Attached housing in Northeast Florida did not grow much over the last twenty years. What changed is which attached home people buy.
We pulled every residential closed sale in the realMLS footprint back to 2001, 601,146 of them after removing duplicate listing and close date pairs, and measured one thing: what share of closings each year were townhouses and what share were condominiums. The two lines cross in 2022, and once they cross they do not cross back.
The crossover happened in 2022
For the first two decades of the record the condominium was the larger attached category by a wide margin. In 2006 condominiums were 14.8% of all closings and townhouses 8.9%, a gap of nearly two to one. The condominium share stayed above the townhouse share every single year from 2001 through 2021.
In 2022 townhouses took 9.0% of closings and condominiums 8.7%. That is the first crossover in the series. It was not a one year wobble: townhouses reached 10.5% in 2023, 10.7% in 2024 and 10.8% in 2025 while condominiums fell to 8.6%, then 6.9%, then 6.7%. The 2026 partial year reads 9.9% townhouse against 7.4% condominium. The ratio has simply inverted.
This is a switch inside attached housing, not a boom in it
It would be easy to read the townhouse line as a story about attached homes taking over as single family prices climbed. The combined numbers say otherwise. Townhouses plus condominiums were 23.7% of closings in 2006 and 17.5% in 2025. Attached housing is a smaller share of this market than it was at the peak, not a larger one. The single family share has been remarkably steady, sitting between 76% and 80% in every year since 2012.
So the movement is lateral. The pool of buyers choosing an attached home has not expanded. Within that pool, the choice moved from the condominium to the townhouse.
Buyers moved toward the more expensive option per foot
This is the part that rules out the simplest explanation. If the shift were about finding the cheapest entry price, the condominium should be winning. It is the cheaper product on both measures that a buyer sees first:
- Median close price in 2026: townhouse $276,000, condominium $225,000, single family $395,900.
- Median price per square foot in 2026: townhouse $185, condominium $177, single family $208.
A condominium is about $51,000 cheaper to buy and about $8 per square foot cheaper than a townhouse, and it is losing share to the townhouse anyway. Buyers are paying more, not less, to move across. Whatever is pushing them is not the purchase price.
What the sales mix cannot tell you, and what is reported
Our data set records what sold, at what price, of what type. It does not record why a buyer chose one over the other, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What can be said is that the leading reported explanation is consistent with the direction of the move.
The costs that separate a condominium from a fee simple townhouse are the ones that sit outside the purchase price: association dues, insurance, and reserve or assessment obligations. Florida enacted milestone structural inspection and reserve funding requirements for condominium associations following the 2021 Surfside collapse, and Florida insurance costs have been widely reported as running well above the national average. Those land on the monthly cost of ownership and on what a lender will approve, and they do not apply the same way to a townhouse held in fee simple. This is reported context, not a finding of ours, and it is offered as the most plausible reading rather than a proven cause.
There is a supply side to consider too. Builders decide what to put up, and a shift in what is available shows up in closings whether or not buyer preference moved at all. Our companion piece on how long condos are taking to sell found condominium market time running about 55% longer than single family in the same footprint, which is what a demand problem looks like rather than a supply shortage. Both readings point the same direction, and neither is settled by this chart alone.
How agents can use this data
Four ways to put this in front of a client this week, all of them about homes and costs rather than about people:
- The buyer comparing attached options. Run the full monthly number on both, not the price. A condominium may show a lower list price and a higher all in monthly cost once dues, insurance and any assessment are added. Show both columns side by side and let the client choose with the real figure in front of them.
- The buyer priced out of single family. The townhouse is the option the market has been moving toward, and it closes the gap to a single family home for about $120,000 less at the median. Frame it as the price and cost structure it is, and let the buyer decide whether it fits.
- The condo seller. A seller whose comps come from 2021 is pricing into a share of the market that has shrunk by more than half since 2006. Bring the mix chart to the listing appointment. It explains a longer market time before it happens rather than after, which is a much easier conversation.
- The one line for social or press. "Townhomes passed condos in Northeast Florida in 2022 and now outsell them by about three to two, and buyers are paying more per square foot to make the switch."
Whichever you use, cite the source line with it. Momentum Research analysis of realMLS closed residential sales, deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
People also ask
Are townhomes a better buy than condos in Jacksonville?
Neither is better in the abstract, and the data does not answer it for any one buyer. What the data shows is which way the market moved: townhouses took 10.8% of Northeast Florida closings in 2025 against 6.7% for condominiums, a reversal of the 2006 pattern when condominiums held 14.8% against 8.9%. Notably buyers moved toward the more expensive option per square foot, $185 for a townhouse against $177 for a condominium in 2026, which points at differences in ongoing cost and financing rather than sticker price.
Why have condo sales fallen in Florida?
Reported drivers are carrying costs that sit outside the mortgage payment. Florida condominium associations have faced milestone structural inspection and reserve funding requirements enacted after the 2021 Surfside collapse, and insurance costs statewide have been widely reported as well above the national average. Both land on the monthly cost of ownership and on what lenders will approve, and neither applies the same way to a fee simple townhouse. We measured the sales mix; the cost explanation is drawn from third party reporting and is not established by this data set.
How much does a townhouse cost in Northeast Florida?
The median townhouse closed at $276,000 in 2026 across the realMLS footprint, against $225,000 for a condominium and $395,900 for a single family home. Per square foot the order changes: $185 for a townhouse, $177 for a condominium and $208 for a single family home.
The takeaway
The attached home did not go away in Northeast Florida. It changed shape. A buyer who would have bought a condominium in 2006 is buying a townhouse in 2026, and paying about $8 more per square foot for the privilege. Any comp set, any pricing conversation and any inventory read that still treats "attached" as one category is working from a market that stopped existing four years ago. For the wider price picture see our Jacksonville housing market data page and the companion analysis on what happened to entry priced homes.
Method and limits
Momentum Research analysis of realMLS closed residential sales, Baker, Bradford, Clay, Duval, Nassau, Putnam and St. Johns counties, close years 2001 through 2026. Records are deduplicated on listing identifier and close date, leaving 601,146 sales. Share is computed against all residential closings in the year, so the three property types shown do not sum to 100%. Price per square foot uses reported living area above 200 square feet. A property type and year must carry 30 or more sales to report a median.
Two limits worth stating. Property subtype is a feed classification and it does get restated over time; the manufactured and mobile home split visibly moves in 2024, which is a reclassification rather than a market event, and that is one reason those categories are not plotted. Townhouse, condominium and single family are stable across the window. And 2026 is a partial year, so its figures will move as the year completes.