By: John O’Leary
For all the talk of a housing market gone wild, Jacksonville quietly remains one of the last coastal cities in Florida where buying a home is still within reach. While Florida homebuyers are feeling the pressure of stagnant home prices and high mortgage interest rates, Jacksonville has seen lower-than-average median home sale prices in 2026.
While purchasing a home can mean handing over thousands of dollars at the closing table, there are other options besides the traditionally thought-of 20% down payment. Julia Sharp, a mortgage loan officer, notes that “a lot of people think that they need twenty percent down, which is so far from the truth. You can get into a home with as little as three percent down or three and a half percent down. But if you prefer to put more down five, ten to fifteen, or twenty percent, you can. But I think that knowing the options that are available is really important.”
Sharp mentioned,
“There’s actually Florida Hometown Heroes that’s available right now. It’s assisting buyers with 5% of their loan amount, up to $35,000 in down payment and closing cost assistance. And we have other programs that allow for 5% of the purchase price for down payment and closing costs assistance.”
Florida Hometown Heroes is a program designed to help civil servants become homeowners by helping with one of the more expensive aspects of buying a home. According to FLgov.com, the program has existed since 2022 and has helped over 6,750 civil service members purchase homes. It is eligible to be used by law enforcement officers, firefighters, educators, healthcare professionals, childcare employees, and active military or veterans.
And while mortgages can have some fluctuation within them, real estate agents will say that the fluctuation in a mortgage offers more safety than that of a rent payment.
Northeast Florida Realtor Gabriel Marcano said, “Rent will always adjust, and you know your monthly mortgage can also adjust year to year, but you know what you’re going to get when you own. You’ve got the longevity of, hey, you know this is my land; I’m going to do what I want with it. Whereas with rent, you go, all right. The moment we’re done here, we have to put exactly everything was how it was. Paint the wall, and you know, maybe we’ll get our deposit back.”
One of the variables within owning that can change is the homeowner’s property tax bill. Floridians can also fight back against raising property taxes when they own their home. A homestead exemption allows residents to deduct $50,000 from the tax assessed value of their primary home, while also capping any growth in assessed value to a max of three percent.
Florida homeowners who are looking to apply for a homestead exemption can go to their county’s property appraiser or tax collector’s website for further information.
Both Marcano and Sharp urge hopeful homebuyers who are interested in purchasing a home to reach out to a licensed real estate professional prior to beginning their search to help ease the information gap between renters and seasoned homeowners.