Where’s the top?

Posted on May 14, 2023 by grim

From US News:

New Jersey Housing Market Forecast

Buyer demand in New Jersey remains strong, says LaRue. But higher borrowing rates have had an impact on buyer demand.

“Two years ago, people were paying over $100,000 over asking,” says LaRue, referring to a typical home in her market. “Now, you’re maybe getting a little bit over.”

That said, homes that are coming on the market that are more updated and located in nicer neighborhoods are seeing more offers and being sold for top dollar, LaRue says. Homes that aren’t as updated and on busier streets aren’t getting as many offers – but they’re getting offers nonetheless.

In March 2023, the median home price in New Jersey was $660,000, according to Redfin data, marking a 2.2% decrease year over year. On a national level, the median home price in March 2023 was $401,000, down 2.4% from a year prior.

Not only are New Jersey’s home prices higher than the national average, but the state has the dubious distinction of having the highest property taxes in the nation. In 2022, the average New Jersey property tax bill rose to $9,490. But those higher housing prices and taxes are commonly offset by a higher earnings potential.

“Not many people would choose to spend this much money on property taxes unless there were some sort of benefit to their income,” LaRue says.

LaRue says that when buyer demand was at its peak, bidding wars would commonly drive New Jersey home prices upward. These days, she’s still seeing bidding wars, particularly for homes that are the most desirable. These includes homes with expansive backyards and those that allow for multigenerational living. But bidding wars have slowed down quite a bit, especially for average properties.

Even New Jersey beach homes – a usually hot commodity – are seeing sellers who are open to negotiation, says LaRue. “Today’s mortgage rates are keeping buyers a little more conservative in their offers,” she says.

Meanwhile, in March 2023, the median rent price in New Jersey was $3,156, an increase of 7.5% year over year. On a national level, the median rent price in March 2023 was $1,996, up 4.7% year over year.

Posted in Demographics, Economics, Employment, New Jersey Real Estate | 59 Comments

Why would they?

Posted on May 12, 2023 by grim

From the WSJ:

The Home Buyer’s Quandary: Nobody’s Selling

Many Americans who want to move are trapped in their homes—locked in by low interest rates they can’t afford to give up. 

These “golden handcuffs” are keeping the supply of homes for sale unusually low and making the market more competitive and pricey than some forecasters expected.  

The reluctance of homeowners to sell differentiates the current housing market from past downturns and could keep home prices from falling significantly on a national basis, economists say. This could dull the Federal Reserve’s efforts to slow inflation by cooling the economy.

Emily and Isaac Naatz of Cottage Grove, Minn, a suburb of St. Paul, had a baby last year and want a bigger place. They have lived for more than four years in their two-bedroom townhouse, and they now want a three- or four-bedroom house with a yard and space for a home office. “You get four people in here…and it feels like a large crowd,” Mr. Naatz said.

But they locked in a 30-year fixed mortgage rate of 3.4% in 2021—and don’t want to give that up to take on a new mortgage with a rate about 3 percentage points higher, especially when home prices in their area haven’t come down much.

The type of home they would want to buy would cost them about $1,100 a month more than they currently pay, Mr. Naatz said. “I don’t feel comfortable paying what I still think is an inflated price for a home, and on top of it paying twice the interest rate,” he said.

As of March 31, nearly two-thirds of primary mortgages had an interest rate below 4%, according to mortgage-data firm Black Knight. About 73% of primary mortgages have fixed rates for 30 years, Black Knight data show. The average rate for a new 30-year fixed mortgage was 6.39% in the week ended May 4, according to Freddie Mac.  

The mortgage-rate factor is leaving some people in houses that aren’t a good fit, whether it’s a growing family without enough bedrooms or aging homeowners with too much space, or dissuading people from relocating for jobs or other opportunities. Some people that wanted to sell in 2022 or 2023 shelved their plans. 

\As current homeowners stay put, “the movement up the ladder is sort of grinding to a halt,” said Sam Khater, chief economist at Freddie Mac. “It’s getting much harder for first-time home buyers to jump into the market because of the lack of supply.”

Posted in Demographics, Economics, Mortgages, National Real Estate | 140 Comments

The New New Jersey

Posted on May 9, 2023 by grim

From ROI-NJ:

Why mixed-use, multifamily housing will continue to escalate in northern N.J.

Multihousing development through ground-up construction and asset repositioning has eclipsed historical levels of activity within the northern New Jersey and the greater metro New York City areas, given the strong growth in the underlying multihousing fundamentals since the recovery post-pandemic. Given limited developable land, increasing difficult hurdles toward approvals and peaking rental rates, the competition for land acquisition has never been higher, with 2022 seeing some of the highest per-unit land pricing ever.

Since the start of 2023, North Jersey has been the most competitive rental market in the U.S, outpacing the Sun Belt, according to RentCafe. The figures are based on a combination of market data — including days vacant, occupancies, preleasing numbers, construction deliveries and the percentage of leases renewed.

Jersey City, New Jersey’s most recognizable market, has had the largest rental increase year-over-year, with an over 50% increase in rental rates for one-bedrooms among its combined submarkets, totaling an average monthly rent of over $3,000, according to Zumper’s most recent national rent report.

With a less than 4% vacancy rate currently and a net absorption in 2022 that is nearly double the historical annual average, the market has been a new target for fresh capital not historically present in the region, alongside a number of historically New York City-focused builders seeking refuge from the fallout associated with the deterioration of the city’s 421 Exemption program.

Considering current market factors, however, the rise in interest rates has impacted the debt and equity markets with increased costs of borrowing or raising capital for new developments. Fund allocations have been reduced across the board and developers’ yields are being stressed by an inflated interest carry through the project’s construction timeline, and also increased capital requirements due to lower-leverage construction financing.

To combat these challenges, the trend towards cheaper construction types, introducing preferred equity atop senior notes or funding construction projects fully unlevered have produced some success satisfying yields in the current market climate.

The future development trends are just as promising.

Each of the next three years within northern New Jersey are expected to see almost 6,000 units coming to market annually, and, while the construction pipeline remains robustly active, year-over-year construction costs remain up despite a drop in pricing for select materials.

Posted in Demographics, Economics, New Development, New Jersey Real Estate | 241 Comments

Work from home, in the city.

Posted on May 8, 2023 by grim

From the Real Deal:

Philadelphia’s “beat up” office market struggles to recover

The City of Brotherly Love has no love for commercial real estate.

Office occupancy in Greater Philadelphia has contracted by nearly 10 million square feet since 2019, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported, citing data from CBRE. Hybrid work models and remote work have cut significantly into the market.

“The downtown market is beat up right now pretty good,” Nick Gersbach, senior vice president in CBRE’s Philadelphia office, told the Inquirer. “I’ve been here 23 years in this market, and I haven’t seen it contract at this pace before … We’re a three- to five-year window from stabilizing and experiencing a slow recovery. … People are not going back into offices.”

The concern is that rather than a sluggish recovery, the current situation is really the new normal, leaving the office sector to grapple with how to deal with the losses.
…
While Philadelphia may not be appealing to go to work in an office, people still want to live there.

“There’s this weird phenomenon of residential construction continuing at a strong pace in Philadelphia, people wanting to live in the city, wanting to play in the city, wanting to dine in the city as restaurants and retail are reemerging,” Gersbach told the Inquirer. “But for whatever reason, not wanting to go into an office in the city.”

Posted in Demographics, Economics, Employment, Philly | 67 Comments

Yep…

Posted on May 6, 2023 by grim

From Yahoo Finance:

Rich millennials are spending millions to knock down beautiful houses in the NYC suburbs to build mansions as housing wars rage on

Just across the Hudson River from New York City, sit suburban communities like Ridgewood, New Jersey which are dotted with beautiful century-old Victorian and Tudor-style homes. Only many of these historic adobes won’t be around too much longer: Rich millennials are tearing them down in favor of bigger, modern homes.

Priscilla Reynolds, a New Jersey-based sales associate, represented a seller that sold their home in Ridgewood for $2 million to a millennial couple from New York City. She listed the center hall colonial home in March of last year and wasn’t all that shocked when she found out the couple wanted to tear it down. The couple, likely both in their mid-30s, Reynolds guessed, have since knocked it down and are in the process of rebuilding. They’ve even run into problems concerning lot coverage, likely because they wanted to build an enormous home in place of what was previously a property under 4,000 square feet, Reynolds told Fortune.

Christina Gibbons, a real estate broker with a team that’s based in Ridgewood, typically serves Bergen County, which is just outside of New York City. Following the pandemic, she noticed that buyers coming from New York City had more to spend, and they wanted to live in these so-called desirable locations with easy commutes. Sometimes that means buying a home just to knock it down. But it isn’t always going to cost $2 million for the original property purchase, instead it’s likely going to be close to a million dollars. That’s because the value of property and land has gone up, largely because of how tight inventory is and the lack of vacant land in these markets. Gibbons said a half acre of land on the west side of Ridgewood “is going to be close to a million dollars easily, no matter what’s on it, so people are having to spend more to tear them down.” Gibbons represented a buyer that closed on a property on West Ridgewood Avenue around two months ago for $900,000, and after tearing it down they’re building a more than 4,000 square-foot home, which is twice the size of the original “very old victorian” property that sat on the lot, Gibbons said. She added that once their home is done, it’ll likely be valued around $3 million.

On another occasion, Gibbons worked with a couple in their early 30s with kids that moved from New York City. They purchased a colonial-style home in Ridgewood, in the summer of 2020 for close to $1 million with “every intention of tearing it down,” Gibbons said. The couple even rented for around a year in the same neighborhood while their home was being built, so their kids could attend school and they could oversee the project. The couple just moved into their finished, very modern home last summer—in what Gibbons called “your very typical New York story.”

Posted in Demographics, Housing Bubble, New Jersey Real Estate, NYC | 43 Comments

Northern NJ shuts out warehouses

Posted on May 4, 2023 by grim

From the Real Deal:

Warehouses banned in 400,000 acres of North Jersey

The New Jersey Highlands Region won’t be high on industrial developers’ list anymore.

The state’s Highlands Council prohibited warehouse development in 398,000 acres of the 860,000-acre region, NorthJersey.com reported. The independent state agency has the power to set standards in the region, which provides drinking water to nearly half of the state.

The area covers more than 1,250 square miles and touches 88 municipalities, some of which — such as West Milford and Glen Gardner — are entirely in the preservation area.

The ban specifically targets distribution and fulfillment centers in northwest regional communities. Proponents say the industrial properties destroy the scenic region, while critics of the ban point to their economic and benefits and tax revenue.

The action is likely to harm the warehouse and transportation industries and trade, responsible for one-eighth of jobs in the state, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The ban has exceptions. Warehouses will still be allowed in existing community zones, redevelopment areas and regional growth centers. Municipalities in the region’s “planning area” — as opposed to the “preservation area” — will be exempt unless they opt into the Regional Master Plan.
…
Residents, while continuing to shop prolifically online, have grown increasingly wary of industrial development, though, complaining about pollution, traffic and community character. But local government officials often prefer warehouse projects to residential development because they don’t push school taxes up by adding students.

Posted in Demographics, Employment, New Development, New Jersey Real Estate | 131 Comments

VLY goes all-in

Posted on May 3, 2023 by grim

From the Real Deal:

Jersey boys: Valley Bank emerges as lifeline for NYC real estate

For a few weeks in March, it seemed like 2008 all over again. 

The tech industry’s go-to lender, Silicon Valley Bank, was seized. Depositors rushed to pull money out of Signature Bank, one of New York’s top multifamily lenders. First Republic, a major commercial real estate lender on the West Coast, was teetering on the brink. 

New York City landlords were panicking. Another bank failure seemed imminent, and the survivors were bailing on real estate. The industry braced for a capital markets freeze like the one 15 years ago, which left stalled projects and developers scrambling for rescue financing.

Ira Robbins, though, seems unfazed. In late March, the 48-year old head of Valley Bank, a New Jersey-based lender with $57 billion in assets and overwhelming exposure to commercial real estate, sat in his immaculate office at One Penn Plaza with its panoramic views of the city and dished on the bank’s next moves.

Robbins had just made a bid to acquire Silicon Valley Bank’s assets from regulators. He said that in the past two weeks alone, it had opened more accounts than in an average quarter. Amid the broader retreat, this was his bank’s time to shine. 

“As a regional bank CEO, I couldn’t be happier,” he said in an interview with The Real Deal. 

Valley Bank has emerged as a key real estate lender at a time when other banks want nothing to do with the sector. It has carved out a niche lending to midsize landlords, including under-the-radar Hasidic dealmakers like Cheskie Weisz, but has also provided loans to more institutional players like Slate Property Group. 

The bank was New York City’s 12th-largest real estate lender as of last summer, according to an analysis by TRD, issuing nearly $850 million across over 350 loans between July 2021 and July 2022. That placed it just behind Blackstone and just ahead of Signature Bank and Madison Realty Capital. 

The bank has ramped up since then, funding a $145 million construction loan to Torkian Group for an Upper East Side apartment complex and a $135 million loan to jump-start Cheskel Schwimmer’s highly anticipated rental project near the Brooklyn Navy Yard in Vinegar Hill. It is also in talks to provide a much bigger construction loan in Brooklyn in coming weeks, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Posted in New Jersey Real Estate, NYC, Risky Lending | 96 Comments

Gridlock

Posted on May 2, 2023 by grim

From the NYT:

Home Buyers Are Eager but Sellers Are Scarce, Creating ‘Real Gridlock’

The housing market typically comes to life in spring, when buyers emerge in the warmer weather. This year, the market appears stuck in a deep freeze, and the biggest culprit is a lack of sellers, housing experts say.

There is interest among buyers — mortgage applications were up 10 percent in March from the month before — but the number of homes for sale is low. The mismatch is caused in part by homeowners who are inclined to sell but are sitting on the sidelines, scared off by the steep prices and mortgage rates that they would face as buyers.

More than three-quarters of sellers in a recent survey by Realtor.com said they felt “locked in” to their home by their own low mortgage rate. More than half said they planned to wait until rates fell before putting their homes on the market.

Sandy Robinson, a 71-year-old retired teacher in Fairhaven, Mass., is daunted by the market. She would like to sell her two-bedroom townhouse but is worried about being able to afford a new home. “It’s a little scary now, and you have to be careful,” she said.

A stalemate has mired the housing market, when it should be more robust. Sales of existing homes in March were down 22 percent from the year before, according to the National Association of Realtors. The inventory of unsold homes on the market at the end of March totaled 2.6 months’ supply, meaning it would take that long to sell them. Inventory is typically twice that amount to balance supply and demand.

“We are in a real gridlock situation,” said Robert Frick, corporate economist at the Navy Federal Credit Union. “It’s going to be a tortuous process to unfreeze the market and take a long time to get back to a normal supply-and-demand situation.”

Posted in Mortgages, National Real Estate | 68 Comments

Snooki the mogul

Posted on May 1, 2023 by grim

From 94.3:

‘Snooki’ Strikes Gold with Stunning Secret New Jersey Waterfront Flip

Did you know that Nicole ‘Snooki’ Polizzi had a waterfront vacation home in Brick?

Most of us knew about the home the couple purchased in Toms River (tour below.)

We now have proof that she and her husband Jionni LaValle are legit house flippers.

The New York Post reported that the two purchased the Brick property at 112 Alhama Drive in November of 2015 for $370,000.

This was a fixer-upper that was damaged badly by Superstorm Sandy.

There was a quick nine-episode series on FYI that documented the construction called “Nicole and Jionni’s Shore Flip.”

The water damage was extensive. The home also needed a new deck, plumbing, and a fresh coat of paint in virtually every room.

How did this venture work out for Snooki and hubby? Really well.

They nearly doubled what they paid for the home. The listing has a selling price of $740,000.

It’s not easy for Snooki to do anything on the DL, especially here at the Shore.

But, well done to her and Jionni for keeping the sale of the refurbed house quiet.

Why are we just finding out now? The couple listed the home with the help of a realtor and it didn’t appear on real estate sites like Realtor.com and Zillow when it was up for grabs.

Posted in New Jersey Real Estate, Shore Real Estate | 37 Comments

One again, f&ck you, pay me.

Posted on April 29, 2023 by grim

From ScotusBlog:

Justices appear likely to side with homeowner in foreclosure dispute

Geraldine Tyler, a 94-year-old grandmother, lost her Minneapolis condo when she failed to pay the property taxes for several years. Tyler does not dispute that Hennepin County could foreclose on the $40,000 property and sell it to obtain the $15,000 in taxes and costs that she owed it. But she argued that the county violated the Constitution when it kept the $25,000 left over after the property was sold. After roughly 100 minutes of debate on Wednesday, a majority of the justices seemed inclined to agree with her.

Representing Tyler, lawyer Christina Martin argued that the county had violated the Constitution’s takings clause, which bars the government from taking private property for public use without adequately compensating the property owners. The county, Martin said, could have followed a more traditional path and taken Tyler’s condo, sold it to pay Tyler’s debts, and then refunded the remainder to Tyler. But instead, she emphasized, the county kept the profits too. And if the county’s actions don’t violate the takings clause, Martin continued, at the very least they violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on excessive fines, because the county’s seizure of Tyler’s property to punish her for not paying her property taxes on time goes well beyond compensating the government for any loss.

The Biden administration filed a “friend of the court” brief in which it agreed with Tyler that the county’s actions violated the takings clause. The justices pressed both Martin and Assistant to the Solicitor General Erica Ross, representing the Department of Justice, on potentially significant differences in the reasoning on which Tyler and DOJ relied to reach that conclusion – specifically, what is the property interest at stake, and when does the takings claim arise?

Ross contended that the property interest is the title to the condo, which is “taken” when the county seizes the title for failure to pay taxes, rather than when the condo is later sold.

Martin characterized her position – which focused on Tyler’s equity in her condo as the property interest that is seized when the government sells the condo and keeps all of the proceeds – as simply another way of looking at the same question, but Justice Sonia Sotomayor resisted that argument, telling Martin that there are “huge” implications to the different arguments. “These are big questions,” Sotomayor said, asking Martin why the court should address the federal government’s argument at all.
…
Some justices saw a disconnect between Katyal’s theory and how the government deals with takings and forfeitures in other contexts. When Katyal agreed with Kagan that the government could not seize an entire bank account containing $100,000 to pay a $10,000 income tax debt, he explained that the main difference was “mostly historical,” although he allowed that the difference between real property – that is, land and buildings – and other items of property could also play a role.

That distinction left Kagan befuddled. “If the mind rebels,” she said, at the idea that the government can seize a $100,000 bank account to pay a $10,000 tax debt, why should the government be allowed to rely on 13th- or 18th-century history to do essentially the same thing with real estate?

Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed. “Why,” he asked Katyal, “would we read the Constitution to disfavor real property? That seems counterintuitive.”  

Posted in National Real Estate, Property Taxes | 40 Comments

Paycheck to Paycheck

Posted on April 28, 2023 by grim

From the Record:

Report: 37% of working families in NJ struggled to make ends meet during COVID pandemic

A new report shows that 37% of New Jersey households — 1.3 million families — were not able to afford basic necessities in the communities where they lived in 2021, during the pandemic.

The report was released Wednesday by United Way of Northern New Jersey. It said 11% of New Jersey households, or 368,639 families, were at the federal poverty level in 2021, but an additional 26% — 923,791 households — were asset limited, income constrained, employed, or ALICE. 

Those ALICE households, while earning above the federal poverty level, still could not afford basic household necessities. They encompass low-paying “essential” jobs like child care workers, home health aides and cashiers. 

Between 2019 and 2021, the number of financially insecure households in the state rose by 14%, the report found.

The report said rising wages and pandemic aid helped offset COVID-19 job disruptions, as well as inflation. 

United Way of Northern New Jersey CEO Kiran Handa Gaudioso said the numbers weren’t “worse” because of the level of COVID-19 relief available at the time.
…
All told, the number of households living paycheck to paycheck grew by 157,000 in the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, the report reads. 

Posted in Demographics, Economics, Employment, New Jersey Real Estate | 65 Comments

It’s that kind of market?

Posted on April 27, 2023 by grim

From, uh, does it matter?

Tips To Win a Bidding War

In a seller’s market, when demand is high and inventory is low, buyers often have to go above and beyond to make sure their offer stands out from the competition. That, unfortunately, is increasingly becoming the case as of late. According to a Redfin survey in January, over 56% of buyers are facing bidding wars in their offers. And over two-thirds of offers written by Redfin agents in March faced multiple offers, according a separate survey released in April.

While there’s no science behind winning a bidding war on a house, there are things that you can do to increase your chances. Here’s what you can do as a buyer in a seller’s market.

  1.  Work with an experienced real estate agent
  2. Be prepared and fully pre-approved
  3. Explore a fully underwritten pre-approval
  4. Raise your offer
  5. Understand your options around contingencies
  6. Button up your dates
  7. DON’T write a personal letter
  8. Finally, know when to say no
Posted in Housing Bubble, New Jersey Real Estate | 88 Comments

Tick tick tick

Posted on April 24, 2023 by grim

From DSNews:

Q1 Foreclosure Activity Trends Upward

ATTOM’s Q1 2023 U.S. Foreclosure Market Reporthas found that a total of 95,712 U.S. properties had foreclosure filings during Q1 of 2023, up 6% from Q4 of 2022, and up 22% year-over-year. The report also shows a total of 36,617 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings in March 2023 alone, up 20% from February 2023’s totals, and up 10% from a year ago—the 23rd consecutive month with a year-over-year increase in U.S. foreclosure activity.

“Despite efforts made by government agencies and policymakers to try and reduce foreclosure rates, we are seeing an upward trend in foreclosure activity,” said Rob Barber, CEO at ATTOM. “This unfortunate trend can be attributed to a variety of factors, such as rising unemployment rates, foreclosure filings making their way through the pipeline after two years of government intervention, and other ongoing economic challenges. However, with many homeowners still having significant home equity, that may help in keeping increased levels of foreclosure activity at bay.”

A total of 65,346 U.S. properties started the foreclosure process in the first quarter of 2023, up 3% from the previous quarter, and up 29% from a year ago. States that had the greatest number of foreclosures starts in Q1 2023 included:

  • California (6,867 foreclosure starts)
  • Texas (6,764 foreclosure starts)
  • Florida (5,724 foreclosure starts)
  • New York (4,345 foreclosure starts)
  • Illinois (4,006 foreclosure starts)

Those major metros with a population of 200,000 or more that had the greatest number of foreclosures starts in Q1 2023 included:

  • New York, New York (4,674 foreclosure starts)
  • Chicago, Illinois (3,549 foreclosure starts)
  • Los Angeles, California (2,210 foreclosure starts)
  • Houston, Texas (2,120 foreclosure starts)
  • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1,985 foreclosure starts)

Nationwide, one in every 1,459 housing units had a foreclosure filing in the first quarter of 2023. States with the highest foreclosure rates included:

  • Illinois (one in every 762 housing units with a foreclosure filing)
  • Delaware (one in every 812 housing units)
  • New Jersey (one in every 824 housing units)
  • Maryland (one in every 897 housing units)
  • Nevada (one in every 947 housing units)
Posted in Foreclosures, National Real Estate | 180 Comments

NJ losing jobs

Posted on April 22, 2023 by grim

From the APP:

NJ jobs shrinking? Employers still hiring? Making sense out of economic crystal ball

New Jersey lost 2,600 jobs in March and its unemployment rate remained steady at 3.5%, the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development said Thursday, in a sign that the Garden State’s torrid job growth could be slowing down.

Even as some employers put on the brakes, however, others continue to expand in the state, showing that the picture of a post-pandemic economy remains mixed.

“We’re super bullish,” said Jeff Van Wie, general manager of Slalom, a Seattle-based consulting company that opened an office in New Brunswick on Wednesday with 200 employees. “The amount of opportunity we see with the clients that are here, we feel — for us — the business is going to keep growing.”

The monthly jobs report is from a survey of New Jersey employers that measures the number of jobs and a survey of households that measures the unemployment rate. It is a preliminary look that will be revised next month and again next year.

The March report was a snapshot from a month that saw two regional banks failand the Federal Reserve Board raise interest rates for the ninth time in a year. The Fed is trying to slow down the economy and rein in inflation.

In March, the leisure and hospitality industry continued its comeback from the pandemic by adding 2,100 jobs. Trade, transportation and utilities, and the information sector added 400 jobs each.

Professional and business services, which includes technology jobs, lost 3,500 jobs last month.

From NJBIZ:

Mixed March labor report shows jobs count dip, participation rate rise 

The state Department of Labor and Workforce Development released its March jobs report April 20, showing a mix of some positive and lackluster figures.

On the positive side, New Jersey’s labor force participation rate increased to 64.8%, its highest level since July 2013. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 3.5%, which matches the national rate.

“The numbers on the state’s labor force, employment of residents, and unemployment were good,” said Charles Steindel, former chief economist of the State of New Jersey, who analyzed the report for the Garden State Initiative (GSI). “The state’s labor force rose 18,300 in March, marking the third straight month with an increase of more than 10,000. The 64.8% labor force participation rate was higher than the pre-pandemic cyclical peak of 64.5%. Resident employment rose 16,500; over the last year it has increased by more than 130,000.”

On the flipside, there was a 2,600 jobs decline in March. And, revised February figures showed a drop of 3,100 jobs instead of the previously estimated 4,600 jobs gained.

Posted in Economics, New Jersey Real Estate | 30 Comments

Do we go negative now?

Posted on April 20, 2023 by grim

From Redfin:

Home Prices Fell 3% in March—Biggest Annual Drop in Over a Decade

The median U.S. home sale price fell 3.3% in March to $400,528, the largest year-over-year drop since 2012. That follows February’s 1.2% dip, which was the first annual decrease since 2012.

Pandemic boomtowns and pricey Bay Area markets led the price declines in March. In Boise, ID, prices fell 15.4% from a year earlier, more than any other U.S. metro area Redfin analyzed. Next came Austin, TX (-13.7%), Sacramento, CA (-11.9%), San Jose, CA (-10.5%) and Oakland, CA (-9.7%). Boise also saw the largest drop in pending home sales, with a 78.8% year-over-year decline. Nationwide, pending sales fell 26.6% on a seasonally-adjusted basis to the lowest level since the onset of the pandemic (April 2020). 

The dip in pending sales is a major contributor to the dip in home prices; fewer buyers mean sellers need to list their homes for less money to attract the house hunters who remain.

Posted in Housing Bubble, Mortgages, National Real Estate | 139 Comments