Where’s the bottom?

Posted on May 9, 2009 by grim

If the last real estate bubble that hit NJ is any indication of where the market might go, we’re still a long way off from the bottom.


(click to enlarge)

A few points.

If you aren’t familiar with the last real estate bubble, please read up on it here: Home Prices Do Fall.

If you are wondering why your agent hasn’t mentioned anything about a prior bubble, or has said something completely stupid like “Home prices don’t ever fall, the NAR said so”, don’t be too hard on them. According to the NJ Association of Realtors 2008 Member Profile, the median sales agent has 6 years experience. You read that right, at least 50% of all agents have never known any market other than a bubble. And since there is no history section of the licensing exam, they would have no reason to study it. The median of all roles (includes brokers, etc), only goes back 10 years, not much better. We’ve got an entire industry that has never known anything but “up up up!”.

Keep in mind we’re talking about “real” prices here, not nominal. This means the prices have been adjusted for inflation to show the true appreciation (or depreciation) of an asset. If nominal prices are flat over a long period of time, real prices will be declining by the amount of inflation over that period. While some say this might overstate the depth of the declines, this adjustment is necessary to ensure that we’re working with an apples to apples kind of comparison, especially over long periods of time.

What does my gut say? We’re in for at least another year of sharp price declines in NJ. Following that, we will likely see 2-3 years of completely flat nominal prices with declining real prices. Peak affordability (based on price and incomes, not financing) will likely be hit towards the tail end of the flat period.

Thanks to Veto and Kettle for putting the time and effort into creating this graph. Hopefully they’ll keep it updated, and I’ll keep posting it.

Posted in Economics, Housing Bubble, New Jersey Real Estate | 227 Comments

Study confirms the obvious, it ain’t cheap to live here

Posted on May 7, 2009 by grim

From the Record:

Real estate market still pricey

Despite a recent drop in home prices, the New York metropolitan area remains one of the least affordable housing markets in the nation, according to a study released today.

The study by the Washington-based Center for Housing Policy said that in 2008, the New York area is the second most expensive housing market in the nation, after San Francisco. According to the study, the median home price in the New York area was $455,000 in the fourth quarter of 2008, down about 13 percent from $525,000 in the third quarter of 2007, the previous time the group looked at home prices.

The New York area moved up from the seventh most expensive area in 2007, as other high-priced markets, especially in California, experienced price declines of more than 30 percent.

The region’s home prices have not declined nearly as much as in the nation’s as a whole since the housing market began imploding several years ago. Prices in the area remain about 78 percent higher than they were in 2000, compared with an average of about 43 percent higher for the nation, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home index.

Tom Johnson of Liberty 100 Realty in Waldwick said that the area’s high-paying jobs have traditionally been able to support higher property values — though it’s not clear how that will be affected by recent job losses in the financial sector, he said.

“The whole Wall Street thing is still shaking out,” he said.

Mark DeLuca of Mark DeLuca Real Estate in Teaneck and Secaucus said the recent drop in prices has brought a lot of shoppers in to the market. But he said, “We’re not getting as many people to actually make a commitment.”

DeLuca predicted that prices may fall another 3 percent to 5 percent in the next six months — but in the meantime, he said, careful shoppers can find homes priced under the market averages.

At least one analyst, Jeffrey Otteau of Otteau Valuation in East Brunswick, says New Jersey home prices will continue falling in 2009, partly as a result of job losses.

Posted in Economics, New Jersey Real Estate | 373 Comments

Homeownership a public good or burden?

Posted on May 7, 2009 by grim

From the Economist:

Shelter, or burden?

IN A scene from the film “It’s a Wonderful Life”, a happy couple is about to enter their new home. Jimmy Stewart, whose firm has sold them the mortgage, reflects that there is “a fundamental urge…for a man to have his own roof, walls and fireplace.” He offers them bread, salt and wine so “joy and prosperity may reign for ever”.

That embodies the Anglo-Saxon world’s attitude to home ownership. Owning your own roof, walls and fireplace, it is thought, is good for householders because it helps them accumulate wealth. It is good for the economy because it encourages people to save. And it is good for society because homeowners invest more in their neighbourhoods, engage more in civic activities and encourage their children to do better at school than do renters. Home ownership, in short, benefits everyone—not just the homeowner—and the more there is of it, the better. Which is why it is usually encouraged by the government. In America, Ireland and Spain, homeowners can deduct mortgage-interest payments from taxable income.

Yet the worldwide crash was bound up in this supposed miracle of social policy. The disaster began with defaults on American subprime mortgages, a financial instrument designed to spread home ownership among the poor. It gathered pace after the failures of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two government-sponsored enterprises that provide cheap home loans. As a result, the home-ownership rate in America has fallen for four years, the first time that has happened in a quarter of a century. In 2008, 2.3m families lost their homes or faced foreclosure—double the average before the crisis—reducing the home-ownership rate from 69% in 2004 to 67.5% at the end of 2008. The number of owner-occupied dwellings also slipped in Britain in 2007-08 for the first time since the 1950s.

(Hat tip to xmonger for the link)

Posted in Economics, Housing Bubble, National Real Estate | 295 Comments

Home sales recovery skips the Northeast

Posted on May 5, 2009 by grim

From the Philly Inquirer:

Area pending home sales below national levels

Pending home sales in the eight-county Philadelphia area fell 14.7 percent in March from February, a downward trend that has been nearly uninterrupted since the subprime-mortgage meltdown began in August 2007.

By contrast, national pending sales rose 3.2 percent in March, thanks to huge numbers of foreclosure and short sales in the West and Florida at prices discounted as much as 50 percent, the National Association of Realtors reported yesterday. It was the second consecutive monthly gain in pending sales.
…
According to Prudential Fox & Roach HomExpert, which provides the local figures, pending sales in the Philadelphia region in March were 23.6 percent below the same month in 2008. Nationally, they were 1.1 percent higher than March 2008.

The real estate firm measures pending home sales with an index that is adjusted for seasonal variations. Although the index fell in March, the actual number of pending sales increased. Based on that rise, the index for April should be more positive, said Steve Storti, Prudential Fox & Roach senior vice president.

Nationally, there has been a tendency since the beginning of this year to read every positive sign in housing as signaling the end of the industry downturn. But NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said, “We need several months of sustained growth to demonstrate a recovery in housing, which is necessary for the overall economy to turn around.”

From BusinessWeek:

Housing Rebound? Not So Fast

Has the housing bust hit bottom yet?

The latest encouraging data came on May 4, when the National Assn. of Realtors said its index of pending home sales rose 3.2% from February to March.
…
First of all, remember what pending means. These are homes that have gone under contract—but have not actually sold. The Realtors’ association says that based on historical data, the pending sales numbers do closely track future sales. But the correlation is much stronger in the year-over-year data than it is in the month-over-month numbers. The increase over March 2008 was much more modest, just 1.1%.
…
Another reason for caution is that the home sales recovery—if you can call it that—isn’t nationwide. Pending sales in the Northeast fell 5.7% from February to March. Meanwhile, much of the market—more than 40% of all sales nationally—is being driven by banks unloading foreclosed homes at distressed prices. Higher-end homes are not selling anywhere near as well as cheaper homes. That’s not an indicator of a truly healthy housing market.

Posted in Economics, Housing Bubble, National Real Estate | 391 Comments

Home prices may not recover for a generation

Posted on May 4, 2009 by grim

From Bloomberg:

U.S. Home Prices May Be Lost for a Generation

We might be looking at a lost generation for U.S. home values.

Far too many analysts are calling a bottom to the housing market after home prices in 20 metropolitan areas declined at a slower pace in February, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Index.

Don’t be blinded by the glint of optimism in headlines about rising consumer confidence and slowing price declines. Demographic and market realities tell a more sobering story.

You won’t see a widespread housing rebound in an economy in which 600,000 jobs a month are lost and foreclosures ravage the most overleveraged areas. These are just the visible barriers to a recovery.

Mortgage lending has also been an unusually tightfisted process of late. Lenders are demanding a 20 percent deposit for home purchases, and want impeccable credit ratings. About 45 percent of U.S. banks surveyed by the Federal Reserve said they had “tightened their lending standards on prime mortgages.” I suspect that number is much higher.

Then there’s the reality that the market is glutted with homes. A record 19 million homes stood empty at the end of 2008.

What you can’t see in the most recent housing numbers is the least-visible driver of home prices today: demographics.
…
The baby-boomer generation, the largest in American history, will be buying fewer single-family homes.
…
Although we may not be headed for a 1930s-style Depression, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that boomers are dumping their four- and five-bedroom suburban homes for two- and three- bedroom condominiums.

It’s also unlikely that the “Generation X,” born between 1965 and 1976 (or more derisively called “baby busters”), will bid up home prices. They are only 44 million strong, not as wealthy and even more in debt from college loans.

The baby boomers are reorganizing their finances after a rocky decade in stocks. They aren’t buying as many second homes and vacation properties in warmer climates.
…
That’s why it’s unlikely that there will be any swift recoveries in Phoenix, Las Vegas or San Francisco, where prices fell 35 percent, 32 percent and 31 percent respectively in February from a year earlier, according to the Case-Shiller Index. More setbacks are coming in central and Southern California and south Florida.

One thing hasn’t changed in this recession: Those who are mobile will continue to move where jobs are relatively plentiful and housing is cheaper.
…
It’s time to assess your options. Your home may not be a nest egg. You may never recoup your losses from the dot-com and credit busts in the stock market.

For most homeowners, wealth building and retention may depend more on a diversified, inflation-indexed bond portfolio than on real estate. This new reality, though, may be lost on those still trying to price their homes at 2006 levels.

Posted in Economics, Housing Bubble, National Real Estate | 348 Comments

No shelter

Posted on May 3, 2009 by grim

From the Record:

Even affluent towns see rise in foreclosures

Home foreclosure actions nearly tripled in North Jersey’s wealthier communities last year, as housing distress continued to spread beyond the modest neighborhoods that have been the most afflicted.

In a sign of how rising unemployment, especially in the finance sector, has hit higher-income residents, towns from Englewood Cliffs to Saddle River to Wyckoff saw large percentage increases in the number of homeowners facing possible loss of their property — although the numbers remain small.

An analysis of 2008 foreclosure activity by The Record revealed that lenders were at various stages of retaking nearly 370 homes in upper-income towns, where the typical single-family home sold for more than $620,000 in 2007. That was up 177 percent from about 130 cases in 2007 — at a time when foreclosure activity overall throughout Bergen and Passaic counties doubled. And rising jobless numbers means foreclosures are likely to increase in the months to come.
…
“There’s an old adage — the bigger they are, the harder they fall,” said Robert Stemple, a Re/Max agent in Saddle River. “When you have a million-dollar house, you probably have a large monthly payment.”

The trend continued in the first quarter of 2009, with the biggest percentage gains again in the highest-priced areas. Lenders filed roughly 90 foreclosure proceedings in those communities, out of nearly 1,900 more in Bergen and Passaic combined, according to the analysis of data provided by RealtyTrac, a California company that monitors foreclosure activity.
…
For many of these households, there is a lag between a job loss and missed mortgage payments. After all, higher-income homeowners are more likely to have severance payments, savings or even 401(k) plans they can tap for several months to pay the mortgage if they lose their jobs.

Sylvine Marabotto of Consumer Credit Counseling Service in Cedar Knolls said she recently spoke with a homeowner who had lost a well-paying job after 25 years. His severance is about to end.

“We are certainly seeing people who have been able to pay for six or seven months, but they’ve run out of places to look for money,” Marabotto said. “They just can’t do it anymore.”
…
“When their reserves run out and they can’t find a job, or they can’t find a job at the same level they were earning, they won’t be able to afford their homes,” Fedder said.

Some of the biggest jumps in foreclosure activity came in towns such as Saddle River, where the number of properties facing foreclosure quadrupled, from 15 in 2007 to 60 in 2008, and Wyckoff, where it rose from nine to 23. In Closter, 55 homeowners got hit with foreclosure notices in 2008, compared with 18 in 2007.

By year’s end, one in 108 homes in high-end towns faced possible foreclosure, compared with one in 300 during 2007.
…
But about three dozen homes in high-end towns were sold at sheriff’s auction last year, among the 577 sales overall. Bergen County Sheriff Leo McGuire said he has auctioned a number of homes with mortgages over $1 million and even the occasional property with a mortgage exceeding $2 million.

Posted in Foreclosures, Housing Bubble, New Jersey Real Estate | 45 Comments

How much hideousness do you get for $9.5m $6.75m?

Posted on May 1, 2009 by grim

Presented without comment in lieu of the “Weekend Open”

242 Hartshorn Drive, Millburn NJ
Original List Price: $9,500,000
Current Asking: $6,750,000

Posted in Humor, New Jersey Real Estate | 234 Comments

Brigadoon Mega-Comp-Killer

Posted on April 30, 2009 by grim

Many don’t know that Brigadoon is what Westfield-insiders refer to their town as when among locals. Really! Only outsiders call it Westfield and you’d stick out like a sore thumb if you called it that to someone familiar with the area. So don’t look like a dweeb, the next time you talk to a Brigadoon Realtor make it known that you are an INSIDER! For extra points, wink while you say it.

On to the comp killer (which must be a mistake, because Brigadoon prices never fall).

20 Woodbrook Circle, Westfield NJ
Purchased: January 1st, 2007
Purchase Price: $1,450,000

Bedrooms: 5
Baths: 4
Square Feet: 3900
Lot Size: 110×120
Taxes: $23,168

Listed for sale on January 11th, 2009
List Price: $1,325,000 (Ouch!)

Reduced to $1,275,090 on January 23rd.
Reduced to $1,199,000 on February 9th.
Reduced to $1,125,000 on February 27th.
Reduced to $1,075,000 on April 2nd.

The reduction to $1.075m was the magic number, 20 Woodbrook went into attorney review on 4/17 and went under contract on 4/30.

The big question is, what will it sell for? We won’t know until closing.

If it sells at asking price, the seller would have lost $375,000. Closer to $425,000 when you include the transaction costs associated with the sale. At asking, this property is selling at a discount of approximately 25% off it’s 2007 sale price.

Unfortunately, I don’t think it sold at asking. Westfield properties have been selling at about 95% of their last list price (on average) this year. If this property follows that trend, the closing price might be somewhere near $1.02m, and a much steeper loss for the owner.

Posted in Comp Killer, Housing Bubble, North Jersey Real Estate | 299 Comments

Prices UP in Mendham? Huh?

Posted on April 29, 2009 by grim

Matt Woolsey from Forbes is reporting on the performance of the Mendham real estate market (an affluent Northern NJ suburb for those not familiar) as part of the Forbes Luxury Housing Index. The index is based on zip code data provided by Altos Research.

Anyhow, the report says that Mendham prices have increased 9.8% year over year (I’m assuming mid-April). Transaction activity in that zip is so small, I’m not sure if the sample size makes for any kind of meaningful statistic. In all of March, Mendham Boro and Twp saw 5 closed sales, year to date we are looking at 24.

Anyhow, I pulled the stats from the MLS to see what all the hoopla was all about. I didn’t find it.

Mendham Boro Closed Sales Average Sales Price
March 2008 – $655,000 (4 sales)
March 2009 – $500,833 (3 sales)
Prices down, but with that small sample size the number is meaningless.

YTD 2008 – $686,111 (9 sales)
YTD 2009 – $1,000,625 (8 sales)

Whoa! That must be it. Look at that increase in sales price! Let’s take a look at Mendham Twp.

Mendham Twp Closed Sales Average Sales Price
March 2008 – $2,910,000 (3 sales)
March 2009 – $399,500 (2 sales)
Prices down, but with that small sample size the number is meaningless.

YTD 2008 – $1,186,714 (21 sales)
YTD 2009 – $902,750 (16 sales)
Prices down, sample size is a little better here. I might be a bit more confident about this number

Ok, so what is up with that big jump in prices in Mendham Boro? Well, turns out that in February a $3.7 million home sold (one of two sold that month), and that is really pulling up that average.

Even if we look at the March contract data, to get the most recent indicator of the market, things don’t really look like prices are on the way up either.

Mendham Boro Contract Sales Average Last List Price
March 2008 – $1,077,667 (3 contracts)
March 2009 – $351,333 (2 contracts)
Keep in mind we’re talking about list prices here, we don’t know sale prices until the home closes. Same comment, sample size is tiny, the price change is noise.

Mendham Twp Contract Sales Average Last List Price
March 2008 – $2,614,667 (3 contracts)
March 2009 – $1,247,475 (2 contracts)
Same comment applies here.

I’m not sure what kind of magic data Altos has, or even how they could possibly get “real time” real estate data, but I’m not buying it. Even if they are basing their information on the current month contracts, which would be a very risky move, the sample sizes are so small in these towns that these median/average price changes are just statistical noise, up or down. This is one of the reasons you rarely see me talking about prices or sales volume changes on a town by town basis. Before you poo-poo me for ignoring the green shoots, this same report has Rumson home price *down* 30% in the same period.

From Forbes:

New Jersey Suburb’s Prices Holding Up

Mendham, N.J., is a small township of 5,000 residents 40 miles from New York City. With tree-lined streets and large, traditional houses on quiet, wooded acres owned by affluent residents–the median income is $145,000–it’s every bit the picture of an idyllic small-town suburb.

It’s got good schools and just-close-enough proximity to a big city to make it desirable, just like dozens of similar communities that fill the Tri-State, northern Chicago or Bay Area suburbs.

However, as the nation’s real estate market declines, Mendham has been one of the best performers in the Forbes Luxury Housing Index, which ranks the 500 most expensive ZIP codes in the country, using real estate statistics provided by Altos Research, a Mountain View, Calif.-based real estate derivates research firm. What’s stirring in Mendham? Why are prices up 9.8% from this time last year?

The whole of 2008 was a very slow year. While early 2009 has been an improvement so far, it’s still well behind sales rates of 2006 and 2007.

Brokers say that the depressed market has area homeowners pulling their homes entirely rather than trying to find sellers. Last year at this time there were 76 homes listed for sale while this year there are 105.

That’s a higher inventory, but in a wealthy marketplace where the median income is $145,000 and distressed homes are virtually nonexistent (Mendham has only three foreclosures, according to RealtyTrac), it’s also a sign of sellers’ increased confidence in finding a buyer.

“In 30 years, I’ve never had as bad a year real estate wise as I did last year,” says Betty Kiser, a broker at Coldwell Banker. “2007 was a really good year, but in 2008 it fell apart.”

Sadly, it’s not yet time to ring the recovery bell. Prices are still off from 2006 and 2007, by between 15% and 20% according to local brokerages, and still sliding a bit. According to our index, the median price has fallen to $1.26 million from $1.275 million in the last week. This calculation is a rolling average of the previous 90 days.

Posted in Economics, Housing Bubble, North Jersey Real Estate | 284 Comments

New Jersey Home Price Tracker – April

Posted on April 28, 2009 by grim

The New Jersey Home Price Index Tracker has been updated to include:
* February S&P Case Shiller (Aggregate, Tiered, Condo)


(click to enlarge)


(click to enlarge)

S&P Case Shiller NY Metro Commutable Area Home Price Index

Low Tier (Under $300k) – Peaked in October 2006 and is down 20.53% from peak

Mid Tier ($300k-$445k) – Peaked in September 2006 and is down 17.7% from peak

High Tier (Over $445k) – Peaked in June 2006 and is down 14.55% from peak

Aggregate (Overall Market) – Peaked in June 2006 and is down 17.45% from peak

Condo-Only Index – Peaked in February 2006 and is down 9.35% from peak

NY Metro Area Aggregate Year over Year Changes
Feb 08 -6.69%
Mar 08 -7.48%
Apr 08 -7.98%
May 08 -7.74%
Jun 08-7.04%
Jul 08 -7.04%
Aug 08-6.61%
Sep 08 -7.13%
Oct 08 -7.71%
Nov 08 -8.71%
Dec 08 -9.15%
Jan 09 -9.70%
Feb 09 -10.15%

Unlike the broader market, which showed a slowing pace of price declines in February, the NY Metro Area saw price declines continue to accelerate to the fastest pace yet this cycle.

Posted in General | 404 Comments

Case Shiller Day!

Posted on April 28, 2009 by grim

From the Record:

Home prices in N.Y. region fell 10.2 percent in February

Home prices declined 10.2 percent in the New York metropolitan area, which includes North Jersey, from February 2008 to February 2009, the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller index said this morning.

From MarketWatch:

Home prices falling at a slower pace in February

Home prices in 20 major cities fell 2.2% in February after a 2.8% decline in January, according to the Case-Shiller home price index released Tuesday by Standard & Poor’s.

Prices in 20 cities are down 18.6% in the past year, compared with a 19% drop in the 12 months ending in January. It was the first time in 16 months that the year-over-year decline in prices did not set a record.

“While the declines in residential real estate continued into February, we witnessed some deceleration in the rate of decline in some of the markets,” said David M. Blitzer, head of the S&P index committee.

From the AP:

Home prices post 18.6 percent annual drop in Feb.

Home prices dropped sharply in February, but for the first time in 25 months the decline was not a record, another sign the housing crisis could be bottoming.

The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index released Tuesday showed home prices in 20 major cities tumbled by 18.6 percent from February 2008. That was slightly better than January’s 19 percent and the first time since January 2007 the index didn’t set a record.

The 10-city index slid 18.8 percent, the first time in 16 months its decline was not a record.

But the good news was mixed. All 20 cities in the report showed monthly and annual price declines, but half recorded annual records. Prices fell by more than 10 percent in 15 cities, including Las Vegas, San Francisco and Phoenix. In fact, Phoenix home prices have lost more than half their value since peaking in July 2006.
…
Prices in the 20-city index have plunged 30.7 percent from their peak in the summer of 2006, and the 10-city index has lost more than 31.6 percent.

From Bloomberg:

Home Prices in 20 U.S. Cities Declined by 18.6% in February

Home prices in 20 major U.S. metropolitan areas dropped in February at a slower pace, adding to evidence the market may be stabilizing.

The S&P/Case-Shiller index’s 18.6 percent decrease compares with a record 19 percent decline the month before. The gauge has fallen every month since January 2007, and year-over-year records began in 2001. For the first time since the measure started dropping in 2007, the 20-city index didn’t post a record year-over-year decline in February.
…
Economists forecast the index would drop 18.7 percent from a year earlier, according to the median of 27 projections in a Bloomberg News survey. Estimates ranged from declines of 17 percent to 19.2 percent.

Compared with a month earlier, home prices fell 2.2 percent in February, after a 2.8 percent decline in January, today’s report showed.

Posted in Economics, Housing Bubble, National Real Estate | 200 Comments

Ridgewood? Can’t be.

Posted on April 27, 2009 by grim

From Bloomberg:

Boomer Bows Out in Shakeout That Led to Vermont Beard

In early 2008, David Roberts’s morning routine at the Ridgewood, New Jersey, train station was as unchanged as the view from its platform, which overlooks a downtown anchored by the Daily Treat diner and a 77-year-old movie theater. Roberts would sip coffee, eat a corn muffin, scan the Financial Times and step aboard the 7:50 train.

This was not the same trip he had made for the 14 years he worked for three Wall Street firms. This was a commute to nowhere.

Roberts, 61, was bound for an outplacement center on New York’s East 37th Street, where he pursued job leads and the dream of starting a consulting firm with former colleagues. Like many of his neighbors in Ridgewood, Roberts had been thrown out of work after the credit markets seized up last year, joining thousands of commuters in the competition for jobs that don’t exist anymore.

Roberts, an economist at Dominion Bond Rating Service until January 2008, was fired 13 months after he predicted in a published report the recession that would end his livelihood.

“You can see a train wreck coming,” Roberts says. “But that doesn’t mean you can get out of the way.”

Roberts has suffered through a chain of unanswered job applications, an ill-fated relocation to Washington, and depression. As of April, he had lost or spent more than half of his $1.4 million in savings. One of the few risks he takes with money these days is at the poker table.
…
Roberts and his wife — who is battling multiple sclerosis — are moving to Vermont, where they honeymooned and often vacation. He has grown a gray-and-white beard more befitting the Green Mountains than Wall Street.

Knowing that the money he has left won’t last forever, Roberts must figure out a new way to earn a living. “I don’t know where the income is going to come from,” he says.

Roberts is one of 26,000 people who lost financial services jobs in New York City from January 2008 to March 2009, according to Moody’s Economy.com. Many live in bedroom communities such as Ridgewood — a Bergen County enclave of 24,300 people 25 miles from Wall Street.

Ridgewood retailers say some stores’ Christmas receipts were off 40 percent last year. As many as 30 stores and restaurants in the business district are for sale. The village government trimmed three building inspectors after a two-year, 46 percent drop in construction activity.
…
Nestled in the foothills of the Ramapo Mountains, Ridgewood has had a symbiotic relationship with New York’s financial district since the mid-1800s, when tycoons built summer homes there. Commuter trains soon carried dad to the financial jungle while mom stayed home and raised the kids. “It’s for domesticated masters of the universe, a throwback to the 1950s,” says Erik Sorenson, chief executive officer of online career firm Vault.com and a Ridgewood resident.

Ridgewood’s projected median household income for 2009 is $129,394, according to market research firm Nielsen Claritas, which makes it the 17th-most-affluent U.S. community in the 20,000 to 50,000 population range. From 1991 to 2006, the average home sale price more than tripled to $864,000, according to the New Jersey Multiple Listing Service.

Now that market has reversed. Ridgewood averaged 11.3 home sales a month in the first quarter of 2009, versus 32 in the first quarter of 2007, a 65 percent drop, according to Otteau Valuation Group Inc., a real estate analysis and consulting firm in East Brunswick, NJ.

Roberts says he and his neighbors who worked on Wall Street “do not understand: You lose your bonus, you lose your job, and you have no prospects.”
…
“We have no income coming in,” he says. “I’m just trying to get by. I don’t know what the end scenario is going to be.”

The Robertses have found getting out of Ridgewood is easier said than done. They put their house on the market for $899,000 in October and had to lower the price three times before getting a contract — for $760,000. That fell through in March. As of mid-April, they had a new contract for $775,000.
…
They’ve lined up a rental house in South Newfane, Vermont, for $1,800 a month, roughly half their current mortgage payment. Next, Roberts must figure out how to stop the money drain, which has reduced his nest egg by half to $720,000. More than 70 percent of the money disappeared in the market crash, he says, lamenting that he didn’t act on his own prediction that a recession was coming.

“As an economist, I have no excuse whatsoever,” he says.

Posted in Economics, Housing Bubble, North Jersey Real Estate | 141 Comments

Neighbors on the hook

Posted on April 27, 2009 by grim

From the Record:

Complex fed up with delinquent fees

“Love thy neighbor” is under fire at The Glens in Pompton Plains.

Even before the economy nose-dived, Cathy Winterfield said neighbors were burdening neighbors with the cost of maintaining property they all enjoy. About 37 are behind on their homeowners’ association fees — some by years — at the 583-unit, mixed-housing development, running up at least $40,000 in delinquent bills that other residents have had to absorb through increased fees.

The complex also has had to put certain maintenance needs on the back burner, said Winterfield, president of the board of trustees at The Glens, a mix of town houses, duplexes and condo units that went up in the 1990s in Pequannock.

Delinquency has grown to the point where management intends to do something about it.
…
The Glens has already placed liens on debtors’ properties, she said, but that won’t bring in any cash unless the owners decide to sell and have equity. Delinquent households also were offered a payment plan to get back on track, but only one responded, Winterfield said.

So The Glens has reached out to the township to join in action against the worst offenders, since the bulk of the problem lies with those living in the fair housing units, which fall to an extent under the township’s Fair Housing Committee guidelines, Winterfield said.

But the township is not eager to join in any foreclosure proceedings — the strongest legal remedy left to The Glens.

“The concern of the township and the Fair Housing Committee is, in the event a unit is foreclosed upon, we could perhaps lose it as a fair housing unit,” said Township Manager David Hollberg.
…
“The only thing we’re permitted to do is make a friendly call and remind them they signed a paper that they would pay their maintenance fees,” he said.
…
“It must be a sign of the times,” that people are getting so behind, he said. “I don’t know. There’s some that just can’t pay their bills like others.”

Posted in Economics, New Jersey Real Estate | 194 Comments

Weekend Open Discussion

Posted on April 24, 2009 by grim

This is the time and place to post observations about your local areas, comments on news stories or the New Jersey housing market, open house reports, etc. If you have any questions you wanted to ask earlier in the week but never posted them up, let’s have them. Also a good place to post suggestions, requests for information, criticism, and praise.

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For new readers that have only read the messages displayed on the main page, take a look through the archives, a substantial amount of information has been put online in the past year. The archives can be accessed by using the links found in the menus on the right hand side of the page.

Posted in General | 423 Comments

Unprecedentedly Brutal

Posted on April 23, 2009 by grim

From the Record:

N.J. builders feel the pain

New Jersey builders used the words “brutal” and “unprecedented” repeatedly at a statewide trade show Tuesday to describe a housing market undermined by surging unemployment and tighter mortgage lending.

Attendance at the annual New Jersey Builders Association convention is off by a third amid a U.S. recession one economist described as the deepest since World War II. The event — which normally draws 15,000 builders, developers and subcontractors — has about 10,000 registered attendees.

Jeffrey G. Otteau, an economist with the Otteau Valuation Group, said New Jersey has a year’s worth of unsold housing inventory and prices typically fall whenever there is more than five months’ worth of inventory.

“We are not in a recovery,” said Otteau, who delivered the association’s economic outlook. “Home prices will continue to decline.”

Otteau’s presentation was marked by exclamations and quiet discussions among attendees.
…
Another speaker, Rutgers University economist Joseph Seneca, said the state will see a “new normal” in which consumers will spend less and save more, and fewer people will own homes. Fewer people will work in the finance industry, and they’ll make less, Seneca said.

“The bottom of the current economic debacle is close at hand,” he told the builders.

But he cautioned that the state is not there yet. This year will be a weak one, and the recovery will begin in 2010, he said. Problems in the financial sector and in several European countries are troubling, and the worst of commercial real estate problems have yet to come, he said.

Otteau said the New Jersey housing slowdown is being aggravated by the number of people leaving the state, which has the nation’s highest tax burden. He said New Jersey ranks third among U.S. states in population loss, and its housing market is unlikely to recover until the end of this year at the earliest.

Otteau estimated that housing prices have declined 36 percent from their peak and New Jersey prices have fallen 24 percent.
…
New Jersey issued 1,507 permits for new home construction in January and February, according to association data. That number represents 33 percent of the 4,543 permits issued for the same period of 2006.

“It’s brutal,” said John Kirkenir, co-manager of Alliance Homes in East Windsor. “We have three homes under construction right now and we feel fortunate to have three. Normally, we’d have 20.”

Posted in Economics, Housing Bubble, New Development, New Jersey Real Estate | 275 Comments