“Hey, good afternoon. This is Keith Jones, broker-owner of Public Services Realty here in Jacksonville, Florida.” That’s how this clip opens, and it’s the one where Keith pushes back on a question that never seems to go away: are short sales and foreclosures about to come roaring back? His answer is measured, and it comes from a vantage point most people don’t have.
“Do your own research”
Keith doesn’t mince words about the doom predictions. “There’s always been reports from people saying the short sales are back, there’s going to be another market crash. Please don’t listen to those people — do your own research,” he says. It’s good advice in any market. Crash predictions get clicks, and they’ve been a recurring headline for years. That doesn’t make them wrong, but it does mean you should weigh them against actual data rather than a thumbnail.
What makes Keith’s perspective worth hearing is where he sits. “I do free BPOs for banks and different vendors who work with the banks — and I do them for free, so that way I can see what’s coming down their pipeline.” A BPO, or broker price opinion, is a valuation a bank orders when it’s deciding what to do with a distressed or defaulting loan. An agent who does a steady volume of them effectively gets a preview of which properties lenders are watching. That’s real, ground-level signal, not speculation.
What he’s actually seeing
So what does the pipeline look like? Keith is candid that distress exists. “Yes, there’s an influx in default. There’s some of the same people going back and forth into default,” he notes — meaning some borrowers fall behind, catch up or get assistance, then fall behind again. But, he’s clear, “that does not mean that it’s going to blow up.”
The reason is how lenders are managing it today. “What the banks are doing — by giving the modifications, giving different assistance programs that they haven’t given before — is they’re going to stagger those foreclosures. They’re not going to let that just blow up on the market.” That single sentence captures a major shift from the 2008 era. Back then, foreclosures hit the market in a sudden wave that crushed prices. Since then, lenders and servicers have built far more tools — loan modifications, forbearance, payment deferral, and other loss-mitigation programs — specifically to keep distress from hitting all at once.
Why “staggering” matters to you
For a homeowner, the takeaway isn’t “everything’s fine” or “a crash is coming.” It’s that distress is real but managed, and your situation is individual. A staggered market means two practical things. First, if you’re struggling, there may be more options available to you than a short sale — a modification or assistance program could keep you in the home. It’s worth asking your servicer directly. Second, because lenders are spacing out foreclosures, you shouldn’t assume you have unlimited time; once your specific file moves into the foreclosure track, the clock is yours alone.
This is also why national crash headlines are a poor guide to a personal decision. Whether short sales are “back” in the aggregate matters far less than whether you are underwater and behind. If you are, the tools to deal with it — modification, short sale, or a straight sale if you have equity — are the same regardless of the macro forecast.
Get a real read on your own situation
The honest version of Keith’s advice — do your own research — applies to your house specifically. Start by learning what your home is actually worth today versus what you owe. If you’re underwater and behind, look at every path: a hardship-based short sale, a lender modification, or, if there’s any equity, a normal sale. Our guide to short sale vs. foreclosure and our page on stopping foreclosure in Florida can help you place yourself on the map.
If you’d rather just get a grounded number and an honest opinion, that’s exactly what we do. We watch the Northeast Florida market closely, and we’ll tell you whether you have equity, whether a short sale fits, or whether a modification is the smarter play. You can also watch Keith cover the rest of the short-sale process in our video guide.
2008 versus today, in plain terms
It helps to understand why Keith is skeptical of crash headlines. The 2008 collapse had a specific mechanic: a flood of foreclosures hit the market in a short window, and that wall of distressed inventory dragged everyone’s prices down with it. Two things are different now. First, many homeowners are sitting on years of accumulated equity, so even an owner in trouble often has enough cushion to sell normally rather than short. Second, lenders learned from the last cycle and built a much deeper toolkit to keep distress from hitting all at once — the “staggering” Keith describes.
Those tools include loan modifications that lower the payment, forbearance that pauses or reduces payments temporarily, repayment plans that spread missed payments over time, and payment deferral that moves missed payments to the end of the loan. None of these existed at today’s scale in 2007. They don’t make hardship disappear, but they do spread it out — which is exactly why a steady stream of defaults can exist without becoming the kind of market-wide event that makes for a scary headline. For you, the practical move is to ask your servicer which of these programs you might qualify for before you assume a short sale is the only road.
Where we fit in
We buy houses for cash across Jacksonville and the surrounding counties, which means we can give you a fast, no-obligation read on your options — and a reliable written offer if selling turns out to be your best move. Request your cash offer or call or text 904-606-9163.
This article is general information, not legal, financial, or tax advice. Consult a licensed Florida attorney, a CPA, or a free HUD-approved housing counselor at 800-569-4287 before deciding.