Foreclosure crisis continues to abate, NJ now tops by a longshot

Posted on December 5, 2014 by grim

From HousingWire:

CoreLogic: September completes 41,000 foreclosures

There were 41,000 completed foreclosures nationally, down from 55,000 in October 2013, according to CoreLogic’s (CLGX) October National Foreclosure Report.

This marks a year-over-year decrease of 26.4% and is down 65% from the peak of completed foreclosures in September 2010.

Month-over-month, completed foreclosures were down by 34.1% from the 62,000 reported in September 2014.

To put it in perspective, before the decline in the housing market in 2007, completed foreclosures averaged 21,000 per month nationwide between 2000 and 2006.

Since the financial crisis began in September 2008, there have been approximately 5.3 million completed foreclosures across the country, and since homeownership rates peaked in the second quarter of 2004, there have been approximately 7 million homes lost to foreclosure.

“While there has been a large improvement in the reduction of foreclosure inventory, completed foreclosures remain high and serve as one of the obstacles to new single-family construction,” said Sam Khater, deputy chief economist for CoreLogic. “Until the flow of completed foreclosures declines to normal levels, new-home construction will not pick up because builders have little incentive to compete with foreclosure stock.”

As of October 2014, approximately 605,000 homes nationally were in some stage of foreclosure, known as the foreclosure inventory. This is compared to 875,000 in October 2013, a year-over-year decrease of 30.9% and representing 36 consecutive months of year-over-year declines.

Posted in Foreclosures, National Real Estate, New Jersey Real Estate | 158 Comments

2015 doesn’t seem so bad

Posted on December 4, 2014 by grim

From Forbes:

Housing In 2015: Consumers Upbeat, But Recovery Faces A Tricky Handoff

What does 2015 have in store for the housing market? Nine years after the housing bubble peaked and three years after home prices bottomed, the boom and bust still cast a long shadow. None of the five measures we track in our Housing Barometer is back to normal yet, though three are getting close. The rebound effect drove the recovery after the bust, but is now fading. Prices are no longer significantly undervalued and investor demand is falling. Ideally, strong economic and demographic fundamentals like job growth and household formation would take up the slack. But the virtuous cycle of gains in jobs and housing is relatively weak, and that will slow the recovery in 2015.
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Consumers are as optimistic about the housing market as at any point since the recovery started. Nearly three-quarters — 74% — of respondents agreed that home ownership was part of achieving their personal American Dream – the same level as in our 2013 Q4 survey and slightly above the levels of the three previous years. For young adults, the dream has revived: 78% of 18-34 year-olds answered yes to our American Dream question, up from 73% in 2013 Q4 and a low of 65% in 2011 Q3.
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Furthermore, 93% of young renters plan to buy a home someday. That’s unchanged from 2012 Q4 despite rising home prices and worsening affordability.

Which real estate activities do consumers think will improve in 2015? All of them – but especially selling. Fully 36% said 2015 will be much or a little better than 2014 for selling a home. Just 16% said 2015 will be much or a little worse, a difference of 20 percentage points. The rest of the respondents said 2015 would be neither better nor worse, or weren’t sure. More consumers said 2015 will be better than 2014 for buying too. But the margin over those who said 2015 will be worse was not as wide.

Posted in Demographics, Economics, Housing Recovery, National Real Estate | 143 Comments

Pressure to roll back FHA fees

Posted on December 3, 2014 by grim

From the Record:

FHA faces more pressure to reduce borrowers’ annual fees

After more than doubling home buyers’ annual fees in the wake of the housing bust, the Federal Housing Administration is facing pressure to roll back the fees, especially now that its insurance fund is in the black again.

The homeowners affected are typically lower- and moderate-income borrowers because FHA loans allow for lower credit scores and lower down payments than other mortgages.

The annual insurance premium paid by most FHA borrowers has risen to 1.35 percent, up from 0.55 percent in 2010 — or more than $300 a month on a $300,000 mortgage. The higher premiums helped to shore up the FHA insurance fund, but they also push up the cost of buying a home, and industry groups say that has slowed the real estate recovery.

Both the National Association of Realtors and the Mortgage Bankers Association have called on the FHA to consider lowering the annual premiums. They were recently joined by the Center for American Progress, a Washington-based progressive group.
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The National Association of Realtors estimated that last year, nearly 400,000 creditworthy borrowers were unable to buy homes because of the higher FHA premiums.

“By lowering its fees, FHA could provide greater access to homeownership for historically underserved groups,” the group said.

In response, the FHA issued a statement saying it is “regularly evaluating a number of factors to ensure our premiums are at the right levels.”

“As a result of the most recent annual report, we are looking through new information and will use that to inform any future decisions,” said a statement from the FHA’s parent agency, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The FHA’s annual report, released recently, said its mortgage insurance fund has a $4.8 billion surplus, after two years of having a balance below zero because of loans gone bad. But, at 0.4 percent of the total FHA insurance outstanding, the fund is still below the 2 percent level required by law. The fund is an extra safety cushion, required by Congress, on top of the annual reserves set aside each year to cover the loans insured in that year.

Posted in Housing Recovery, Mortgages, Politics | 129 Comments

I really need you to hit this number

Posted on December 2, 2014 by grim

From the WSJ:

Dodgy Home Appraisals Are Making a Comeback

Home appraisers are inflating the values of some properties they assess, often at the behest of loan officers and real-estate agents, in what industry executives say is a return to practices seen before the financial crisis.

An estimated one in seven appraisals conducted from 2011 through early 2014 inflated home values by 20% or more, according to data provided to The Wall Street Journal by Digital Risk Analytics, a subsidiary of Digital Risk LLC. The mortgage-analysis and consulting firm based in Maitland, Fla., was hired by some of the 20 largest lenders to review their loan files.

The firm reviewed more than 200,000 mortgages, parsing the homes’ appraised values and other information, including the properties’ sizes and similar homes sold in the areas at the times. The review was conducted using the firm’s software and staff appraisers.

Bankers, appraisers and federal officials in interviews said inflated appraisals are becoming more widespread as the recovery in the housing market cools. While home prices are increasing generally, their appreciation is slowing, and sales have been weak despite low interest rates. The dollar amount of new mortgages issued this year is expected to be down 39% from last year, at about $1.12 trillion, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

That has put increasing pressure on loan officers, who depend on originating new mortgages for their income, as well as real-estate agents, who live on sales commissions. That in turn is raising the heat on appraisers, whose valuations can make or break a sale. Banks generally won’t agree to a mortgage if the purchase price or the refinancing amount is higher than the appraised value.
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Almost 40% of appraisers surveyed from Sept. 15 through Nov. 7 reported experiencing pressure to inflate values, according to Allterra Group LLC, a for-profit appraiser-advocacy firm based in Salisbury, Md. That figure was 37% in the survey for the previous year.
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Freddie Mac has found cases of appraisers submitting a suspiciously high number of reports in one day, as well as reports for properties in places where they aren’t certified or licensed to operate, according to a spokesman. It has also received tips from employees at lenders and other insiders warning of inflated valuations, he said.

The firm is looking “into whether or not some of the lines have been crossed from compliance to noncompliance with regard to appraisal independence,” he said. “We are watching it closely and are very aware of the issues.”

Posted in Mortgages, National Real Estate, Risky Lending | 138 Comments

Housing to moderate as investors pull back and home buyers sidelined

Posted on December 1, 2014 by grim

From HousingWire:

Housing losing momentum? Not if but when

Moderation in the housing market is now in its 11th straight month, according to the latest home data index from Clear Capital.

National home price gains fell to 6.7% year-over-year and 1.0% quarter-over-quarter.

Meanwhile Distressed Saturation fell to just 16.8% suggesting the shortage of lower priced inventory is the catalyst for stalling gains. National trends were echoed at the regional level, with the West seeing the strongest moderation across the country. In fact, for the first time since the start of the recovery three years ago, the West’s yearly rates of growth fell below 10%, a sure sign of more moderation to come over the next several months for the nation.

“Performing-only sale trends are a bellwether for what’s to come in 2015 ” said Dr. Alex Villacorta, vice president of research and analytics at Clear Capital. “Think of home price growth since the housing collapse as a bouncing ball, where each successive bounce causes some energy to be lost and eventually movement stalls. We see this on a few different levels. First, we see the delta between performing-only and all sales, including distressed sales, merging. This confirms markets are no longer driven as much by investor demand for discounted distressed assets.”
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They also warn that improvements in the broader economic landscape have not instilled confidence in traditional homebuyers (first-time, move-up, second home owners). The general lack of demand in the performing-only segment, coupled with a dwindling supply of distressed inventory, leaves the future of home prices squarely in the hands of traditional homebuyers, who have yet to show any signs of re-engaging.
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Reduced reliance on distressed sales and diminishing gains in the performing-only sale segment could be too much for the recovery to overcome as we enter winter. The recovery is at a tipping point. Markets need non investor demand to ramp up, and homebuyer confidence restored. Should this turn into a negative feedback loop, the likelihood for quarterly price declines at the national level could turn into yearly price declines by the end of 2015.

Posted in Demographics, Economics, Employment, Housing Recovery, National Real Estate | 78 Comments

Merry Christmas from Freddie and Fannie

Posted on November 29, 2014 by grim

From the WSJ:

Mortgage Lenders Set to Relax Standards

Some of the largest U.S. mortgage lenders are preparing to further ease standards for borrowers after the release of new guidelines this month from mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac .

The new guidelines, to take full effect Dec. 1, resulted from an agreement in October meant to clarify when lenders would be penalized for making mistakes on mortgages they sell to Fannie and Freddie. Lenders have blamed the lack of clarity for tight credit conditions that have made it difficult for many consumers to qualify for a mortgage.

Relaxing the lending standards potentially could make it possible for hundreds of thousands of additional consumers to get mortgages.

Laurie Goodman, director of the Housing Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute, said the moves are “going to be big,” but she added that “it’s going to take time” to see the full impact of the changes.

The Urban Institute, a Washington think tank, earlier this year estimated that as many as 1.2 million additional home loans would be made annually if mortgage availability were at “normal” levels.

Some lenders, including Wells Fargo & Co. and SunTrust Banks Inc., said borrowers should begin to see initial changes in a few weeks, including faster turnaround times for mortgage applications to be processed.
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Lenders also are expected to widen the scope of the types of borrowers they will accept by reducing credit-score requirements and giving greater leeway to consumers whose credit history suffered because of one-time events, such as a job loss or big medical bill.
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In many cases, they required borrowers to have substantially higher credit scores and put in place other measures—so-called credit overlays—that were more stringent than what Fannie and Freddie required.

With the new agreement, “I’ve been told with absolute confidence that some lenders are lifting almost all of their overlays,” said David Stevens, president of the Mortgage Bankers Association.
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Before the new rules were put in place, Mason-McDuffie Mortgage Corp. in San Ramon, Calif., typically wouldn’t make a loan to a borrower with a credit score below 660, said Bill Godfrey, the company’s executive vice president of capital markets. Now, he said he believes the company will lend down to 620, the limit for loans backed by Fannie and Freddie.

“We will be able to be looser and open up the net wider,” said Mr. Godfrey.

Posted in Mortgages, National Real Estate, Risky Lending | 52 Comments

A different kind of housing boom in NJ

Posted on November 28, 2014 by grim

From the Record:

NJ home building on track for best year since 2006

Powered by a surge in multifamily construction, home building in New Jersey is on track for its strongest year since 2006.

Builders have taken out 23,738 building permits through October, up 18 percent from the same period last year, according to data released this week from the U.S. census — and more than 60 percent of the permits have been for multi-family units. The multifamily percentage is the highest since 1964, said Patrick O’Keefe, an economist with CohnReznick, an accounting firm in New York and Roseland. As recently as the 1990s, multifamily projects accounted for about 15 percent of the home construction in the state.

O’Keefe expects builders to start more than 27,000 housing units in the state this year — coming close to the long-term averages above 30,000 a year, after dipping to lows averaging around 13,000 a year during the housing bust.

Rentals are leading the way, especially along the Hudson River. Bergen and Hudson counties have accounted for about 30 percent of the state’s home-building activity so far this year, heavily weighted toward multifamily construction.

Rentals are in demand because tight mortgage standards and flat incomes have pushed homeownership out of reach for many. In addition, many households — especially millennials and downsizing baby boomers — like the flexibility of renting. And after watching home values plummet during the housing bust, some people are “skeptical about the wisdom of using a house as your primary investment asset,” O’Keefe said.

While multifamily builders are moving forward, single-family builders are being more cautious, and not building houses they may not be able to sell, O’Keefe said.

Posted in Demographics, Housing Recovery, New Development, New Jersey Real Estate | 73 Comments

October pending sales dip, but still up year to year

Posted on November 27, 2014 by grim

From Reuters:

U.S. pending home sales post surprise drop in October

Contracts to buy previously-owned U.S. homes unexpectedly fell in October, dropping to their lowest level in four months and casting a shadow over the housing market’s recovery.

The National Association of Realtors said on Wednesday its Pending Home Sales Index, based on contracts signed last month, dropped 1.1 percent to 104.1.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast pending home sales rising 0.5 percent last month. These contracts become sales after a month or two. Contracts rose in the Northeast, but fell in the South, West and Midwest.

Compared to October of last year, contracts were up 2.2 percent. The level of contracts signed in September was revised slightly higher.

Posted in Economics, Housing Recovery, National Real Estate | 46 Comments

Home prices continue to slow

Posted on November 26, 2014 by grim

From the WSJ:

U.S. Home Prices Decelerated Further in September, Says S&P/Case-Shiller

The yearly growth in home prices across the U.S. decelerated further in September, according to a home price report released Tuesday.

The home price index covering the entire nation increased 4.8% in the 12 months ended in September, said the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index report. That is down from 5.1% in August.

The home price index covering 10 major U.S. cities increased 4.8% in the year ended in September. The 20-city price index was up 4.9%. That is down from 5.6% in August but slightly above the 4.8% expected by economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal.

On an unadjusted basis, the 10-city and 20-city gauges were unchanged in September from August, while the national index slipped 0.1%. S&P said that was the first national decline since November 2013.

Seasonally adjusted, the U.S. index increased 0.7% in September, while the two city composites each rose 0.3%.

The slowdown reflects the lackluster pace of home demand as buyers are constrained by stagnant pay growth and tight lending conditions as well as lingering financial problems for some households even years after the recession.

“The overall trend in home price increases continues to slow down,” said David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices.

“Other housing statistics paint a mixed to slightly positive picture,” he said, pointing to increased housing starts and a reduced mortgage default rate. “With the economy looking better than a year ago, the housing outlook for 2015 is stable to slightly better.”

Posted in Economics, Housing Recovery | 100 Comments

September Case Shiller

Posted on November 25, 2014 by grim

Case Shiller Day – Not that anyone is going to talk about it…

Posted in Economics, Housing Recovery, National Real Estate | 116 Comments

Low rate burnout?

Posted on November 24, 2014 by grim

From MarketWatch:

Fannie cuts mortgage-rate outlook, but home buyers may not bite

Mortgage-finance giant Fannie Mae cut its outlook Thursday for home-loan rates in 2015, but cheap monthly payments may do little to bump up residential sales, experts said.

The federally controlled mortgage buyer’s latest housing-market forecast pegged the rate for the popular 30-year fixed-rate mortgage next year at about 4.3%—a drop of two-tenths of a percentage point from Fannie’s prior forecast for the rate in 2015.

While lower rates translate into smaller monthly loan payments, making homeownership more affordable, Fannie FNMA didn’t adjust its forecast for next year’s total home sales.

“The housing market continues to grind its way upward, but we don’t expect a breakout performance in 2015 as the fundamentals remain somewhat muted,” said Doug Duncan, Fannie’s chief economist. “We believe that mortgage activity in 2015 will be very similar to 2014.”

There are (at least) three remarkable mortgage-market trends that are shaping home sales, and some of them are working against each other. First, rates are super low. The latest weekly reading from Freddie Mac showed that the average rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage recently hit 3.99%—a sixth consecutive week of near-4% readings—far below an average of more than 7% over the past three decades.

“This period of low interest rates is extraordinary,” said Susan Wachter, a housing-finance expert at the University of Pennsylvania.

Second, rates have remained in a fairly narrow band for some time. Over the past three years, the rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has ranged from about 3.35% to almost 4.49%. If Fannie’s Duncan is right, the market won’t see rates climb much higher next year from recent levels.

But another year of low rates may not have much of a positive psychological impact on prospective home buyers, said David Crowe, chief economist at the National Association of Home Builders.

“The relatively lower rates after the spikes of the early 80s did stimulate buying,” Crowe said. “This time around, the low rates are still not as low as they [recently] were so the relative advantage is not as great.”

Posted in Housing Recovery, Mortgages, National Real Estate | 85 Comments

By the hour

Posted on November 23, 2014 by grim

From HousingWire:

Realtors don’t deserve 3% commission?

Should Realtors and other real estate agents be just paid hourly, or should we stick with the 3% commission?
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Some posts on other forums suggest paying Realtors by the hour.

Really? Really.

Look, 3% seems like a lot of money given that median home prices are north of $230,000. Showing a few properties, sitting through the signing – does that really deserve that kind of commission?

And with online listings services growing so much, most of the work is done by the house hunter long before they hire that blazer-clad thousand dollar smile.
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I get that dry cleaning for those gold blazers and all that hair spray and those scarves cost a lot, but come on.

So what? $25 an hour plus gas seems fair, right?

I mean, nurses make $25 an hour and they have to deal with sick people.

So why so greedy, Realtors?
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OK, ask a lot of buyers if that 3% commission seems fair and if they’d pay their Realtor by the hour, and that’s typical of the response you’d get.

But the fact is, I can say something that real estate agents can’t say aloud: Buyers can be stupid.

They don’t see the hours of market research that goes into every transaction. They don’t see the hours whittling down lists of potential properties to a manageable number so that clients don’t have to spend every hour of their weekend looking at properties.

They don’t see the time spent marketing properties that are for sale.

They don’t see how many buyers and sellers end up changing Realtors for no good reason, or who end up not buying or selling at all.

That’s not a little thing – if an agent spends 30 hours on a client who ends up not buying, they have to make up that lost income, so it’s built into that commission for sales that do get closed.

But consider the world of hurt opened up if Realtors and agents started charging by the hour. They’d have a great incentive to drag their heels, to be scattershot in looking at properties, and to drag out closings.

Ever wonder why attorneys just love how protracted legal proceedings are?
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There’s no law that says agents have to be compensated with 3% commission. It’s up to them and their brokerage. There are a few companies out there like Redfin and Surefield breaking the mold.

And no one says you have to use a Realtor or real estate agent. But as with most any other high-information professional transaction, you’d be a fool not to have representation on your side of the table.

That 3% is a painless payment. It buys you market information, advice and experience that you can’t get shopping listings in your pajamas on Zillow or Realtor.com.

You may be a self-taught expert in your mind, but in reality even experienced lawyers hire other lawyers to represent them in court.

Posted in Economics, General, Humor, Unrest | 44 Comments

Home sales hit 1 year high

Posted on November 21, 2014 by grim

From the WSJ:

Existing Home Sales Rise as Recovery Regains Momentum

Sales of existing homes rose in October to their highest level in a year, the latest sign of the U.S. housing recovery shaking off the shock of last year’s jump in mortgage rates.

Sales of previously owned homes climbed 1.5% last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.26 million, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. September’s sales pace was revised up slightly to 5.18 million.

It was the sixth time in seven months that sales rose from the prior month. Sales in October were up 2.5% from a year earlier, the first time this year that sales rose instead of fell on an annual basis. Last month’s sales pace was the highest since September 2013.
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Existing-home sales, which make up roughly 90% of U.S. home purchases, tumbled following a mid-2013 jump in mortgage rates. But the sector has regained traction in recent months as mortgage rates have eased.

Prices still are rising, but their growth has moderated this year. The median sale price for a previously owned home in October was $208,300, up 5.5% from a year earlier but below the 11.5% increase seen in 2013 from the prior year.
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In October, existing-home sales rose in the Northeast, Midwest and South but declined in the West, according to the Realtors group.

The inventory of homes available for sale was up 5.2% last month from a year earlier. At the current sales pace, it would take 5.1 months to exhaust the supply of homes on the market.

Posted in Demographics, Economics, Housing Recovery, National Real Estate | 187 Comments

Warren goes for the throat

Posted on November 20, 2014 by grim

From HousingWire:

Sen. Warren accuses FHFA’s Watt: “You haven’t helped a single family”

What started as a dry, lame-duck session hearing on the Federal Housing Finance Agency in the Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday, got heated when U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., went guns blazing after the FHFA director.

Warren, an outspoken progressive and a likely candidate for the 2016 Democrat presidential nomination, went on the attack during FHFA Director Melvin Watt’s first hearing before the committee, saying that he’s never done anything to help homeowners who are underwater and facing foreclosure.
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“Five million families lost their homes during the financial crisis and millions more are still struggling,” Warren said, prefacing her questions to Watt. “According to the latest data from CoreLogic…another 5.3 million homeowners remain underwater on their homes. And people are continuing to lose their homes every day in foreclosure.

“We talk a little bit about the law here, now one of your duties under the law. One of your duties is to conserve the assets of Fannie and Freddie, but another duty given equal importance by Congress … is to implement a plan that seeks to maximize assistance for homeowners and take advantage of available programs to minimize foreclosures,” Warren said.
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“The Treasury Department has found that principal reductions could save Fannie and Freddie nearly $4 billion and help half a million homeowners stay in their home,” Warren said. “It has been six years since Congress created FHFA and in all that time your agency has never, not once permitted a family to reduce its principal mortgage through Fannie or Freddie.”

A clearly frustrated Warren continued.

“I’ve asked about this repeatedly and you’ve said you’d look into allowing Fannie and Freddie to engage in principal reduction; you said it again today,” Warren said. “You’ve been in office for nearly a year now and you haven’t helped a single family, not even one, by agreeing to a principal reduction. So I want to know why this hasn’t been a priority for you. The data are there.”

Watt appeared a little shaken by the line of attack.
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“It’s probably an overstatement to say it’s not been a priority,” Watt stammered. “It’s just a very difficult issue. …”
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Warren cut him off.

“Chairman Watt, you have had a year to do that, you have known for five years before that what the problem was, we have two studies coming out showing that Fannie and Freddie could make money by doing this,” she said.
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Watt stammered in response.

“We are going to have an answer sooner – it won’t be as long as it has been…” he said.

Warren interjected, “How many more people have to lose their homes before we get there?”

Watt said that he couldn’t or wouldn’t take responsibility for what happened in the five years before he assumed the director’s chair at FHFA.

“But you’ve been there a year,” Warren interrupted.
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Warren again interjected.

“Indeed, how many families has it affected?” she demanded.

“It has affected a number of—”

Warren cut him off.
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“This is not a program producing money for Fannie and Freddie but it is causing a lot of pain for families who were already victims,” she said.

Posted in Foreclosures, Mortgages, Politics | 92 Comments

Your commute is about to get shorter

Posted on November 19, 2014 by grim

From the Record:

Cash vs. cachet: N.J. eager to lure NYC firms

Two days after JPMorgan Chase said it had dropped plans to build two new office towers for $6.5 billion in midtown Manhattan, reportedly because New York City refused the company’s request for tax breaks, New Jersey’s economic development team sprang into action.

A letter from Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, Governor Christie’s jobs czar, went out to 275 financial services companies in New York and Philadelphia, touting the “benefits of investing in New Jersey.”

Listing 16 companies that have invested in the state, among them Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and UBS, the letter asked, “What do companies like [these] know that you do not?”

Answering her own question, Guadagno cited New Jersey’s “highly educated workforce,” communications infrastructure, and “new, game-changing tax incentives aimed at attracting and growing businesses.”

The mailing included a copy of a Wall Street Journal article quoting New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio saying that the amount of incentives JPMorgan had requested from the city — which news reports put somewhere between hundreds of millions of dollars and $1 billion — was a “non-starter.” It added that on the campaign trail, de Blasio “took a strong stand against subsidies for larger corporations.” The letter helpfully provided Guadagno’s cellphone number.

The swift offensive reflected a growing belief among the New Jersey development community and state officials that the New York City mayor’s apparent reluctance to lure or keep companies with tax breaks presents a golden opportunity.

To be sure, de Blasio is operating from a position of strength. While New Jersey has recovered only half the jobs lost after the Great Recession, New York City recovered all the jobs lost by March 2012 and since added 225,000 more. And despite its sky-high rents, the financial capital of the world continues to attract top corporations.

Still, New Jersey real estate experts believe that the combination of New Jersey’s revamped and far more generous incentive programs, and de Blasio’s resistance to helping corporations with taxpayer money, could steer New York-based companies, or those looking to come there, across the Hudson River.

Posted in Economics, Employment, North Jersey Real Estate | 153 Comments