How millenials and baby boomers will impact Jacksonville's real estate market

[thelakelander]

By Carole Hawkins, Staff Writer

The rise of millenials and the aging of baby boomers are the national market forces most likely to impact real estate here in Jacksonville.
That's Fred Schmidt's bet.

The national president of Coldwell Banker Commercial, Schmidt shared his insights with the Daily Record while attending a regional conference for his company in Jacksonville.

For millenials, quality of life matters more than it did to past generations. So, quality of life is going to affect a company's ability to attract employees more and more.

Florida benefits from beaches and a mild climate. And Jacksonville has the ingredients to deliver the live-work-play experience millenials favor, with its Downtown riverfront and first steps at urban renewal, seen in projects like Unity Plaza.

Jacksonville should build its transit system, though, Schmidt said, to offer more convenient access to the amenities millenials will want to enjoy.

Full article: http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=546371

[mtraininjax]

Good article, I saw recently where Bank Repossessions of houses are up 66% across the US, according to RealtyTrac, as many banks are racing to take possession of properties and then push them back onto the market while prices are up. The average list price of a house in Jax is $150,000. The Average sale price is $108,000. The average sale price of a house that is bank-owned (in various stages of needing repair) is $59,000 in Jacksonville. So if you are a millenial, and you can get a house with 3% down, as you can from many sources, and you can get renovation money. Why wouldn't you look to jump at the opportunity to build equity.

The fact that the housing cycle, at least in Florida, because the judicial process is 2-3 years on foreclosure of a home means that millennials, smart ones, can buy a house, hold it for 2 years, then sell it and not have to pay capital gains on the house, up to $250,000 for single person, and $500,000 for married couples. So buy in the urban areas and put in the granite counter tops, stainless appliances, the things that are needed for top dollar resale and then repeat the process elsewhere.

[benfranklinbof]

I'm updating my house in Murray hill. I bought it when I was 21, I'm 23 now. Its looking nice. I have a cute brick bungalow. I don't plan on moving anytime soon.

[finehoe]

"It is dogma among greens, urban pundits, planners and developers that the under 30 crowd doesn't like what Grist called 'sprawling car dependent cities," Joel Kotkin writes for Forbes. "Too bad no one told most millennials. What [actually] emerges...is a  picture of a millennial America that does not much mirror the one suggested in most accounts. The metro areas with the highest percentages of millennials tend, for the most part, to be not dense big cities but either college towns — Austin, Texas; Columbus, Ohio, for example — or Sun Belt cities."

Cities like Charlotte, NC have seen their fair share of millennial transplants, and the Charlotte Observer reports that despite their preference for mass transit, millennials are embracing cars as a tradeoff to the lower overhead and higher quality of life available in these smaller cities. Millennials — also known as Generation Y — accounted for 27 percent of new car sales in the U.S. last year, up from 18 percent in 2010, according to J.D. Power & Associates. They've zoomed past Gen X to become the second-largest group of new car buyers after their boomer parents. Millennials are starting to find jobs and relocating to the suburbs and smaller cities, where public transport is spotty.

- See more at: http://www.bentley.edu/prepared/why-millennials-are-moving-suburbs-and-smaller-cities#sthash.3CHkUMWQ.dpuf

[thelakelander]

Good article. The smaller cities it mentions are a few that are seriously investing in their quality of life, multimodal transportation options, complete streets, modifying zoning to become more walkable, etc. A city like Jax would do itself some good to take a look at what places like Austin, Charlotte and Columbus have been doing over the last decade or two.


Happily stuck in traffic on High Street in Short North, with a rear view glimpse of DT Columbus in the background.


It would nice to see some streets like Edgewood, Main, Kings, University, etc. revitalize to get the type of activity taking place on some of Columbus' core streets.

[finehoe]

I have some friends who just moved from San Francisco to Columbus.  I was shocked when they first told me about it, but apparently Columbus has a lot to offer.  I hope to visit next spring/summer.

[For_F-L-O-R-I-D-A]

Good article. The smaller cities it mentions are a few that are seriously investing in their quality of life, multimodal transportation options, complete streets, modifying zoning to become more walkable, etc. A city like Jax would do itself some good to take a look at what places like Austin, Charlotte and Columbus have been doing over the last decade or two.


Happily stuck in traffic on High Street in Short North, with a rear view glimpse of DT Columbus in the background.


It would nice to see some streets like Edgewood, Main, Kings, University, etc. revitalize to get the type of activity taking place on some of Columbus' core streets.

Especially with Columbus and Austin, it is difficult to compare them to Jax because they have huge, major research universities in Ohio State and UT. Likewise, both cities are the capital's of huge states with the influx of money that comes from that.

[CCMjax]

I have some friends who just moved from San Francisco to Columbus.  I was shocked when they first told me about it, but apparently Columbus has a lot to offer.  I hope to visit next spring/summer.

Columbus definitely flies under the radar for how cool it is, and no I didn't go to Ohio State.  It is a lot more historic and compact than I had imagined, kind of like Cincinnati but cleaner.  Well, maybe they are about the same now, it's been over 10 years since I've been to Cinci.

[E_Dubya]

[/quote]

Especially with Columbus and Austin, it is difficult to compare them to Jax because they have huge, major research universities in Ohio State and UT. Likewise, both cities are the capital's of huge states with the influx of money that comes from that.
[/quote]

Charlotte is a more comparable city to what Jacksonville could move to accomplish. What we lack is industry. We used to have banking on the scale that Charlotte has. Step one is to solve that problem.

[thelakelander]

Although all of us have different features that are unique to each specific city, all of these places are highly comparable when facing this particular issue. We don't need a research university or have to be a state capitol to invest in something other than highways or to encourage walkable development. We don't need an OSU to develop a corridor like High Street in Short North. That's essentially Main Street in Springfield or Kings Road in Durkeeville....just revitalized. We also have enough industry. What we lack is vision and the will to implement things we have not invested in traditionally.

[TimmyB]

I have some friends who just moved from San Francisco to Columbus.  I was shocked when they first told me about it, but apparently Columbus has a lot to offer.  I hope to visit next spring/summer.

My wife and I take our bikes with us whenever we travel in the US.  Columbus was an unbelievably cool city to bike/walk, especially with us coming from Michigan and hearing all the negative garbage you can imagine.  In addition to OSU, they have a dedicated bike path which takes you right downtown, without having to cross very many streets (ultra-safe ride), and the downtown actually was bike-friendly and had things to do, places to eat, etc.  This is one of the biggest disappointments we have with Jax; it is not a bike/pedestrian friendly place, and once you get downtown, you only have to travel about two blocks and you don't exactly feel safe.  Other than the Landing, which according to all reports has fallen off a cliff since we were down there a couple of years ago, there was not much going on. 

If DT Jax could ever be like Columbus, that would be a real plus.  I believe the other comments were correct, though.  We are not a major university town, nor a state capitol.

[thelakelander]

You don't have to be a state capital or home to a major university to have a vibrant downtown or be a bike friendly city. St. Petersburg is a perfect example of this. If they were able to turn that place around in 10-15 years, we should be able to do the same, considering the existing assets we already bring to the table.

[For_F-L-O-R-I-D-A]

Although all of us have different features that are unique to each specific city, all of these places are highly comparable when facing this particular issue. We don't need a research university or have to be a state capitol to invest in something other than highways or to encourage walkable development. We don't need an OSU to develop a corridor like High Street in Short North. That's essentially Main Street in Springfield or Kings Road in Durkeeville....just revitalized. We also have enough industry. What we lack is vision and the will to implement things we have not invested in traditionally.

You just have so much artificial economic stimulation from an OSU or a state capitol. The vibrancy from just the young populations creates those cool vibes. Just go to Gainesville or Tallahassee, which are a fraction of the size of Jax, and with little in natural beauty to offer, but are far more vibrant at times than Jax. That said, Jax has a lot to offer and could do a lot to make the changes like you said.

One thing that is right: Charlotte should not have passed Jacksonville like it did. Also, Jacksonville could definitely be the next St. Petersburg but we need to play to our natural assets with the river, beaches, historic neighborhoods, and Laura/Bay Corridors downtown.

[TimmyB]

... Jacksonville could definitely be the next St. Petersburg but we need to play to our natural assets with the river, beaches, historic neighborhoods, and Laura/Bay Corridors downtown.

Amen to that. 

[thelakelander]

I spent five years in Tallahassee. I always thought it lacked the urban vibrancy of compact college towns like Madison, Athens, Ann Arbor, etc. Gainesville felt worse. In Tally, football season was pretty cool (in terms of college nightlife) but the summers sucked and downtown was never really vibrant. To be honest, I was ready to leave and left right after my graduation ceremony. This was in the early 2000s, so things may have changed now. On the other hand, DT Jax was once vibrant (big city vibrant) and we have no one else to blame but ourselves for what it has become, during a period when other places around the country were rapidly turning things around.

From my experience, most of the successful places tend to leverage their natural assets, historic neighborhoods, etc. These are common traits that are applicable to all cities of various shapes, cultures, economic conditions and sizes. Universities, state capitols, county seats, military, local business community, non-profit foundations, sugar daddies, etc. are simply tools to facilitate the leveraging. Depending on the community, a varying set of tools may be available to them.