70s. What's kind of nice about fall here is you'll get into the 60s at night, but you'll be in the 70s. There are a couple times that I've worn shorts to Thanksgiving dinner.
- Shorts on Christmas Day and then in January, we're going off shore fishing in shorts, so it's never really the same. It never really gets too cold. Every once in awhile you'll get some cold snaps and it'll stay cold for a couple weeks in the 30s and 40s off and on, but by noon time, it's back in the 50s, 60s, so it's comfortable.
- Yeah, what's nice here about rain is you just wait five minutes and it's sunny again.
- Exactly, right, you don't really know what to expect until it's already happened.
- One of the photos that we looked at earlier, that you showed us, had the pool and it had the netting around the pool, so I'm assuming that's for bugs, right?
- It is for the state bird also known as the mosquito.
- The state bird the mosquito. That's a new one, I haven't heard that. It really is a state bird.
- That's a joke, but it is for, it's kind of two-fold. It keeps leaves out of your pool, which is kind of nice here cause you do still have, especially in that community that we're showing you that pool in. They want to keep those trees. That's always a nice thing about northeast Florida, you do have tree cover. You're keeping the leaves out of your pool, you're keeping the bugs away during the summer and then you're also keeping, it's kind of UV block too, So it offers a little bit of sunscreen believe it or not.
- Just a little sunscreen. The down side is that the water doesn't get as warm in the summer, like when you're trying to go from a winter, spring when you jump in the pool, the water will stay a little cooler longer because the sun doesn't get that direct hit to the mark.
- But that's really super nice during the summer when you want that cool refreshing jump in.
- It is, yeah.
- And not having to have all the maintenance, right? You don't have a bunch of crap falling into your pool, so it's easier to keep clean, right?
- We have a lot of water pools with enclosures down here.
- Totally random question here, but I've got to ask it. Do you have those little no see ums?
- Yes.
- Yes.
- Oh yeah, do you have them?
- I was in Orlando a number of years ago and I got bit and I guess they call them no see ums, I know that's probably not the technical name for them, but you don't see them and you're bit. I guess you get used to it after awhile, right?
- No, you try to avoid them or use-- It's interesting because there's only certain times of the evening and mornings that they--
- It's usually dusk and dawn.
- Yeah, dusk and dawn is when they come out the most and there's some sprays you use to stay away from them or you know when not to go out, but they are brutal. They are. Some people call them not seeing fleas,
- The no see ums is a pretty good technical term.
- That is very , yeah.
- That's right up there with the ditch.
- No see ums ditch, they're in Florida and they're horrible, they're horrible.
- Yeah, you keep the fan going, right? And they can't control where they're going, they just continue to move with any type of motion or wind. What's that?
- That's why you want a little bit of a breeze, always want a breeze.
- There you go, a little bit of a breeze keeps them moving. Let's end with some of the more popular things that there is to do in Jacksonville. What do people like to do in the spring time, summer, winter time, what's popular?
- As you know, we do have a professional football team. Sometimes they look a little bit more professional than other times, but we do have a great stadium and then we obviously have the beaches and then again, you have is your outer beaches. You're typically biking distance or walking distance. If you're not and you wanna go drive down there, there's lots and lots of easy access for free, which is actually kind of nice cause you're not paying for that. We do have a minor league baseball team called the Jumbo Shrimp.
- Jumbo Shrimp.
- The Jumbo Shrimp? That's the actual team name?
- Great new stadium, also, so you go watch the Jumbo Shrimp. They run double hitters a lot of times. Stay down there watch a couple games.
- Yeah, I think like the most expensive tickets are like 12 bucks, so easy family fun. We have a great Jacksonville Zoo that was just rebuilt a couple years ago. We have some amazing museums. We've got the Museum of Modern Art here in Jacksonville. We've got the which has coming through all the time. We have a great Children's Museum, which has something going on every week, every weekend that you want to drop your kids off or take them, do something like that. And then because Jacksonville is a big city, we do have a lot of entertainment acts that come through here. Somebody gave our team tickets to the Rolling Stones, so we went down to the stadium and watched the show, which was kind of fun.
- Very cool.
- Dave Matthews coming out here to the Stone, to smaller bands to the St. Augustine Amphitheater. There's always something going on.
- And that's the thing, St. Augustine is only 35-45 minutes away, right down US-1, so you can always jump down to St. Augustine and it just opens up a whole bunch of different options.
- Yeah or you can go up north to Amelia. We were actually there earlier this year. There's the Festival at Fernandina Beach, which is super, super fun and super yummy. And then we were out at Amelia for, they have a classic car show. There's some amazing cars out there that you can go do. Plus TPC for golf. TPC is actually the biggest course, so everybody is playing that. Every major golfer is out there playing that.
- Yeah, always a big one.
- It's a big one and it's kind of fun. You sit out on the 17th. It's called the Island Green. You watch all the players put their ball in the water.
- Not all of them, but most of them.
- It's a lot of fun, so there's always something going on.
- It's definitely fun. There's always something to do. There's always something to do.
- Steve, you're a fisherman, right?
- Absolutely, yeah.
- Okay, so what I forgot to mention, so the name of your group with EXP Reality is a Reel Keeper and I'm assuming that's what we're talking about reel keeper, right? That's a big thing that you do out there.
- Yes.
- Awesome.
- There's always something going on with fishing out here that's kind of cool because you have everything from big fishing miles off shore you have the Kingfish Tournament or you've got like in short bass tournament.
- You've got the offshore blue water tournaments. You've got the KingFish tournaments that are very popular around here and you've got the in shore redfish trout tournaments, flounder tournaments, I mean, there's always something going on fishing wise here. Reel Keeper was named after our fishing team, reel keeper. Reel Keeper Expert Advisors, definitely follow that suit.
- Right. A lot of time here in Jacksonville too, the ocean's pretty flat, which is not great for surfers, but is amazing for fishermen.
- Sure, yeah, that's awesome. We've covered a lot of great content here, I mean, a little bit of everything. Is there anything that maybe you guys want to mention that we didn't cover before we wrap it up?
- I think we touched on--
- I'm sure I'll think of something later.
- We've got to keep some--
- But no, I really will go back to what I say. I am a Jacksonville native. Jacksonville used to be a really big transplant city. There's not so many of us natives that's lived here for a couple years, but it really is the biggest small town. And in that, you have that community feeling where you know your neighbors, but you still have big things going on like the NFL, with major acts coming into town, but you have great house pricing, great weather. There's so many thing about Jacksonville that are just great so to speak.
- Great to look into. If someone's looking, we're here to help you out.
- Yeah.
- So, let's finish up with this, if somebody was interested in taking a trip out and lets say they've done some research online, they determined that Jacksonville could be a great destination for them. You guys happy to have them out, maybe show them around a little bit?
- [Lauren & Steve] Absolutely.
- That's what called the golden thing to do, the south. We were named a couple years ago, so we would love to show them around and show them our hospitality.
- Absolutely.
- So we do still have some southern hospitality down here.
- That's great, perfect. Well you guys have been fantastic. Thanks again for your time and all your great information today. And once again, Lauren Summer, Steven Croy from the Reel Keeper Group at EXP Realty and again, my name is Scott Fuller. If you'd like to contact us regarding getting in contact with our great team here in Jacksonville, info@leavingthebayarea.com Thanks again guys. We'll be talking to you soon and take care.
- Bye
- Okay, bye for now.
Cost of Living Comparisons
Jacksonville, FL VS San Francisco, CA
71.1% less
Cost to Rent
5.4% more
Utilities
14.9% less
Food & Groceries
3.2% less
Health Costs
35.9% less
Transportation
.3% less
Auto Insurance (Annually)
20.1% less
Auto Sale Tax
254.2% more
Auto Registration (Annually)
17.6% less
Sales Tax
100% less
State Income Tax
44.3% less
Child Care
Commute Comparison
| Jacksonville, FL | San Francisco, CA | |
Average Commute Time |
24 mins | 45 mins |
Comparison of gas prices |
$2.41 | $4.49 |
Live Traffic Comparison
Jacksonville, FL
San Francisco, CA
Climate
Jacksonville
San Francisco
90
Average Summer High68
72
Average Summer Low55
68
Average Winter High58
48
Average Winter Low47
221
Sunny Days Per Year259
50
Rain (inches per year)25
0
Snow (inches per year)0
Current Temperature in Jacksonville, FL
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