People ask me this everywhere. At closings. In line at the Publix on Hendricks. Somebody’s cousin corners me at a party and says okay, be honest, where would you live? It is my favorite question to get and the hardest one to answer quickly, because I fall a little in love with almost every part of this city. But I do have favorites. I am Stephanie Thompson, and I have been selling real estate in Jacksonville FL long enough to have opinions I will defend. There are neighborhoods I drive through on purpose when a faster route exists. There are streets where I slow down at the stop sign just to look at a porch. So here they are, and here is exactly why.
Riverside: Where Stephanie Thompson Sends Anyone Who Misses Walking Places
This is the first place I mention when someone tells me they are moving here from a city where they walked everywhere and they are afraid of losing that. Five Points puts coffee, a record store, tacos, and a movie theater inside two blocks of each other. Memorial Park opens onto the St. Johns River, and on a clear evening the light on the water there does something I have never managed to photograph properly. On Saturdays the arts market sets up under the Fuller Warren Bridge and the whole neighborhood turns out for it. The homes are genuinely old and genuinely beautiful, and the people at Riverside Avondale Preservation have spent fifty years making sure they stay that way. Riverside does ask something of you. Older systems, smaller closets, a learning curve on insurance. The people who love it do not seem to mind one bit.
I spent an afternoon walking Riverside with a camera if you would rather see it than read about it.
Avondale and the Best Stretch of Sidewalk in Jacksonville FL
Avondale sits right next door and feels like Riverside’s slightly more composed sibling. St. Johns Avenue is the heart of it. The Shoppes of Avondale give you dinner, a bookstore, a glass of wine, and a walk home under oak trees that were here long before any of us. Boone Park has the tennis courts. The brick streets are original. The bungalows date to the 1920s and they have been loved hard, which you can read in the porch railings, the tile work, and the occasional very strange addition off the back. When a buyer tells me they want character and they actually mean it, Avondale is usually where we start.
San Marco, Because of the Lions
My reason here is partly sentimental and I am fine admitting it. San Marco Square has a fountain with stone lions and I have never once driven past it without looking. The Square gives you Balis Park, restaurants, a theater, and enough foot traffic that the place feels awake on a Tuesday night. Hendricks Avenue carries you north to the Southbank Riverwalk, which is the best free thing to do in Jacksonville, Florida on a Sunday morning. The San Marco Preservation Society keeps a close watch on the architecture. So many buyers ask me about this one that I wrote a whole piece on what living in San Marco is actually like.
Murray Hill: The Jacksonville Neighborhood That Surprises People
Murray Hill is where I point buyers who love the Riverside feeling and want their money to stretch further. Edgewood Avenue is the spine of it. You get Moon River Pizza, the Murray Hill Theatre, a few coffee shops worth driving across town for, and small 1940s houses that came with real yards. Ten years ago people described Murray Hill as the place next to the place. That is not the conversation anymore. The buyers who went in early are very pleased with themselves, and they have earned it.
Springfield, If You Want a Porch and a Project
Springfield is for a specific kind of person, and when it is the right fit it is really the right fit. Main Street has breweries, coffee, and a restaurant scene that keeps growing every year. Klutho Park anchors the north end. The Victorian and early 1900s homes here are some of the most architecturally interesting in Jacksonville FL, and plenty of them are mid restoration, which means you are buying into a project and a whole community of people in the middle of the same project. I always walk Springfield buyers through the historic district rules before we write anything. It is not a deal breaker. It is just something you want to understand on the front end instead of the back end.
How Stephanie Thompson Helps You Choose the Right Jacksonville Neighborhood
Here is the part nobody says out loud. My favorite neighborhood does not matter. Yours does. So I ask about your commute, your Saturday, your tolerance for a 1926 electrical panel, and what you want to be able to walk to. Then we go drive. Not a tour with a clipboard and a folder. A real drive, at the hour you would actually be in the car. That is when a neighborhood tells you the truth about itself. My whole buyer process is built around that, and it is the part of this job I enjoy most. I also put together a Jacksonville neighborhood guide if you want to start narrowing things down before we ever meet.
If you are trying to work out where you belong in this city, I would love to help you sort it out. Grab a time on my calendar and tell me what you are looking for. No pressure and no script, just a real conversation about Jacksonville FL and where you might fit in it. I am Stephanie Thompson, a Real Estate Advisor with Local Roots Group at United Real Estate Gallery, and this city is the reason I do this work at all.
Stephanie Thompson, Real Estate Advisor | Local Roots Group at United Real Estate Gallery | License SL3546647
