Rental / DSCR in Jacksonville

The state regulator's own county table puts Duval below every large Florida metro county. As of March 2026, the average Duval County homeowners premium including wind coverage was $2,786, below every large Florida metro county we track: Hillsborough $3,525, Orange $3,610, Pinellas $4,063, Broward $6,136. Clay County runs even lower at $2,540. Jacksonville also sits in FLOIR's lowest-litigation bucket for claims closed in 2025 (8.16% litigated, against 27.27% in the Palm Beach/Broward/Miami-Dade tri-county region), and the 2024 hurricane season that hammered Tampa Bay barely touched Duval: 93 NFIP flood claims for the whole year. That said, any Citizens-insured rental in the metro needs a flood policy by January 1, 2027, regardless of flood zone, so budget that in on a refinance or purchase we're underwriting today. Talk to your insurance agent for a bound quote on the specific address before we lock a DSCR ratio; if the deal started as a rehab, see the fix and flip program for how we bridge acquisition before the refinance into DSCR.

Only once you confirm which of Duval's governments actually controls the parcel, because three neighboring Beaches towns run three different rules. Atlantic Beach prohibits rentals under 90 consecutive days in residential zones. Neptune Beach prohibits rentals under 28 days in all residential zoning districts. Jacksonville Beach permits short-term rentals with a certificate: $150 a year, a mandatory Fire Marshal inspection, and renewal due every October 1. The City of Jacksonville's own rule for the rest of Duval County could not be confirmed at a primary source as of this writing, and a widely repeated claim that it only allows STRs in General Commercial and Historic Core zoning is unverified, so we don't rely on it. Wherever STR income is legal, Duval's 6% bed tax (a 4% tourist development tax plus a 2% convention development tax) is not collected by Airbnb or VRBO; the county states plainly there is no remittance agreement with any platform, so the host files monthly. Confirm the municipality, the zoning, and the license before we underwrite nightly income; see the DSCR program terms for how STR income gets structured once that's in hand.

An investor pays the non-homestead assessment cap, not the 3% homestead cap a seller's own bill might reflect, and a third of the Duval bill isn't capped at all. The consolidated government's millage runs 17.2004 to 18.9701 depending on urban services district, a tight 1.77-mill band with no lower-cost unincorporated pocket to shop for, since Duval and the old City of Jacksonville merged into one government in 1968. Florida's 10% non-homestead cap resets to full market value on a change of ownership, so a purchase typically raises the first-year bill above what the seller was paying. Worse for the math: that 10% cap does not apply to school district levies under Florida Statutes section 193.1554, and schools are 6.3430 of Duval's 17.7412 total mills, so roughly 36% of the bill is reassessed at full value every year with no ceiling on the increase. If the unit is furnished, Duval also taxes furniture and appliances as tangible personal property, with an April 1 filing deadline; miss it and the $25,000 exemption is forfeited for the year. Talk to your CPA about your own filing. If you're financing across more than one Jacksonville-area county, the portfolio loan program can put scattered parcels on one facility instead of five separate tax and insurance headaches.

Off the specific submarket, not the metro average, because the spread between Jacksonville proper and its coastal and Clay County suburbs is wide. The metro's single-family rent index hit a record $2,102 a month in June 2026, up 2.5% year over year, and the all-property-types index hit a record $1,708, up 1.2%, both Zillow series at all-time highs (as of mid-2026). But Jacksonville city itself runs $1,600 a month on a $287,871 value, Middleburg and Green Cove Springs in Clay County run higher gross yields at $1,990 and $2,147 on lower values, and the Beaches cities like Jacksonville Beach ($2,538 rent on $643,237 value) are appreciation plays with a materially lower yield. Those figures are gross rent over value, not a cap rate, since they don't net out taxes, insurance, or expenses. Run the actual address through the DSCR calculator with a rent figure you can defend, not the metro headline number.

Logistics, health care, and back-office finance, not the beach. Jacksonville's accommodation and food services sector (45,960 jobs, $579 a week as of Q4 2025) is roughly the same size as its finance and insurance sector (42,274 jobs, $1,976 a week), and transportation and warehousing is bigger than both at 49,535 jobs. JAXPORT moved 10,230,114 tons and 1,388,841 TEUs in fiscal 2025 and its own 2024 economic impact study credits it with 30,764 direct port-dependent jobs locally at an average salary of $76,706. Health care and social assistance alone is 92,292 Duval County jobs, and education and health services added 10,100 metro jobs over the two years to June 2026, the metro's clearest growth sector while overall payrolls have been roughly flat. That's a broader, less seasonal tenant base than a tourism-driven metro, though it's also worth knowing payrolls aren't booming: metro nonfarm employment is up only 0.3% year over year, so we underwrite the rent roll on the specific unit, not a growth story.

Twenty percent at the top of the range. Max leverage is up to 80% LTV, so on a $300,000 Jacksonville purchase that is up to $240,000 from us and $60,000 from you (300,000 x 80% = 240,000), before closing costs and reserves. Duval's insurance line helps the ratio more than it would elsewhere in Florida, at an average $2,786 premium including wind as of March 2026, but the DSCR from 0.75 is measured on the actual rent and the actual carry, so a thin rent number pulls leverage down before the LTV ceiling ever binds. Subject to underwriting.

Not on this program, but that is not the end of the conversation. DSCR starts at a 640 credit score, and so does the bank statement loan. Conventional investment starts at 580, and the asset-based programs, fix and flip and bridge and construction, carry no minimum score at all. Weaker credit on those is usually offset with lower leverage rather than a decline. There is no hard credit pull to start, so it costs you nothing to find out where you land. Subject to underwriting.

One hundred thousand dollars, and the ceiling is $3,000,000. That floor matters here because the metro's price spread is wide: Jacksonville city runs $287,871 at the mid tier while the Beaches cities run several times that. A low-priced door can fall below the minimum on its own, which is one reason investors here roll several of them together. Five or more properties can go on a portfolio loan instead, which starts at $500,000 across the whole book. Subject to underwriting.