Not long ago, stretched home buyers in St. Johns County were at the mercy of sellers. Inspections were waived, asking prices were mere starting points, and homes sold at record speed.
Those days are over.
Housing inventory in the county surged past 3,000 listings last month—the highest in at least a decade—according to new data.
Roughly one-third of sellers have already slashed their asking prices in an effort to attract buyers.
In total, there were 3,082 homes for sale across St. Johns County in April, well above pre-pandemic levels. A local real estate agent told The Citizen that the market hasn’t seen inventory above 3,000 since the years following the 2008 financial crisis.
The latest number marks a 27% increase from April 2024, when there were 2,416 homes listed.
It’s also a staggering 499% jump from the same month in 2022, when inventory had plunged to just 514 homes due to pandemic-driven shortages.
Inventory came close to this level in April 2019, when there were 2,945 homes on the market. But the number quickly dropped off as the COVID-19 pandemic drove a drought of available listings that lasted through mid-2022.
Across individual ZIP codes, the trend is just as striking:
- Nocatee’s 32081 ZIP code recorded 309 homes on the market in April—the first time that figure has topped 300 since at least 2016.
- St. Augustine’s 32084 saw 451 active listings, the highest April total since at least 2017.
- Ponte Vedra Beach’s 32082, which has experienced a more gradual increase, reached 329 listings—its highest April inventory since 2019.
