The oldest housing stock in the state's largest city, and a river that floods. Repairs, inspections and compliance for rental property across Duval County.
Jacksonville has the deepest single-family rental market in Florida and the lowest entry prices of the major metros, which is why so much institutional and out-of-state ownership has concentrated here. It also has the oldest housing of any large Florida city.
That combination — old houses owned at a distance — produces a particular kind of compliance problem. Properties are bought on spreadsheets, inherited in whatever condition the last owner left them, and the first anyone looks properly is when an insurer asks for a four-point.
Springfield and Riverside contain genuine turn-of-the-century housing — frame Victorians and early bungalows from the 1900s and 1910s. This is the only part of Florida where knob-and-tube wiring turns up with any regularity, and it is an automatic insurance problem where it does. Avondale and Ortega follow in the 1920s and 1930s.
Arlington, the Southside and Murray Hill are 1950s to 1970s, and carry the standard problems of that era: obsolete panels, aluminium branch wiring at the later end, and cast iron drains that have corroded through.
Mandarin, the Beaches and the Nocatee and Bartram corridors run from the 1980s to new build, and are considerably more straightforward.
Jacksonville sits in the lowest wind design category of Florida's major metros. Hurricanes reach it, but the sustained wind exposure is materially lower than the peninsula's, and carriers price accordingly.
Flooding is the real exposure. The St Johns River backs up under storm conditions and Irma produced record river flooding through downtown and Riverside in 2017. Low-lying property near the river and the creeks that feed it carries a risk profile that has more in common with a river town than a coastal city.
Duval's rental stock is overwhelmingly single-family houses rather than apartments, which suits landlords who want conventional annual tenancies. The older neighbourhoods have gentrified unevenly, so two properties on adjacent streets can have very different rents and very similar problems.
Florida has no single annual certificate for rental property — obligations depend on the age of the building, where it sits, how many units it has and how you let it. A safety audit establishes the whole picture for one address in one visit.
Orange Park, Jacksonville Beach, Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach, Ponte Vedra, Middleburg, Fleming Island, Nocatee, and the rest of Duval County. If you are just outside, call and ask — we cover the whole state and the answer is usually yes.
One call for the job, the inspection and whatever the inspection turns up.