Jacksonville Fl rental market and covid.

[Naya Oliveira]

Hi Everyone! This is my first post here.😊 i am brand new in real estate reading many books, listenning to many webinars, joined a few local reia’s and decided today to join biggerpockets after reading a lot of your amazing advices in here. I am still in the process of beginning to learn all this and i am planning to start a new life chapter in Jacksonville but since i am not a millenium for a long time now lol i was wondering before i settle in any wrong crazy strategy if the more experienced rental investors think if Jacksonville will be so impacted with foreclosures and lower home prices soon? Or if you guys think that there will not be so impacted comparing to other areas of Florida. Thank you for any input. Just so you know, I am planning to house hack there with a duplex hopefully. 🙏 Be safe you all. 

[Dawn Brenengen]

@Naya Oliveira I'm not sure about Jacksonville specifically, but I do think that if you are going to live in the home yourself, you are already mitigating a lot of risk.  You will either have to pay rent or a mortgage, so might as well buy your own property. It's hard to tell if there will be a huge buying opportunity because of COVID.  I would think there would be, but I haven't see any indicators of that in my own market yet.

[Solomon Ficklin]

Hi, I'm looking to house hack 2-4 unit multifamily home in the Jacksonville Metropolitan area. I'm looking for properties that are in the 50-150k range. I'm beginning market research and am curious about what areas will work best and what areas are best to invest in.  My partner and I are staying this week in the Lakeshores area and are driving areas to do some more research.  Would love to connect and learn what you've found out and maybe even work a deal together.  Open to any insight you've got! Thanks!

[Austin M Margarida]

@Solomon Ficklin Go spend 30 minutes to a couple hours in the neighborhoods that you are looking at (as you should do with every area you are interested in, to get a better feeling)... go during the middle of the day, after work hours, and at night...see if it would work out for you. 

[Naya Oliveira]

Thank you guys that is great advice. I am going to visit again soon. Cant wait to meet some people there in person and start to go to the reia there too. I dont know anyone there so that will be good. I want to be in east of the river. looked at a bunch of places and left more confused than ever. Lol I liked many zip codes but they are far away from each other. Which made me even more confused. What a big city! I had no idea. Now i will get ready for my second visit in 3 weeks or so. Once this virus craziness is over i would love to meet with some people from here. I am more interested in the part that is east of the river but did not see so many duplexes.  Do you guys know which b neighborhoods have some duplexes that is also safe for me to live?

[Naya Oliveira]

@Dawn Brenengen thank you. I am testing this linking name for the first time. Let me know if i did it right? 😊 newbie not just in real estate, newbie all the way around. 

[Tera Edwards]

@Naya Oliveira Yes! Jacksonville is the biggest city (area wise) nation wide.  There are a lot of neighborhoods to get familiar with.  Springfield has a lot of duplexes, but it’s a historical neighborhood so there are certain criteria the homes must meet if you choose to live in that neighborhood.  You may be able to find some duplexes on the West side or maybe even the Southside or Mandarin depending on your budget.  Good luck with your journey! 

[Naya Oliveira]

@Tera Edwards thank you i will try to be there 3 nights next time to browse more. And get the hotel in the area i will stay most. I need to be more selective instead of driving everywhere. This time i think i will drive mostly zipcodes 32223,32256,32246,32224, maybe also 32225 instead of going east and west, north and south and everywhere! 

[Dawn Brenengen]

@Naya Oliveira Looks like you have the @ thing down perfectly :)

[E. C. "Stony" Stonebraker]

Solomon, I recommend you contact Allison Thomas at Suncoast Property Management in Jacksonville. Suncoast builds rent-to-suit SFH and plexes for investors in Florida and Georgia. They should be able to help you. I don't remember their price points, but they have a number of developments where you might be able to start building a portfolio. Tell her Stony sent you. Good luck and keep me posted if it works out.

[Naya Oliveira]

@E. C. "Stony" Stonebraker thank you that is useful to me too not being from the area. Do you live in South Fl and invest there?

@Solomon Ficklin did you visit? What areas you found interesting? I liked a bunch of areas will be hard to decide. I visited and the city is HUGE! I Also liked San Marco, Avondale... 

[E. C. "Stony" Stonebraker]

I live in Coral Gables, near Miami, and invest in Jacksonville.  I have a 138 unit multifamily in the San Jose area on the southside.  I like most of the area south and east of the river except the Arlington area is spotty.  And there are some newer developments further south near Nocatee at the south end of the county.  Orange Park is a good investment area.  If you like historic homes to fix up, I love the Riverside area north of downtown.  There are plenty of gorgeous old homes in need of updating there.  Take a tour on Google Street View and I'm sure you'll get a good sense of some of these neighborhoods.  If you want to look at demographics for sub-markets, go to city-data.com and explore the area there.