The older part of town, near the river and the historic downtown, has homes built before 1960 alongside houses from every decade since. Stucco on those walls has usually been patched more than once, and repairs from different decades rarely match. Hairline cracks across a whole elevation and soft stucco near the ground are typical on walls that age.
Most of the area's growth is new. Inside the city, 918 homes have been built since 2015, and outside the limits, in subdivisions such as Cross Creek, Granary Park and Willow Springs, 4,044 have gone up since 2020. New stucco shrinks as it cures, and cracks often show up at window corners and along floor lines in the first few years. Read your builder warranty before paying for those repairs.
Clay County's tax roll leaves wall type blank for nearly every home, so your contractor confirms it on the visit. Block and frame walls are repaired differently: on block, new stucco bonds to the masonry, and on frame, the lath and water barrier behind the finish have to be checked and tied in.