Looking to Buy or Sell a Property in Princeton, New Jersey ?
According to Zillow’s 2021 housing market predictions, annual home sales growth will be the highest in 40 years in the United States at an estimated 21.9%. Home buyers flock to homes unequally, converging upon the most attractive ones, and in a thicker market that means this subset of homes draws far more buyers than before.
zillow
The 2020 real estate market in New Jersey was unlike anything seen before, according to the New Jersey REALTORS organization. The median sales price for homes rose 14% last year, and New Jersey REALTORS expects the market to continue to show strength in 2021.
NJ Realtors Association
The pandemic has had a big impact on the real estate landscape in New Jersey, upending the market as buyers eager to get out of the city look for houses with more space.
Millenials
In particular, millennials are looking for first homes or trading up in housing size due to their desire to leave the major cities and find space for growing families. (A market grows “thicker” when it has more participants on both sides, while holding their proportion fixed.) The experience of heightened competition around those homes affects perceptions.
Higher Sales Prices
And when that culminates in higher sales prices, those sales serve as “comparables,” which inform asking prices on subsequent listings , lifting housing prices more quickly. At first, the pandemic slowed the housing market, but then it took off. What started off as a bright year for the housing market and the economy was soon derailed by a global pandemic and severe economic recession.
Impact of Pandemic
A larger trend in the face of the pandemic is that people will be moving from higher density living to lower density areas, for example from Manhattan to the suburbs, and Healey expects that trend to continue for the foreseeable future. And in terms of COVID, people really want their own space.
The pool of potential homebuyers has increased, in part due to the pandemic. But perhaps the most important factor is the sheer rise in volume of buyers. Adding more buyers and sellers can generate frenzy all on its own, even without altering their balance.
And that would be a welcome development in a city where only 22 percent of households are homeowners. Home prices were soaring in the surrounding suburbs, with stories of lines around the block for open houses and bidding wars.
As the pandemic has made suburban living more attractive to many city dwellers, home prices and sales volume have risen over the past year, according to the multiple listing service. A year ago, there was so much uncertainty surrounding the pandemic and politics, which made real estate somewhat of a gamble, at least in hard-hit New York City.