Everyone wants to be here

Posted on March 29, 2025 by grim

From the WSJ:

This 4-Bedroom Ranch in N.J. Tells You Everything About the Lopsided Housing Market

Two houses went on the market for similar prices at about the same time earlier this year. One got 25 offers. The other got none.

There are many variables that determine demand, from the condition of the house to the price set by the seller. But one factor is having a major impact right now: geography.

The Northeast and Midwest markets have far more prospective buyers than available homes. But parts of the Sunbelt are seeing a flood of houses for sale.

The divergence is playing out in places like Wyckoff, N.J., where a four-bedroom ranch was on the market for just over a week in early February. With dozens of offers, the winning buyers contracted to buy for about $200,000 above the roughly $1.1 million asking price.

But in Miami, a six-bedroom with a grand staircase and pool has sat on the market for nearly two months without a firm offer. The sellers cut the price by $9,000 to $990,000.

“There are very different realities for sellers depending on location,” said Cara Lavender, research manager at John Burns Research and Consulting.

For the past few years, nearly every market was hot and there were few deals to be found. Now, many of the markets that rose the fastest are the ones cooling the most. If that weakness spreads more broadly across the housing market, it could drag on a U.S. economy that has lately been slowing.
…
Liz Ruckdeschel, an agent at Coldwell Banker Realty, figured 539 Covington Place in Wyckoff, N.J., would be a hot property.

Bidding wars in the Northern New Jersey suburb of New York, known for its good schools, are still common, she said. Ranch-style homes like the one she is selling are popular with young families and retirees looking to downsize to a single story.

Selling points included the kitchen island featuring a chunky marble countertop, the decor’s neutral tones and a custom garden. However, the roof is aging and the front steps could use repair.

Seller Kate Fishbein knew she would find a buyer but was surprised by the high level of demand.

“It was overwhelming,” said Fishbein, who expected to get about 10 offers. She and her husband, Jordan Fishbein, bought the home for about $630,000 around 13 years ago. They remodeled and updated the house over the years.

They are under contract for a larger home in the same neighborhood where their bid was chosen over multiple offers.

Posted in Demographics, Economics, Employment, Housing Bubble, New Jersey Real Estate | 62 Comments

Real estate broker challenges real estate requirement

Posted on March 28, 2025 by grim

Too good not to share. At this point, why do we even need Brokers? From the Record:

North Jersey broker challenges ‘outdated’ real estate brick-and-mortar office requirements

Signing paper contracts and filling file cabinets with physical records are likely things of the past for most people. And one North Jersey-based broker says the requirement for brick-and-mortar real estate offices should be, too.

Derek Eisenberg is the founder of Continental Real Estate Group Inc., a national online brokerage based in Hackensack that offers a la carte real estate services. He is currently in the midst of legal battles against real estate commission officials in the states of Nevada and West Virginia, where he said the rules requiring brokerages to have physical office spaces is “outdated” and simply adds unnecessary costs for his expanding business.

“All of our records are electronic,” he said. “We don’t come into our office to write up a contract. Everything is done with DocuSign or Dotloop or ZipForms online. There’s no paperwork done in the office anymore, and basically we never go into these offices.”

“They come to us for the marketing aspect, which is the MLS,” he said, referring to the Multiple Listing Service. “Then they can subscribe to as little services as they want. They can get a basic listing with six photographs and just put them in the MLS, or they can get a very detailed level of service where we will negotiate and basically do everything that a local agent would do short of putting the key in the door.

Posted in National Real Estate | 39 Comments

50 years of affordable housing

Posted on March 25, 2025 by grim

Fromt the APP:

NJ built 400K affordable homes since Mount Laurel decision 50 years ago; it’s not enough

On the 50th anniversary of New Jersey’s landmark affordable housing court decision, Gov. Phil Murphy on Monday praised the civil rights activists who fought to build working-class housing in their suburban township, noting it has led to 400,000 units statewide.

But he said the Mount Laurel doctrine, which compels each municipality to provide its fair share of affordable housing, continues to face intense pushback from some municipalities, leaving New Jersey with home prices and rent that outpaces income.

“In New Jersey, we have wrestled with how to apply the principles of the Mount Laurel doctrine in practice, and along the way we’ve seen a slew of legal challenges that have sought to delay the development of new affordable housing units in the communities where they are needed most,” Murphy said. “And as a result, today New Jersey is now plagued by the same challenge that is impacting virtually every American state in the nation. Our supply of affordable housing has not kept pace with demand.”
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Five decades later, speakers said, the topic remains heated. Despite towns’ constitutional obligation to provide affordable housing, New Jersey continues to have one of the nation’s biggest racial wealth gaps.; the median household wealth of white families in New Jersey is $322,500, compared with $17,700 for Black families and $26,100 for Hispanic families, the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice said.

And dozens of towns are challenging the state’s recent calculations that lay out how many affordable units they need to provide during the next decade.

Posted in Demographics, Economics, Employment, New Development | 377 Comments

Can’t buy, can’t rent

Posted on March 24, 2025 by grim

From the Record:

North Jersey’s rental market is among the hottest in the nation. How it compares to 2024

Despite experiencing an end-of-year lull, North Jersey has reclaimed its spot as one of the nation’s most competitive rental markets at the start of 2025.

The region ranked third in RentCafe’s early 2025 Hottest Rental Marketsreport, heating back up after being named the sixth-most competitive market at the end of 2024. North Jersey — consisting of Bergen, Passaic, Morris, Essex, Sussex, Hudson and Union counties in the report — ranks behind No. 1 Miami and No. 2 Suburban Chicago.

Compared to its previous rankings, RentCafe added new metrics to determine the hotness for rental markets across the nation. These new metrics include the average length of stay for renters, new lease terms and renewal lengths.

With a Rental Competitive Index Score of 85.7, North Jersey is again the most competitive rental market in the Northeast. It is succeeded by No. 2 Philadelphia and No. 3 Bridgeport-New Haven, which ranked fifth and ninth overall, respectively, in the report.

The region has about nine prospective renters for every vacant apartment unit, which has remained the same from 2024, according to the report. And available apartments have typically remained vacant for about 41 days at the start of 2025, up from 38 days in 2024.

Additionally, about 95.2% of the region’s apartments are currently occupied — compared to 95.8% in 2024 — with a lease renewal rate of 71.4%, down from 73.1% in 2024, the report found.

Posted in Demographics, Economics, Employment, Housing Bubble, New Jersey Real Estate | 38 Comments

Run Boomer Run

Posted on March 23, 2025 by grim

From Newsweek:

Map Shows States Baby Boomers Are Fleeing From

Ian Kennedy, a data scientist at JBREC, created a chart identifying where the highest property taxes in the country were in 2023, the latest data made available by the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.

In the dark red areas, property taxes exceeded 2 percent of a home’s value. In the beige areas, property taxes were less than 0.5 percent of a home’s value. Tax rates are set by municipalities and local governments and vary by town, city, school district, county and state.

According to JBREC analysis, American homeowners paid the highest property taxes on the East Coast, especially in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, where rates were between 1.75 percent and 2 percent of a home’s value or higher.

Kennedy and his colleagues then compared property tax rates across the country with migration trends involving Americans aged 65 and older, finding that states with lower property taxes were attracting the highest number of out-of-state newcomers.

“High property tax rates in New York, New Jersey, and Illinois—among others—limit in-migration [the process through which residents of one country permanently relocate to a new area of that same country] among the 65+ population,” Kennedy told Newsweek.
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“Retirees on the East Coast generally opt to stay on the East Coast. The same is true out West. For example, in 2023, roughly 3.5 percent of Nevada’s 65+ population moved from out-of-state during the prior year,” he said.

“Among those out-of-state movers, roughly 36 percent moved from California. Likewise, about 3.3 percent of Delaware’s 65+ population moved from out of state during the prior year, with roughly 50 percent of those movers coming from New Jersey, Maryland, or Pennsylvania,” Kennedy added.

Posted in Crisis, Demographics, Economics, Housing Bubble, National Real Estate, Property Taxes | 25 Comments

Mixed bag for jobs in NJ in Jan

Posted on March 22, 2025 by grim

From NJBIZ:

New Jersey posts mixed labor report in January 

The New Jersey Department of Labor & Workforce Development is out with the first jobs report of 2025.

“New Jersey’s labor market was mixed in January,” said Charles Steindel, former chief economist of the State of New Jersey, who analyzed the repot for the thinktank Garden State Initiative.

In January, total jobs decreased by 6,100, led by 12,000 jobs shed in the public sector that mainly came at the state level (-10,300). In the private sector, jobs rose by 5,900. Most private sectors reported gains, paced by professional and business services (+3,800) and private education and health services (+1,300).

“The number of jobs in the state is estimated to have fallen by 6,100. However, this includes an odd 12,000 drop in government employment (this cannot be the result of any DOGE activity; federal employment in the state is not large enough for that sort of swing to be at all likely, and, more concretely, the data was collected before the change in administration),” Steindel explained.

“The state’s unemployment rate remained at 4.6% for the eighth straight month (this is not a record for months with no change: New Jersey’s unemployment rate was 9.5% from July 2010 through March 2011),” Steindel continued. “January saw declines of around 4,400 in both the labor force and the number of residents at work.”

Posted in Economics, Employment, New Jersey Real Estate | 29 Comments

February home sales surprise

Posted on March 21, 2025 by grim

From CNBC:

February home resales jump much more than expected, despite higher mortgage rates

Sales of previously owned homes in February rose 4.2% from January to 4.26 million units on a seasonally adjusted, annualized basis, according to the National Association of Realtors. Industry analysts had expected a drop of 3%.

Sales were 1.2% lower compared with February of last year.

This count is based on closings, so contracts signed in December and January, when mortgage rates were rising and briefly held in the 7% range on the 30-year fixed. Rates today are in the high 6% range.

“Home buyers are slowly entering the market,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, in a release. “Mortgage rates have not changed much, but more inventory and choices are releasing pent-up housing demand.”

Sales were only higher annually in the highest price categories, above $750,000. Sales around the median price were down 3% year over year.

Inventory at the end of February stood at 1.24 million units, an increase of 17% year over year, but still just a 3.5-month supply at the current sales pace. A six-month supply is considered balanced between buyer and seller.

“We are still in a relatively tight market condition,” Yun said.

That tight supply is keeping pressure on prices. The median price of a home sold in February was $398,400, up 3.8% from the same time last year. That is a record high for the month of February. All four geographical regions of the country saw price increases.

First-time buyers edged back into the market, making up 31% of February sales compared with 26% the year before. Investors, however, pulled back, accounting for just 16% of sales, down from 21% last year.

All-cash sales, however, remained relatively steady at 32% of sales, down just slightly from the year before. Cash is usually favored by investors, so this suggests, given the drop in investor sales, that more owner-occupants are using cash.

Posted in Demographics, Economics, Housing Bubble, National Real Estate | 105 Comments

Lower expectations for 2025 home price growth

Posted on March 20, 2025 by grim

From FastCompany:

Housing market map: Zillow once again downgrades its 2025 home price forecast

On Tuesday, Zillow economists published their updated forecast model, projecting that U.S. home prices, as measured by the Zillow Home Value Index, will rise 0.8% between February 2025 and February 2026. That’s another downward revision. Last month, their 12-month forecast projected a 1.1% increase in U.S. home prices, and the month before that, they expected a 2.9% increase.

“The rise in [active] listings is fueling softer price growth, as greater supply provides more options and more bargaining power for buyers,” wrote Zillow economists on Tuesday. “Potential buyers are opting to remain renters for longer as affordability challenges suppress demand for home purchases” 

Not only do Zillow economists predict soft national home price growth this year, but they’re also predicting that the housing market will only see 4.1 million U.S. existing home sales in 2025. That would mark the third straight year of suppressed sales of existing homes. For comparison, in pre-pandemic 2019, there were 5.3 million U.S. existing home sales.

Zillow economists added that: “As the home-buying season nears, Zillow anticipates a temporary boost in sales during the spring, followed by a seasonal slowdown. However, with little relief expected from mortgage rates, existing home sales are likely to remain below pre-pandemic levels. Until mortgage rates fall—to improve housing affordability— some downward pressure on home sales is expected to persist.”

Posted in Demographics, Economics, Housing Bubble, National Real Estate | 105 Comments

Home prices rise, at a slower pace

Posted on March 19, 2025 by grim

From Redfin:

U.S. Home Prices Grew 0.4% in February, the Slowest Pace Since July

U.S. home prices grew 0.4% from a month earlier in February on a seasonally adjusted basis, equal to the slowest pace since July 2024.

Home prices were up 5.1% on a year-over-year basis—the slowest pace since August 2023.

This is according to the Redfin Home Price Index (RHPI), which uses the repeat-sales pricing method to calculate seasonally adjusted changes in prices of single-family homes. The RHPI measures sale prices of homes that sold during a given period, and how those prices have changed since the last time those same homes sold. It’s similar to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Indices but is published more than one month earlier. February data covers the three months ending February 28, 2025. Read the full RHPI methodology here.

Prices have grown between 0.4% and 0.6% month over month in 13 of the past 16 months.

Redfin Senior Economist Sheharyar Bokhari said while home prices are rising steadily, year-over-year growth has slowed for 10 consecutive months, dropping from 7.5% in April 2024 to 5.1% in February.

“There’s some good news for both buyers and sellers as we enter the Spring homebuying season. The recent decline in mortgage rates and slowing price growth is bringing more home hunters off the sidelines, an encouraging sign for potential sellers,” he said. 

“At the same time, some areas of the country have turned into fully fledged buyer’s markets, where homes are sitting longer and people are able to negotiate a good deal under the list price. That’s particularly the case in several Florida and Texas markets where the number of homes on the market has ballooned and prices are now starting to fall,” he said.

Eight (16%) of the 50 most populous U.S. metro areas—nearly all in Florida and Texas—recorded a seasonally adjusted drop in home prices in February, year over year. 

The biggest decline was in Tampa, FL (-6%), followed by Austin, TX (-3.5%) and Fort Worth, TX (-2.4%). The highest year over year gains were recorded in Detroit (20.9%), St Louis (12.6%) and Pittsburgh (12.6%).

Posted in Economics, Housing Bubble, National Real Estate | 67 Comments

Tariffs to push up cost of housing

Posted on March 18, 2025 by grim

From CBS News:

Trump tariffs could add more than $9,000 to cost of a new home, builders say

resident Trump’s tariff policies could make building or renovating a home in the U.S. more expensive, according to builders. 

The rising costs of construction materials, including lumber, aluminum and steel, could add $9,200 in costs for a typical home, according to a new estimate from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), based on data from a March survey. 

“Builders continue to face elevated building material costs that are exacerbated by tariff issues, as well as other supply-side challenges that include labor and lot shortages,” Buddy Hughes, a North Carolina-based homebuilder and chairman of NAHB, said in a statement. 

Multiple factors are pushing the costs for building or fixing up home, according to the trade group. U.S. tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico and China are driving up materials costs, while Mr. Trump’s trade threats have also stoked market volatility, making housing developers and homebuyers reluctant to take on financial risks. 

Uncertainty around when U.S. levies could take effect and how long they could remain in place is making real estate developers reluctant to commit to new projects, impeding home construction. Prospective homebuyers, many of whom have been sidelined by rising mortgage rates, now also face higher costs due to tariffs.

Posted in Economics, Housing Bubble, National Real Estate, New Development, Politics | 49 Comments

Florida Fades

Posted on March 17, 2025 by grim

From Yahoo Finance:

Not just condos: Florida’s housing market is softening, especially along the southwest coast

Florida’s pandemic-era housing boom is finally starting to fade.

For-sale inventory in the state has reached the highest levels on record, and homes are staying on the market longer even as peak homebuying season kicks off. In many parts of the state, prices are starting to fall.

The turning market comes as migration to the Sunshine State slows, and a combination of hurricane fears, rising insurance and tax bills, and a steady supply of new construction has given buyers more leverage. While the state’s condo market has been in correction ever since new building laws took effect in the aftermath of the 2021 condo collapse in Surfside, Fla., the market for single-family homes is also starting to soften.

“Inventory and time on market has been dramatically increasing,” said Ben Grieco, a real estate agent in the southwestern city of Port Charlotte. “It’s not like buyers have left by any means, but there’s just so much to choose from that it’s really pushing prices down.”

Listings across the state usurped pre-pandemic levels in January, according to Realtor.com. As of last month, there were more than 168,000 homes active on the market. Residences in Florida spent an average of 75 days on the market, up 13 days from a year earlier, according to Redfin.

As of January, single-family home prices were falling the fastest in a cluster of cities on the southern Gulf Coast. Prices in Punta Gorda are down nearly 8% since January 2024, according to Zillow data. Thirty miles south, in Cape Coral, home prices have dropped 5.6% year over year.

Prices in North Port and the high-end, golf-focused city of Naples have also fallen by more than 3% in the last year.

Posted in Demographics, Economics, Housing Bubble, National Real Estate | 43 Comments

Jersey Feeling Flush

Posted on March 15, 2025 by grim

From Calculated Risk:

CoreLogic: 1.1 million Homeowners with Negative Equity in Q4 2024

CoreLogic® … today released the Homeowner Equity Report (HER) for the fourth quarter of 2024. Nationwide, borrower equity increased by $281.9 billion, or 1.7% year-over-year. The report shows that U.S. homeowners with mortgages (which account for roughly 61% of all properties) saw home equity increase by about $4,100 between Q4 2023 and Q4 2024, which is less than the gain of $6,000 in Q3 2023. The states that saw the largest gains were New Jersey ($39,400), Connecticut ($36,300), and Massachusetts ($34,400), while the largest losses were in Hawaii ($-28,700), Florida ($-18,100), and the District of Columbia ($-14,700).

Posted in Economics, Housing Bubble, National Real Estate, New Jersey Real Estate | 31 Comments

NJ adds jobs in January

Posted on March 14, 2025 by grim

From NJBIA:

NJ January Jobless Rate Stays Flat at 4.6% 

New Jersey private-sector employers added 5,900 jobs during January, but significant losses in the public sector were primarily responsible for an overall drop in total employment to 4,387,700, according to federal data released Thursday by state officials. 

Meanwhile, New Jersey’s unemployment rate held steady in January at a seasonally adjusted 4.6% where it has stood for the past eight months.  The national unemployment rate in January was 4% and rose to 4.1% in February. 

For January, six out of nine major private sectors recorded month-over-month job growth including professional and business services (+3,800); private education and health services (+1,300); financial activities (+600); manufacturing (+600); trade, transportation, and utilities (+200); and other services (+200).  

The public sector recorded a loss of 12,000 jobs in January, mainly at the state level (-10,300). Sectors that also recorded losses include information (-500) and leisure and hospitality (-300). Construction recorded no change for the month. 

Overall, the preliminary nonfarm employment estimates for January showed a decrease of 6,100 jobs to a seasonally adjusted level of 4,387,700. Although that represents a decline from December, total employment is still up by 36,200 jobs compared to January 2024. 

New Jersey’s labor force participation rate was 64% in January, which is below the revised December rate of 64.1% and the post-pandemic peak of 65.0% in June 2023. The labor force participation rate calculates the percentage of the working-age population that is employed or actively seeking work. 

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ benchmark process, a required annual review and adjustment of previously released employment data at the state levels, shows that year-over year change (December 2023 – December 2024) in total nonfarm jobs was 0.9% (39,800 jobs) higher than the previously reported gain of 0.7% (30,300 jobs). The two-year gain from December 2022 to December 2024, however, was revised downward to 104,000 or 15,900 few jobs than previously reported. 

The annual benchmarking process also revised the estimated employment losses caused by the pandemic. The revisions showed that in March and April of 2020, New Jersey lost a total of 723,700 nonfarm jobs or 17.1% of the state total nonfarm employment in February 2020. Revised estimates still indicate that New Jersey returned to its pre-pandemic employment level in April 2022. 

Posted in Demographics, Economics, Employment, New Jersey Real Estate | 92 Comments

Can’t afford to buy, can’t afford to rent

Posted on March 13, 2025 by grim

From the NY Post:

Here’s where rents are rising the fastest in the New York area

New Yorkers may feel like the rent hikes never end, but it turns out that Newark, New Jersey residents are at the biggest disadvantage. 

Just a quick train ride from Lower Manhattan, Newark had the fastest-growing rent in the New York Metropolitan area in February, according to a recent New York Metro Area Report by the online rental marketplace Zumper. Median rents for one-bedrooms in the New Jersey transportation hub grew 16.7% year-over-year.

A significant year-over-year decrease in rental prices earned Bayonne, New Jersey a spot at the bottom of the list. The small city is just across the bay from Newark and only a stone’s throw from Staten Island, but median rent in Bayonne plummeted in February by 15.6% year-over-year. 

A one-bedroom in Bayonne, as of last month, will run you about $1,890.

While Newark and Bayonne are currently poles apart in annual rent growth, both cities were recently identified as the top two most affordable locations to buy a home near Manhattan. 

Upstate Kingston clocked in as the cheapest city in the metropolitan area for renters, with a median price of $1,500 for a one-bed — though Kingston is not located off a commuter rail line. The former state capital is closely followed by Bridgeport, Connecticut — which is — at $1,650 per month and Paterson, New Jersey at $1,730 per month.

But the metropolitan area’s most expensive places to rent endure, unlikely to budge — NYC topped the median rent list at $4,330 for a one-bedroom, succeeded by New Jersey hotspots Hoboken, at $3,510, and Jersey City, at $3,050.

According to Zumper, you’re better off renting outside of those three cities. The median one-bedroom rent across the entire New York metropolitan area was just $2,486 in February.

Posted in Economics, Housing Bubble, New Jersey Real Estate, NYC | 105 Comments

NJ just got a little more office space

Posted on March 12, 2025 by grim

From NJBIZ:

DOGE cancels NJ leases totaling $2.76M in annual rents 

As DOGE continues efforts to purportedly search for savings within the federal government, a number of commercial leases – including in New Jersey – are on the chopping block.

Nationwide, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency says it terminated 748 leases totaling 9.59 million square feet and representing approximately $468 million in savings. As of March 5, 14 of those cancellations affected New Jersey properties.

The sites range in size and location, from just over 1,000 square feet to upwards of 28,000 square feet and stretch from Atlantic to Essex counties. As of February 2025, the federal government leased 2.62 million square feet in New Jersey with annual rents totaling $83.12 million. Following the action from DOGE, the decrease in overall footprint amounts to nearly 4%, while the rent savings come in at just over 3%.

NJBIZ compared data from the DOGE website with the U.S. General Services Administration’s February 2025 lease inventory, the most recent available, to identify affected properties. Altogether the local lease agreements represent 100,821 square feet and a cumulative annual rent total of $2.76 million.

Posted in New Development, New Jersey Real Estate, Politics | 60 Comments