New Jersey Real Estate Report

From the Star Ledger:

N.J.’s population rises, but New York and Pennsylvania lost residents

New Jersey’s population has risen slightly as the Garden State is hanging on to its ranking as the 11th most populous state in the nation, according to estimates released Wednesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

New Jersey had 8,944,460 people as of July 1, up just 9,000 from the 2015 estimate of 8,935,421. New Jersey counted 8.7 million residents in the 2010 census.

New York and Pennsylvania, on the other hand, were among eight states with a decline from 2015 to 2016. New York lost almost 2,000 people, bringing its estimated total to 19,745,289, while Pennsylvania’s population stood at 12,784,227, a decline of almost 7,700. Both remain in the top 10 in population.

New Jersey remained the 11th most populous state, but with a narrowing gap over Virginia.

Viirginia gained almost five times as many people as the Garden State, bringing its total to 8,411,808 in 2016 from 8,367,587 in 2015 and lowering the population gap with New Jersey to slightly more than 530,000. The 2010 census gave Virginia 8 million residents.
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The fastest growing state by percentage was Utah, whose population increased 2 percent over the past year to 3.1 million people. Next was Nevada (2 percent) and Florida, Idaho and Washington (all with 1.8 percent).

Texas reported the biggest overall increase in population with 432,957 new residents from 2015 to 2016, followed by Florida with 367,525, and California with 256,077.

“States in the south and west continued to lead in population growth,” said Ben Bolender, chief of the Census Bureau’s Population Estimates Branch.

from NJ101.5:

How can NJ stop young adults from fleeing the state?

As we wind down the end of 2016 and get set to ring in a brand new year, New Jersey faces a number of significant challenges.

The state’s leading business group is setting its sights on stopping the out-migration of millennials — young adults under age 35 — as a top priority in 2017.

Michele Siekerka, president of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association, points out Garden State taxpayers spend a small fortune on K-12 education, and yet many of our best and brightest students leave New Jersey to go to college and never return.

“When we’re making significant investment in our great K-12 education here in the state of New Jersey — [on average] $19,000 per year per pupil times 13 years — to let those students walk out of the state, we’re losing our pipeline, we can’t let that happen anymore,” she said.

To change things, Siekerka said, we have to look at issues of affordability.

“Housing costs for millennials are in the $1,600 a month range, which is simply too high. A student graduating from college can’t afford that off the bat. Energy costs, costs of insurance in the state of New Jersey, they’re simply too high,” she said.

Siekerka pointed out another huge problem is the cost of higher education.

“We have gotten expensive. We’re the 4th most expensive in the country on state tuition when you include fees and room and board, so that’s a challenge. Students aren’t choosing our own state schools,” she said.

To address the issue, she said we must look for ways to increase financial assistance.

“If we do that, the $25,000 tuition is now only $15,000. But we don’t have the stream of funds in New Jersey to cover that gap, and that’s another reason why higher ed is expensive,” she said.

Siekerka believes all of these issues are connected.

“We must do something in the state of New Jersey about how we fund our education, because property tax is all about funding our education, our K to 12 education,” she said.

“We need to have that discussion, it’s a discussion that must be had.”

It’s not just millennials who are leaving. Earlier this year, the organization found that the state has lost almost $21 billion dollars in adjusted gross income over the past 11 years to so-called out-migration.