New Jersey Real Estate Report

From Bloomberg:

New Yorkers Plan to Cut Time Spent in the Office by Half, Survey Finds

Most New Yorkers who worked from home during the pandemic plan to cut their time in the office by nearly half and spend less money in the city annually, illustrating the challenges the city faces as companies adjust to hybrid schedules. 

The average New York City office worker intends to reduce time in the office by 49% and slash annual spending in the city by $6,730, down from an estimated $12,561 before the pandemic, according to Nicholas Bloom, an economics professor at Stanford University. 

At a conference at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Thursday, Bloom said the remote work push could cost New York between 5% and 10% of its city-center population, softening real-estate values, but that “the city will continue to thrive.” 

…

New York City is second to San Francisco in terms of reduction of time in the office, but first in terms of decreased spending.

“People used to live in cities because they had to come into the office five days a week,” said Bloom, who has surveyed about 5,000 workers and 1,000 companies about their work habits and policies throughout the pandemic. “If they don’t have to, and they want a backyard, they move out to the suburbs. We see that across cities, and call it the doughnut effect.”  

From the APP:

NJ has regained nearly 90% of jobs lost to pandemic, and pay is rising too

New Jersey employers added 25,900 jobs in February, the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development reported Thursday, continuing the job market’s rapid recovery from the early days of the pandemic.

The job growth helped the unemployment rate drop to 4.6% from 5.1% in January. Part of that decline was due to fewer people actively looking for work.

But employers that once offered minimum wage now are offering upwards of $17 an hour, a sign that job hunters continue to have the upper hand.
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February’s jobs report was the strongest since last July and showed that New Jersey is making up ground.

Through February, New Jersey recovered 89.9% of the jobs it lost in March and April of 2020, while the U.S. recovered 90.4%, according to Rutgers University economist James W. Hughes.

Job growth in February was spread across most sectors. Trade, transportation and utilities added 9,000 jobs; leisure and hospitality added 5,200 jobs; and education and health services added 4,300 jobs.

Financial activities was flat, and the public sector lost 300 jobs.

The recovery has left some sectors faring better than others. Trade, transportation and utilities, a sector that includes New Jersey’s hot warehouse industry, has more than made up for the jobs it lost in March and April 2020, according to the February report.

Leisure and hospitality remains 4.5% below its pre-pandemic peak. It’s not for a lack of trying. In Brick alone, Five Guys is offering up to $17.50 an hour for crew members, while Houlihan’s is advertising a signing bonus of $250 for servers, hosts and hostesses and bussers.

From the Star Ledger:

Most residents say N.J. is a good place to live, but a third want to leave, poll shows

The majority of New Jerseyans like living here, but more than a third say they’d like to move out, a new poll has found.

Nearly 6 in 10 adult residents say the Garden State is an “excellent” (14%) or “good” (44%) place to live, according to the Rutgers-Eagleton Poll released Thursday morning, while 28% say it’s “only fair” and 14% say it’s “poor.”

Meanwhile, half of residents say they would move out of their current neighborhood if they could — including a record 36% who say they would move to another state.

“New Jerseyans’ views on the Garden State as a place to live have remained stable the past several years but over the decades have gradually become less positive,” said Ashley Koning, director the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University and an assistant research professor at the school.

Koning said three-quarters of the state called New Jersey an excellent or good place to live in the mid-1990s and early 2000s while 80% said the same in the mid- to late 1980s.

Results from this poll have been released intermittently in recent weeks. Fifty-two percent of adult residents said New Jersey is on the wrong track, while 38% say it’s headed in the right direction, according to results released Monday.

Thursday’s results show Democrats are happier in New Jersey than their counterparts, with 74% saying the state is excellent or good, compared to 54% of independents and 47% of Republicans.

South Jersey residents (50%), those in the lowest income bracket (52%) and those with a high school education or less are the only other groups where more than half rate the state negatively.

Forty-two percent overall would continuing living where they are if they had the chance to move. Of the half that would move out of their current neighborhood, 3% would move within the same town, 13% would move to another town, and 36% say they would get out of state.

“New Jerseyans’ desire to move has increased by double digits over the last decade,” Koning said. “These latest numbers set an all-time high in the poll’s history of asking this question for those who want to move out of state and an all-time low for those who want to stay.”