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There are a number of ways for analysts to judge the strength of a housing market. And while these factors may not always be entirely accurate, it's helpful for homeowners to know before they decide to put their home up for sale. When the demand for home construction workers took a hit, it made some people nervous that there was a bubble near bursting. We'll look at the numbers and why the demand hasn't quite slowed the way some might have predicted.
Construction jobs may have recently dipped 1.3% for the first time since 2012, but the applications for building permits have not. In fact, much like construction work, the general demand for building permits have increasingly been on the rise since 2012. The permits show that lower priced housing is being favored, which makes sense because it's the tightest market nearly everywhere in the sate.
Florida may be struggling to find skilled labor to build these new homes, but the truth is that it's not necessarily due to a lack of buyers. Rising job wages and reasonable mortgage rates are expected to continue for at least the rest of 2020 if not longer.
Despite the general good news, the favorable projections for Northeast Florida are not uniform across the state. In Duval, there was a significant decrease in building permits, even as St. Johns shot up by more than 10%. In St. Johns, the emphasis for new construction is on single-family homes, in contrast to the luxury condos that are in higher demand in Southern Florida.
Unsurprisingly, St. Johns is seeing a distinct increase in home prices, pricing some buyers entirely out of the market. The Jacksonville area is also doing well in terms of home prices, made possible by the general lack of inventory. This has helped push the averages up for the entire region. In the first quarter of 2019, Northeast Florida saw an increase of 2.3% in its median price to hit $220,000.
When mortgage rates fall, you can expect a higher rate of loan applications. Considering the tax benefits of Florida coupled with the weather and general lifestyle, there's been a lot of action in nearly every part of the state. And while not every neighborhood is performing at the same level, experts predict the demand will either remain steady or improve over the next few months.
