New Jersey Real Estate Report

From HousingWire:

Housing Recovery is Spelled R-E-O

Short sales are a hot topic right now—especially with a much-ballyhooed government program focused on short sales, the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives program, about to come online. But in the end, the real key to resolving the problems that yet remain in housing is likely to come back to an old standby: REO property sales.

Yes, really. But to understand why, you’ve got to first really understand the scope of the mortgage default problem we’ve now got.

According to data from Lender Processing Services, a whopping 7.4m loans are now non-current, compared to just 4.1m on average between January and June of 2008.
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Ponder those numbers for just a second. On average, severely delinquent borrowers have gone more than 9 months without making a mortgage payment—and yet foreclosure has not yet started for them. For those borrowers who are in the foreclosure process, it’s been an average of 13.6 months—more than one full year—since they last made any payment on their mortgage.

So, can short sales ride in to save the day for these 7.4m troubled borrowers? What about for the many millions more who are current on their loans, but are underwater on property value and unable to sell? For some, short sales will be an important solution—but don’t kid yourself: the hype currently surrounding short sales and the HAFA program will prove to be short-lived, and REO expertise will be prove to be the key to recovery, as it has been in prior cycles.
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Thanks to effective intervention from the government, we won’t see REO volumes soar to peak levels anytime soon—but we will see elevated inflows at least through the mid-2012, out of necessity. And those inflows should be seen as the road to recovery by anyone watching real estate. JPM forecasts, for example, that by Q4 2012, 22-28% of home sales in the Los Angeles region of California will still be REO; in Phoenix, that number is projected to be 39-50%.

These projections underscore a message I’ve shared privately with many industry colleagues recently: recovery in housing is spelled R-E-O. Anything else is wasting time until we get there.

From the NY Times:

Great Time to Buy (Famous Last Words)

“IT’S a great time to buy a home.”

Real estate agents were saying that in 2001, as home prices were rising. They also said it when home prices peaked in 2005 — in fact, David Lereah, former chief economist of the National Association of Realtors, published a book that year titled “Are You Missing the Real Estate Boom?”

And many real estate agents said it was time to buy as prices began to drop — and continued to say it over the past several years as prices fell by an average of 33 percent in America’s 20 largest cities.

Mr. Lereah would acknowledge that he had gotten it wrong. But from the perspective of many real estate agents, it is always a good time to buy.

“What they are really saying is that it is a good time to be involved in a transaction that generates a commission,” says Barry Ritholtz, C.E.O. and director of equity research at FusionIQ, a quantitative research firm. He’s also author of “The Big Picture,” an irreverent blog on markets.

If agents are always motivated to make a deal, buyers are often asking an impossible question: “Will the price of this house go up?”

Although the National Association of Realtors said for many years that home prices historically don’t fall, actually they do, and sometimes quite sharply. The housing market is complicated, and the future unknowable. Still, for clues to the overall direction of prices, Mr. Ritholtz advises buyers to look at three metrics: the ratio of median income to median home prices, which suggests whether people can afford a house; the cost of ownership versus renting; and the value of the national housing stock as a percentage of gross domestic product.

All those measures were aberrationally inflated during the housing bubble. And they still aren’t back to historical norms. We can get back to the norm in either of two ways, Mr. Ritholtz says: home prices can either drop an additional 15 percent or go sideways for seven years or so, while G.D.P. and income presumably grow.
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Then there are property taxes.

In California, taxes alone can be $5,000 a year on that $300,000 house. In New Jersey, where property taxes are the highest in the nation, the extra cost can be even more. (The Star-Ledger of Newark calculated that, on average, residents in the town of Lodi pay 10 percent of their income in property taxes.) But who would have guessed that property taxes in that state would keep climbing, doubling over the course of seven years in some cases, even as home values stopped appreciating?

Mr. LLosa thinks that many people — including him — would be better off renting. People ought to buy a house for what he calls “warm and fuzzy feelings,” but they shouldn’t try to predict home prices. Nor should real estate agents, who aren’t much wiser.

“I don’t think real estate professionals should be in the business of telling people when it is a great time to buy,” he said.

From the APP:

N.J. job losses hit 228,300; worst since ’90s

New Jersey’s economy lost 114,100 jobs in 2009 and another 9,100 jobs in January 2010, the state reported Wednesday, offering evidence that the recession has been the most severe since the early 1990s.

It has forced thousands of workers to reinvent themselves, brush up on their skills and prepare for new careers — even as they fall behind on their bills and try to keep their families together.

“Every bill is at least a month late,” Laura Novotny, 45, of Long Branch, said Wednesday after leaving a class at Brookdale Community College in Middletown, where she is studying respiratory therapy. “If somebody stole my identity, they would give it back to me.”

The latest report from the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development was notable in that it included a full account of the labor market last year.

It found the state lost 228,300 jobs from the time the U.S. recession began in December 2007 through 2009, fast approaching the 258,600 jobs lost during the recession from 1989 to 1992. It also said the state’s unemployment rate in January dipped to 9.9 percent from 10 percent, even though the job losses continued.
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“As bad as (we thought) the recession was, the final numbers indicate that it was worse,” Rutgers University economist Joseph J. Seneca said. “The long road back to recover the lost jobs of the recession is even longer than what we originally thought.”
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The Labor Department’s report showed the private sector lost 121,100 jobs in 2009; the public sector added 7,000 jobs. In the private sector, only the education and health services sector and the leisure and hospitality sector added jobs.

The biggest losses: Trade, transportation and utilities lost 29,000 jobs; professional and business services lost 28,700 jobs; manufacturing lost 28,200 jobs; and construction lost 23,400 jobs.

Unemployed workers have been jobless on average for seven months, the longest stretch since researchers began tracking that figure in 1948. And it has worn them down, said Carl Van Horn, director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University.

From Bloomberg:

N.J.’s Christie Says Layoffs Out for Cutting Budget

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said he’s unable to lay off or furlough unionized state workers to help close an $11 billion budget gap.

Christie, speaking at a town hall meeting in Haddon Heights, said job cuts would trigger more than $300 million in contractually obligated raises for remaining state workers under a 2009 wage freeze agreement secured by former Governor Jon Corzine.

“I cannot lay off one state worker, I cannot furlough one state worker,” Christie, 47, said. “It’s an exquisite set of handcuffs.”

New Jersey’s budget was thrown off-balance as the biggest economic recession since the 1930s depressed tax collections and drove state unemployment to a 33-year high of 10.1 percent in December. The state workforce numbers more than 70,000, according to the state Treasury.

From the Star Ledger:

N.J. Gov. Chris Christie says he’s stuck with bill for state worker 7 percent pay hike

Calling it an “exquisite pair of handcuffs” as he tries to plug a huge budget gap, Gov. Chris Christie today said he must follow a controversial deal former Gov. Jon Corzine gave unionized state workers last year that calls for a 7 percent pay raise in the upcoming fiscal year and bars him from ordering layoffs before January.

Christie said he was “wrong” in previously claiming he would not be “bound by” the contract struck between unions and Corzine last June. Under the deal, a pay raise costing the state millions would kick in if Christie orders layoffs.

“My lawyers have now told me that I am bound by that deal,” the governor said after meeting local officials in Haddon Heights. “If I could stop it, I would, except the previous governor tied my hands. I cannot lay off one state worker, I cannot furlough a state worker until January of 2011. That was a great election-year deal he made for us. It is an exquisite pair of handcuffs he put on his successor, but I guess he didn’t think he was going to have a successor.”

Christie, who will unveil his proposed budget next week, has called for cuts to all levels of government — including the public employee pension system, drawing the ire of worker unions.

Soon after he was elected, Christie said he was considering invoking emergency powers to break the deal. Today, he left open the door to “the exercise of executive authority” to address the deal but did not say exactly how that could happen. “I’m going to have to come up with some other ingenious ways to try to accomplish what I need to accomplish,” he said. “We’re going to do what we need to do as best we can, but I cannot just disregard the law, either.”

From the Record:

Bill would create N.J. homebuyer tax credit

In an effort to boost the state’s housing market, New Jersey legislators have introduced a bill that would give home buyers an income tax credit of up to $15,000, spread over three years.

“The housing industry is at an all-time low,” said Sen. Paul Sarlo, a Wood-Ridge Democrat and a co-sponsor of the bill. “The economic output that will be generated from these homes being built will be quite significant and will really help to stimulate the economy.”

The home-building industry has been slammed by the housing downturn. In New Jersey, fewer than 12,000 new housing units were built in 2009 — the lowest number since World War II. As a result, unemployment has soared among construction workers.

The bill would target new construction, with 75 percent of the tax credits going to buyers of newly built homes and 25 percent going to buyers of existing homes. Existing home sales make up the large majority of home sales.

If passed, the tax credit would cost the state Treasury $100 million over three years, at a time when New Jersey is in dire financial straits. But Sarlo said the economic stimulus would more than make up for those lost revenues.
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Because the tax credit’s cost is capped at $100 million, a total of 6,667 buyers would be able to claim the credit — 5,000 of them new-home buyers. The credits would be available on a first come, first served basis.

From the Federal Reserve:

The Beige Book - Second District — New York

The Second District’s economy has shown some further signs of strengthening since the last report, despite some apparent slowing in the housing market; input price increases have become more widespread. In general, business contacts report ongoing improvement in overall conditions and some pickup in hiring activity.
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Commercial real estate markets have been steady to softer since the last report, while the sales/investment market remains exceptionally weak. Residential real estate markets were mixed to weaker in early 2010. Finally, bankers report weakening in loan demand in all categories, rising delinquency rates–mainly in the household sector–but some leveling off in credit standards on consumer loans and residential mortgages.
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Housing markets appear to have softened in early 2010, after hints of a pickup in late 2009. New York City’s sales and rental markets both showed signs of slackening since the last report. Rental activity, which had stabilized in December, has reportedly weakened more recently, while asking rents were relatively stable but lower than a year earlier. Co-op and condo transactions, which had picked up in the latter part of 2009, are said to have slipped across the board thus far in 2010, while prices have reportedly continued to drift down. Similarly, northern New Jersey’s single-family housing market has reportedly lost momentum in early 2010–particularly for new homes–after showing scattered signs of a pickup in late 2009. However, this may partly reflect unusually harsh winter weather this year in much of the state. Construction of both single- and multi-family homes is moribund, as developers are reportedly holding off on any new development. Still, a real estate agent in a relatively upscale area notes that short sales are not all that common and that most transactions are still above the remaining mortgage balance; however, she notes that prices continue to drift down–especially at the high end, where affordability remains a major factor. The homebuyer tax credit is not much of a factor because it represents a small portion of the typical house price. Buffalo-area Realtors indicate that sales were sluggish in both late 2009 and early 2010, though here, the recent extension of the homebuyer tax credit is expected to spur increased activity in the months ahead.

Commercial real estate markets across most of the District softened since the last report. Vacancy rates in Manhattan continued to climb, while asking rents continued to fall and were down more than 20 percent from a year ago. Vacancy rates also rose noticeably in Westchester and Fairfield counties, while asking rents were down by 6 percent. In most other areas around the District, however, vacancies and rents were relatively stable. Commercial real estate sales remained exceptionally weak across the board.
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Bankers report decreased demand for all types of loans, particularly in the residential mortgage category, where more than half of those surveyed report weakening demand, compared with just 11 percent reporting a pickup. Bankers also reported decreased demand for refinancing. Respondents indicate further tightening in credit standards in the commercial mortgage and commercial and industrial loan categories but some leveling off in standards on consumer loans and residential mortgages. Still, no banker reported an easing of credit standards in any of the categories.
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Finally, respondents report continuing increases in delinquency rates for all categories except the commercial and industrial loan category, where rates are reported to have leveled off.

(Emphasis Added)

From NJBIZ:

Experts: N.J. less hard-hit by recession, but projected for slower growth

The Garden State has withstood the economic downturn better than other parts of the country, with less dramatic increases in unemployment and availability rates in commercial real estate space, according to two local experts. But New Jersey’s relative stability has more to do with the state’s lack of growth than having a more robust economy than other states, they said.

In New Jersey, “we lost employment faster than in the prior two recessions,” said Rae Rosen, senior economist and assistant vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, speaking at the Newark Regional Business Partnership’s annual Real Estate Market Forecast in the Brick City Tuesday morning. The job loss isn’t as severe as it was in the 1989 downturn, which had close to an 8 percent decline, compared a current decline of about 6 percent.

But “the unemployment rate rose dramatically,” to 10.1 percent statewide in December 2009; the rate was even higher in the Ocean City and Atlantic City-Hammonton metropolitan areas and Hudson County, she said. “These aren’t typical of these areas.”

Private-sector job growth in the state declined 2.7 percent year-over-year in December, compared to 3.5 percent nationally, Rosen said. But breaking down job growth by sector, she noted that the state lost a large portion of its manufacturing jobs in the last two decades, so “the rate of loss wasn’t as bad.”
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Overall in New Jersey, “the rate of loss wasn’t as bad as the nation, but going forward, it may not get a rapid pickup, either,” Rosen said.
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While the United States and New York saw a big dip in office availability during the boom years between 2005 and 2007, the Garden State’s availability rate had “a slow but steady increase” during that time, and “a lot of that is because of the lack of private-sector job growth in the state.”

From the NY Times:

In New Jersey, No Consensus on Foreclosure Problem

IN gauging the severity of the foreclosure problem in New Jersey, the experts could hardly be farther apart. Some see the state as relatively unscathed at this point, with the situation about to improve; others see worsening conditions that may turn downright severe.

But then again these same experts are the first to admit that they are handicapped by extremely unreliable information. Real estate market analysts, lawyers, academics, public officials: there are clusters of them on either side of the debate.

“Precise numbers on foreclosures are very elusive,” said James W. Hughes, the dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. But he said he was hearing reports from researchers in the field that foreclosure filings in some county courts were increasing. That trend may pick up steam as federal home-buyer stimulus programs expire, and high-paying jobs continue migrating out of state.

Jeffrey G. Otteau, whose Otteau Valuation Group provides real estate market analysis to the industry, sounded a similar note on the quality of available statistics. “The numbers from the various sources do not square,” was how he put it. Mr. Otteau quoted data from RealtyTrac, a company based in Irvine, Calif., that monitors court filings around the country, in characterizing New Jersey’s current foreclosure rate as very low — just .04 percent of households. He also predicted that foreclosure actions would decline as the overall economy improved. RealtyTrac, a subscriber service, is a primary source of information about distressed properties for investors.
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Cross-checking RealtyTrac numbers with other statistics often amounts to an “apples and oranges” problem, according to Mr. Otteau and Mr. Hughes. For instance, a report last month by the New Jersey court system estimated the number of foreclosure filings rose 29 percent from 2008. But the number is a raw count, not a calculation of rate.

Still, Mr. Otteau said, it does not jibe with RealtyTrac’s report as best he can tell. Goldie Sommer, a real estate lawyer who specializes in short sales for the firm Sommer & Engelhart in Fairfield, said she had ended up relying on the anecdotal reports of brokers who list properties available for short sale — and on the fact that she is extremely busy — to infer that the number of homeowners facing foreclosure was “bouncing up again.”
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For instance Michael Hawley, of the United Association of Realtors, said that 35 to 40 percent of Essex County homes currently listed in the $300,000-to-$350,000 price range were short sales. At $700,000 and above, he added, 10 to 15 percent of listings are short sales.

An office manager for Weichert in Caldwell estimated that 15 percent of all listings right now were delinquent-mortgage properties; at Unicasa United Realty in Newark, a manager estimated that more than 60 percent of the agency’s listings were for properties whose owners were “underwater,” or owed more than the home was worth.

From the Star Ledger:

Home prices still fall in the N.Y. region

Housing prices in the New York metropolitan area dropped for the fourth consecutive month in December, according to data released today.

Nationwide, prices in the 20 cities that are tracked by Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller housing index dropped 3.1 percent in December from the previous year.

“The housing market is definitely in better shape than it was this time last year,” said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s, in a statement.

In the New York-area, which includes 14 New Jersey counties, the index dropped 6.3 percent from the same period last year.

From the WSJ:

Case-Shiller Adds to Confusion on Housing Market

Tuesday’s latest home-price reading shows that momentum slowed at the end of 2009 for the housing market, adding to the confusion about where prices are headed from here.

The S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city composite index in December fell 0.2% from November, but after adjusting for seasonal factors, home prices were up 0.3%. That was the same change that the index showed in November.

Fifteen of 20 markets tracked by the index showed monthly declines, though the battered Southwest fared well. Las Vegas had its first monthly gain in more than three years (and today’s story helps to explain why conditions there have improved), while Los Angeles led the nation with a 1% monthly increase.
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Robert Shiller, the Yale University economist who co-founded the index that bears his name, called the home-price rebound during the second half of the year “the most dramatic turnaround” since he began charting home prices in 1987. Home prices fell by 11% for six months ending in April 2009, before rising by around 5% over the following six months. The last time home prices swung so sharply was in April 1991, when a more modest 5% decline over six months was followed by a 2% rally.

What followed? “Nothing,” says Mr. Shiller. “The home market was absolutely dead for the better part of a decade after that.” But he says today’s volatility in prices and the massive amount of federal stimulus has made the home-price outlook far more uncertain. “The market has shown a lot of momentum,” he said. “What trend are we seeing now? It’s very ambiguous.”
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“What worries me right now is the default rate on mortgages,” says Mr. Shiller. “It might go up because of a change in our sense of responsibility to pay mortgages. People are angry and upset.”

From the NY Times:

Dry Your Eyes and Lower the Price

NEVER in all his 17 years selling real estate has Mark Seiden gone through as many boxes of tissues as he has in the past 12 months.

It’s not he who is crying, but some of his customers — as they come to grips with the reality that their houses are worth far less in today’s market than what they had hoped, said Mr. Seiden, who owns Mark J. Seiden Real Estate in Briarcliff Manor.

But the sooner a seller faces reality on prices, he said, the sooner a sale can occur. As evidence, he cited Susan and Robert Whiting of Ossining, whose six-bedroom three-bath 1950s Cape had languished six months at $499,000 before they hired him. “At that price, nothing happened,” said Mrs. Whiting, a day care provider. “We didn’t even have one reasonable offer.”

The first thing Mr. Seiden did was brandish the tissues and recommend a listing price of $60,000 less. “At first I was in shock,” Mrs. Whiting said. “But then I decided if we wanted to sell, this is what we better do.” A bidding war ensued, and some weeks later the house went into contract at $10,000 over the list price.
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In the Ossining/Briarcliff market in 2009, homeowners received about 94 percent of their asking prices, according to Mr. Seiden. But he said the actual percentage was probably even lower, as the official one was calculated using the most recent listing price — very likely reduced from the original.
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Mr. Nadler cited another Larchmont example: a three-bedroom two-bath prewar condo listed at $1.2 million whose owners “needed to be convinced” to drop the price. After generating only weak interest and unacceptable offers, they finally agreed to lower the price to $999,000 and then to $985,000. At that point, Mr. Nadler said, “the floodgates opened.” It sold for close to the final asking price, he said.
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The first impression also still counts, which is why Richard and Marilyn Wishnie of Briarcliff Manor employed a home stager to help market their four-bedroom two-and-a-half-bath 1960s colonial.

“The stager said to us, ‘Come with me to the front door and look at your house the way a buyer might,’ ” recalled Mr. Wishnie, a former county legislator. They did, and subsequently spent $2,500 to remove old wallpaper in the kitchen, replace carpeting in one bedroom and retile the floor in the front entrance.
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But it was pricing that may ultimately have turned the tide in their favor. They listed the house at about $619,000 — far less than they had originally hoped — but it sold quickly, for $10,000 over asking. “We knew this was the worst possible time to try and sell a house, but it all worked out,” Mr. Wishnie said.
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That a well-priced property will sell more quickly is not a new concept. “That’s true in boom years, too,” Mr. Mercurio said, “although that applies more than ever now.”

From the Star Ledger:

Rutgers report: job loss recovery will take at least 4 years

With the recession in the rearview mirror, this decade will be known as the Great Reckoning as the economy tries to recover from massive job losses, according to a Rutgers report released today.

It could take at least four years for the nation to recover more than 8.5 million private-sector jobs that were lost since 2007, according to the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. The jobless rate is at a 33-year high in New Jersey – 10.1 percent – and nationwide the previous decade saw three of the worst private-sector job loss years ever in 2009, 2008 and 2001.

“We had to digest a lot of bad news,” said James Hughes, dean of the Bloustein School, in a telephone interview. “Some of the worst has passed us, and again the two question marks are: Can housing stand on its own in 2010, and what types of problems are really going to emerge with commercial real estate?”

The Federal Reserve will stop buying bad mortgages at the end of March — creating fears that mortgage rates, which have been at historic lows, could rise, he said.

A record number of commercial real estate loans made during the boom years are coming due that must be refinanced in the next decade, according to the report.

This year “is going to be the start of maybe a three- or four-year period where a number of buildings are going to face a lot of problems,” Hughes said of the commercial real estate market. “They are OK right now, but what happens when they have to be refinanced and they are underwater?”

From the Star Ledger:

The long and short of short-selling homes

But Goldie Sommer, a real estate attorney and agent, said there is no reason why anyone can’t navigate a short sale.

Sommer, a principal at Fairfield-based Sommer and Engelhart, has overseen more than 250 short-sale deals over the past two years.

Your Business took a closer look at short sales with Sommer:
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Q. Can anyone apply for a short sale?

A. Yes, you can even do a short sale on government-backed (HUD loans) and FHA loans. Many of my short sales are on government-backed loans.

The restrictions for short sales of a government-backed loan pertain to the purchase of a subsequent home with government backed funds (FHA funds), not the short sale of one.

Q: How does a short sale affect your credit score?

A. I can’t give you exact numbers. But I’ve heard it’s about 50 points off your FICO (score) versus 200 on a foreclosure. And it doesn’t say foreclosure on your credit report. It will say “mortgage paid not full amount.” So, everybody knows. But my clients are so upset. They are devastated, because they always had good credit. I tell them, you don’t stick out as an unusual case because everyone is going to have this on their credit score.
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Q. What’s the sticking point for people in New Jersey?

A. In our state, lienholders are allowed to pursue homeowners for any deficiency under a short sale. We have found that we encounter more problems negotiating the short sale with the second mortgage holder than with the first, especially if the second loan is high.

I do not believe this problem is addressed under the new rules and will continue to be an issue for our homeowners if they have second mortgages.

Q. How long does the process take?

A. If you are lucky, you can get a short sale approved in as little as two or three months. But we’ve seen them take as long as a year.

That doesn’t mean that the bank won’t go forward with a foreclosure. They will, and they usually do. Normally, however, the house will get approved for short sale well before a house goes up for a sheriff sale.

When an approval is received on a short sale, the typical letter states that we have 30 days from approval to close title. The buyer must scramble to obtain financing, order title work, survey, etc. in a short amount of time. The new rules will give homeowners a minimum of 90 days to close. This is a big plus.

From Default Servicing News:

Company Proposes Paying Homeowners Not to Walk Away

With tumbling property values leaving nearly a quarter of borrowers owing more on their mortgage than the home is worth, some may find it tempting to walk away even if they are financially able to keep making payments – either to get out from under the debt completely or to force the servicer’s hand for a modification. This idea of “strategic default” has become a universal concern within the industry, but one New Jersey company says it has a plan to counter such calculated flights of exodus.

According to the Loan Value Group LLC (LVG), it’s time to pay current borrowers to stay that way. The company introduced a new program this week that helps lenders and servicers identify borrowers at risk of walking away and implement an incentive program in which the homeowner receives a monetary “reward” if they remain current on their payments without changing the terms of the original mortgage note or reducing principal.

The Responsible Homeowner Reward (RH Reward) program was developed on a foundation of behavioral economics and employs patent-pending technology developed by LVG. The firm evaluates each individual borrower’s propensity to strategically default (as distinct from the risk of affordability default) based on a dozen criteria, including negative equity, income, and geography, and then determines the optimal size of each “reward.”

From the Record:

North Jersey home prices down 5.5% in fourth quarter 2009, to median $434,000

The housing market’s steep price slide appears to be slowing, according to data released Thursday by the National Association of Realtors.

The median price of an existing single-family home in North Jersey and the New York metropolitan area was $434,000 in the fourth quarter of 2009, down 5.5 percent from a year earlier, the NAR said. Nationally, prices declined 4.1 percent in that period, to a median $172,900.

Prices in North Jersey and the metro area are more than $100,000 below the peaks of around $540,000 reached in 2006 and 2007.
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Sales of condos, co-ops and single-family homes in New Jersey rose 34 percent in the quarter from a year earlier, to 135,600 units. That’s still below the levels of the housing boom, when yearly sales topped 180,000 in 2004 and 2005.

Real estate broker Vikki CQ Healey CQ of Vikki Healey Properties in Maywood said she thought prices in the area were down a little more than the NAR data suggests — maybe 7 or 8 percent.

“We have such a preponderance of short sales and foreclosures in the market; those prices are really bring down the averages quite a bit,” she said.

But she agreed that the volume of sales was way up over late 2008, in part because of the depressed market activity after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008.

“Nothing was selling; it didn’t matter what the price was, what the interest rate was,” she said. “That was when the financial crisis hit, and we were paralyzed.”

From the Star Ledger:

NJ existing home sales rise on lower prices, rates

Declining regional prices and record low interest rates boosted existing home sales last year.

The National Association of Realtors said today that resales in New Jersey stabilized at the end of 2009 — rising 2.7 percent to about 115,400. Meanwhile, the expanded and extended first-time home buyers tax credit had little effect here because of the relatively high cost of homes.
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“Most consumers are sitting down and taking a look at what it would cost them to get the same home three years ago,” said Tom Kunz, chief executive of Parsippany-based Century 21, of New Jersey buyers. “And on top of that be able to finance it.”

From NJBiz:

Report: N.J. industrial jobs down 6.4 percent since recession start

Manufacturers’ News Inc. released a report Tuesday showing industrial jobs have shrunk by 6.4 percent in the Garden State since the start of the recession.

The 2010 New Jersey Manufacturers Register, from the Evanston, Ill., publisher, showed 29,568 such jobs have been eliminated since December 2007; the state also lost 548 manufacturers during the period.

Philip Kirschner, president of the New Jersey Business & Industry Association, said though the decline is undesirable, manufacturing in the state has weathered deeper cuts, and “is losing less than it has in previous recessions, as a percentage.”
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Manufacturing in New Jersey lost 11,724 jobs for the year ended December 2008, and another 17,844 for the year ended December 2009.

The report listed Newark as the city with the most manufacturing employment in the state, with 12,428 jobs, but that figure is down some 10.5 percent over the two-year period the report covered.

From the APP:

Report: Stimulus netted N.J. 9,800 jobs

The economic stimulus bill President Barack Obama signed into law a year ago created 280,000 jobs nationwide in the transportation construction industry, according to a report released Tuesday by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.
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Nearly 9,800 of those jobs were in New Jersey, according to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee