Why Jacksonville Is Still a 'Positive Bubble': Marissa Scott's Unfiltered Take on the Northeast Florida Market in 2026

When Marissa Scott speaks about the Jacksonville real estate market, she is not reading from a script. She is drawing on nearly 19 years of closed deals, military relocations, listing appointments that went sideways, and market cycles that would have driven most agents out of the business. As founder and brand ambassador at United Real Estate Gallery in Jacksonville, Florida, Marissa has watched the market spike, stall, and slowly begin to recalibrate — and she has a clear-eyed, deeply personal perspective on what buyers, sellers, and agents are actually facing in 2026.

Northeast Florida Is Still One of the Last Great Markets — But It Is Not Invincible

Jacksonville was ranked the number four most buyer-friendly housing market in the country by Zillow for 2026, beating out Miami, Tampa, and Pittsburgh. For Marissa, that ranking lines up with what she sees on the ground — but it comes with important nuance.

"I agree. I think the market is trying to fix itself. People don't do well with change. They get into this comfort level where the market was so good for them, and then there's a change, and they're freaking out."

The post-pandemic market distortions that created explosive growth in Northeast Florida were real. Remote workers flooded in from high-cost states, buying beach-adjacent homes they could afford only because rates were near three percent. When return-to-office mandates took effect, many of those same owners were forced to sell — and they are discovering that the gap between what they paid and what the market will now bear is uncomfortable.

Marissa sees this correction as necessary and ultimately healthy, even if it is painful for some sellers. She estimates that Northeast Florida home prices still need to come down somewhere in the range of ten percent or more to reach equilibrium — not back to pre-COVID levels, but somewhere between the $175,000 starter home that used to exist in communities like Oak Leaf and today's inflated figures.

"I have sellers that I sold homes to ten or fifteen years ago where they bought the house for $200,000 and now it's worth $600,000. I don't think we're going back to that price point, but I think we need to be somewhere in between."

The Rate-Lock Paradox and What Is Actually Moving the Market

One of the most consistent friction points Marissa observes is what economists call the "lock-in effect." Homeowners who secured mortgages at three or four percent during the pandemic era are not moving — not because they do not want to, but because the math does not work. Trading a three-percent mortgage for a seven-percent mortgage on a more expensive home is not a decision most families make lightly.

This has created a bifurcated market. At the upper end, out-of-state buyers from California, the Northeast, and the Midwest are purchasing Jacksonville homes that still look affordable relative to their home markets. At the entry and mid-level, local Floridians trying to upsize are effectively frozen.

Marissa is direct with buyers who are waiting for rates to return to pandemic-era lows: it is not going to happen.

"I don't think we're ever going back to three percent. The rates are temporary. But the location, the house — that won't change. So they just have to learn that the rates are temporary."

She does see builders offering meaningful relief. New construction communities are actively competing with rate buy-downs, adjustable-rate mortgage products, and two-one buy-down programs that can bring effective rates into the mid-to-upper fours. For buyers who are payment-sensitive, new construction has become the default path — which is also why resale sellers in active new-construction corridors are struggling to compete.

The Military Market: A Steady Anchor That Is Shifting

Northeast Florida's military population — centered around NAS Jacksonville and Naval Station Mayport — has historically been one of the most dependable driver segments in the local real estate market. Marissa, herself a former Navy spouse who immigrated from the Philippines before building her career here, has spent nearly two decades serving this community and understands its rhythms deeply.

She is seeing a notable shift. Where military families once moved quickly toward homeownership upon receiving orders to Jacksonville, a growing number are now opting for base housing or rentals — a direct response to affordability pressure.

"As an ex-Navy wife, you know, when we go to one place, the military housing is always available. But now most families are thinking, we're only going to be there for two years. Why are we going to buy if the houses are so expensive and the rate is still pretty high?"

With an E-5 receiving approximately $2,181 per month in Basic Allowance for Housing in 2026, the math on buying in many desirable neighborhoods simply does not work the way it did five years ago. Marissa adjusts her approach for every military client accordingly — starting with rank, family size, spouse employment, and familiarity with the area before ever discussing specific neighborhoods or properties.

She also raises insurance costs early, often in the first conversation, because the difference between insuring a home built after 2015 and one built before 2000 can add several hundred dollars per month to a payment calculation that was already tight.

Jacksonville's Structural Advantage: Geography, Growth, and the Right Kind of Demand

Marissa is emphatic that Northeast Florida's fundamentals remain strong, even amid the correction. Jacksonville is geographically the largest city in the continental United States by land area, has proximity to both St. Augustine and Amelia Island — which she calls "our own version of Paris, without the tower" — and continues to attract a steady inflow of residents who find its pricing reasonable compared to where they are coming from.

"We're one of the biggest cities in land size, and you won't feel crowded. Our rush hour traffic is nothing compared to Los Angeles or Miami. And we have St. Augustine, we have Amelia Island — those two alone are so attractive to a lot of people."

With inventory in Duval County having contracted by more than seventeen percent year over year as of early spring 2026 — even as the rest of the country was adding supply — the structural demand story in Jacksonville remains intact. The median home price of approximately $304,000 for all of Duval County, roughly half of Miami's median, continues to attract relocation buyers.

What Marissa cautions against is the assumption that Jacksonville is immune to broader corrections. The market is self-correcting, not self-protecting. Sellers who are still anchored to 2021 and 2022 peak pricing are learning that lesson directly — sometimes by watching their listings sit, and sometimes by losing agents who will not tell them what they want to hear.

The Takeaway

Marissa Scott has survived nearly two decades in real estate not by riding every wave perfectly, but by maintaining an unflinching commitment to honesty — with her clients and with herself. Her read on the Jacksonville market in 2026 is neither pessimistic nor blindly optimistic. It is grounded: the market is correcting, affordability is still a real challenge, demand remains structurally present, and the agents and buyers who will succeed are those willing to engage with the reality in front of them rather than the market they wish they still had.

The rates are temporary. The location is not. And the work of helping families navigate that distinction, one honest conversation at a time, is exactly what has kept Marissa in this business for nearly two decades — and what will keep her here for the next two.