JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Becoming a Navy wife took Shaina Smith and her family all across the country. After arriving in Jacksonville about five years ago, they wanted to put down some roots and found the perfect home.
“It had a big kitchen. No carpets. It was a three bedroom. I didn’t want a big house,” Smith said.
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<
But a season of new beginnings gave way to heartbreak. Two years ago, her husband Kelly Smith passed away. The loss led Smith and their girls on a journey of healing and a new chapter.
“It just had too many memories. Yeah. And I think we just needed a fresh start. So that was the biggest thing,” Smith said.
She put their house up for sale and found a new place to live, but her former home sat on the market for six months.
READ: The cost of convenience: Why your favorite grocery apps might be costing more than you think
“Very stressful, obviously. I had to cut back on a lot of things. I have two kids, you know, kids are expensive. So I’m like, this is just not, it’s just not reasonable,” Smith said.
The wait pushed Smith to consider renting out her home instead and she turned to Mario Gonzalez, Broker-Owner of Navy to Navy Homes for help.
Gonzalez is also past president of the Northeast Florida Association of Realtors and said more homeowners are becoming landlords as a ripple effect of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Early on, many homeowners locked in record-low mortgage rates dropping to 2.65 percent in 2021 and for some, those rates were too valuable to give up.
READ: HOA Heartbreak: Florida bill could soon give homeowners the power to break up with their HOA
“So we saw really kind of in 2024 when a lot of these people were moving, they were turning these homes into rentals because they had locked in a two and a half, 3% interest rate, which they’ll probably never see again in their life. And that really flooded the market with rentals,” Gonzalez said.
The pandemic also drove home prices up. Before COVID, Gonzalez said the median home price in Northeast Florida was in the $200,000s. A couple of years later, it jumped to $380,000 and interest rates also started climbing again, creating a different challenge for other homeowners looking to move on.
“They’re what we call the accidental landlords. They probably can’t sell if they bought around $380,000 and their home is worth $380,000 right now. They can’t afford to sell because they haven’t had enough time to push that equity down,” Gonzalez said.
Pushing them to turn their homes into rental properties instead. It’s the rise of the landlords, and local homeowners are front and center.
Recent numbers from real estate data company BatchData found in the third quarter of 2025 small “mom-and-pop” investors with one to five properties owned 92% of all investment properties in the U.S.
A growing shift from a trend Action News Jax Anchor Tenikka Hughes first investigated in 2021 as a part of our ongoing “Priced out of Jax” series.
Then, Tenikka uncovered a quarter of all single-family homes in Duval County, were owned by real estate investment companies.
Action News Jax checked with Duval County Property Appraiser Joyce Morgan for an update and so far this year, Morgan said, “Investors who own 3 or more homes, which includes national investors, account for 32% of all non-homesteaded condos and single-family homes in Duval County.”
BatchData found Jacksonville still remains in the top 5 cities where large institutional investors own homes
This as the White House said President Trump is pushing to stop “Wall Street from competing with Main Street homebuyers signing an executive order in January to restrict institutional investors from buying up single-family homes.
[DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks]
“As a residential property manager, we represent individual homeowners and that will make the competition a little less fierce for them. So their homes will probably rent a little faster,” Gonzalez said.
As for Smith, after waiting half a year for her home to sell, she locked down a renter in just 30 days.
“When we bought the house, the interest rate was good. Mortgage is less than what I’m renting it for,” Smith said.
[SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter]
And a home she once planned on letting go is now a part of her family’s legacy.
“You know, again, my husband passing, it’s changed my perspective on life and I’m like anything can happen. And my, I just want to leave a good foundation for my kids. That’s my biggest thing and I wanna make them proud,” Smith said.
Gonzalez said ultimately, your home is an investment and when it comes to selling or renting, talk to an expert who can advise you on your options, so you can make the best decision for you and your family.
Click here to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Action News Jax live.