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Analysis of our New Jersey Housing Market

    Last night I came across a  brilliant vlog post  by my good friend in Austin, Krisstina Wise from The Good Life Team. Before you read on, watch her video, especially if you’re looking for a house, but really want to be sure we’ve hit  bottom first.  Krisstina  beautifully explains “the buying zone”, the  the window of opportunity buyers currently have in this market while the prices and interest rates are this low at the same time.

On a local level,  NJ home sales have risen for 6 straight months compared to the national existing home sales rise of 3 consecutive months.

Jeffrey Otteau, New Jersey real estate market analyst, shows in his graph below, that in June contract sales in NJ were higher than June 2008’s pace, signaling a significant break through for our market. The last time NJ home sales have risen for 6 straight months was back in  2003 during the home buying frenzy fueled by the sub-prime lending boom. The monthly sales pace in NJ has increased 115% since the beginning of the year.

Clearly  many home buyers are taking advantage of these low prices, low interest rates and the first time buyer tax credit , which are all adding to  the housing   market recovery. The problem for buyers who really want to buy is the lack of inventory right now in our Midtown direct towns. Unsold inventory declined by 600 homes in June primarily due to the 7,500 home sales during the month, causing a rise in demand for good, well priced homes , especially in the entry level market.  

So why is inventory so low?  I hear many potential sellers say that they are “waiting until the market comes back” – how long will that take and what will the rates be then?  Certainly we cant expect the market to increase more than 3-5% a year once we do have a recovery.  Today many home owners are  in a catch-22  because they need to sell first, yet don’t want to sell without having found their dream home first,  which they ultimately miss out on because they aren’t in a position to buy.  There are many options that your Realtor can help you with to avoid the catch 22 ( which I will write a blog post on another time) 

What can we expect in the next few months?

All signs seem to be pointing to an active fall market - For Sellers, it’s a great opportunity  to attract the first time home buyers looking to beat the December 1st deadline of the $8,000 tax credit .     I’d love to hear from the mortgage or financial industry experts- how long can interest rates be held this  low because once the rates jump,  affordability will drop again, and the market will most likely be at another stand still. 

If you’re interested in home sale prices, stats and trends for each of our midtown direct train line towns  I update these monthly. Feel free to sign up to receive them.

Yours to count on,

Sue

Sue Adler  www.SueAdler.com #1 Keller Williams Agent in NJ 2005 -2008

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This entry was posted on Thursday, August 20th, 2009 at 8:22 pm and is filed under Buying a home in this market, Market Updates, Stats & forecasts, Selling a home in this market. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1. PDSNJ Garage Doors said at August 27th, 2009 at 9:27 am

   I’m very interested to see the 2009 stats next year of which month was the most successful in terms of people buying homes and how the tax credit contributed.

2. Brent Stack said at January 9th, 2010 at 9:37 am

   Krisstina – Nice video and explanation of the buying zone. I am going to use the “V” explanation this afternoon:)

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