Category: Selling Home

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COVID-19 was devastating for many businesses. Restaurants, health clubs, movie theaters and other enterprises suffered substantial losses due to pandemic shutdowns. However, one industry thrived during the worst of COVID-19: real estate. 

Fueled by an out-migration from urban areas and supported by record-low interest rates, the suburban New Jersey real estate market remained blazing hot through the dead of winter and well into the summer. Brokers reported unprecedented traffic and bidding wars once open house presentations resumed, and neighborhoods that were previously out of commuting range for buyers working from New York City became destination communities for employees who now worked remotely. 

According to Robert Norman, president at Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, New York City Metropolitan Area, the strong market transitioned almost seamlessly from the shutdown to the reopening of the economy. 

“The market started to get back to normal by late spring-early summer,” Norman said. “While inventories remained low, buyers began to feel more comfortable visiting homes for sale, and sellers were more willing to allow people to tour their homes. The low inventories created a seller’s market. Our research showed that early in 2021, one in five people wanted to sell their homes. Unfortunately, many did not list their homes because they were afraid they wouldn’t be able to find a home to buy.” 

Norman noted that Coldwell Banker agents adapted quickly to the COVID restrictions. He believes that their more effective use of video, social media and teleconferencing platforms are a few of the positive byproducts of the shutdown that are here to stay. 

Robert White, president-elect of New Jersey Realtors®, also cited low inventories and a desire to flee urban environments as driving forces in the marketplace. In June, there was a 1.9-month supply of single-family homes in New Jersey. The normal supply is about four months. 

“Small communities are thriving,” White said. “New Jersey Realtors are working with people from some of the Garden State’s urban areas as well as buyers from New York and Pennsylvania. Families like the feel of small communities with walkable downtowns and transportation hubs. While many buyers have moved farther from the cities because they can work remotely, they still appreciate the convenience of commuter rail and bus service.” 

White noted that the Jersey Shore has been an especially popular destination for buyers coming into the state. Communities from the Highlands to Cape May are much in demand. Shore communities tend to be more intimate, and they offer the outdoor space that former city dwellers crave. In addition to downtown shopping and dining districts, many coastal communities are characterized by strollable beaches and colorful boardwalks. 

“Another factor driving the strong real estate market is a surge of younger people who are choosing to buy rather than rent,” White added. “Thirty-year fixed-rate mortgages have been hovering around 3% in recent years. Smart young buyers are choosing to lock in these low rates while they can.” 

White expects that the market will stay strong well into 2022. He believes markets will begin to normalize and absorb pent-up demand once building material prices stabilize and new-home builders contribute more housing units to the inventory. 

One homebuilder that is bullish on New Jersey real estate is Pennsylvania-based Toll Brothers. 

“We continue to operate at a very high level with strong demand across the Garden State,” said Craig Cherry, Toll Brothers division president for New Jersey. “We are encouraged by the strength of the housing market, and the limited resale supply continues to drive buyers to our new construction communities.” 

Much like homebuyers around the state, visitors to Toll Brothers are choosing where they want to live and not where their job previously required them to live. Toll Brothers has a variety of options, including single-family homes, active adult communities and carriage-style townhome enclaves. 

“We’re finding our homebuyers are looking for more square footage, personalization options and more open space within their neighborhoods,” he added. “Since many people are working remotely, home offices and niches for work or school are popular features in most of our floorplans. Our build-to-order business model is also well-suited for this trend.”   

Although many people have left cities, like Manhattan, for suburban locations, Jacqueline Urgo, president of The Marketing Directors, sees former city dwellers returning to urban markets. The Marketing Directors is a development advisory and master property marketing and sales force that works exclusively on behalf of property owners and new-home builders. 

“We actually started to see a positive shift in the market as early as January with an uptick in rental and sales activity in urban areas, like Jersey City, Hoboken and Harrison,” Urgo said. “These historically popular urban locations were significantly impacted by the shutdown, with widespread closures of restaurants, retail and nightlife, and residents that no longer needed to be near mass transit to get to work in New York City. But with more and more people getting vaccinated and restrictions being lifted, coupled with companies having sent out notices of return to in-person work schedules, we’ve seen a huge influx of residents coming back to these neighborhoods.” 

Urgo believes we are likely to see some hybrid version of remote working and a return to the office as the year progresses.  

“Quite honestly, I think a lot of workers are just tired of Zoom calls and juggling kids and pets and other interruptions while trying to get their work done,” she said. “People also miss the interaction you get from really being face to face as opposed to being just faces on a screen.” 

As the entire country readjusts from unprecedented disruptions in everyday life, it is clear that people are reconsidering where and how they live. No one yet knows which changes brought about by the pandemic will endure and which will fall by the wayside. However, one thing is sure. Our perception of the road ahead has been forever altered by the COVID-19 experience. 

Stan Lemond is an award-winning marketing consultant and writer who has more than 40 years of experience. His work has appeared in The Star-Ledger, Staten Island Advance, Trenton Times and South Jersey Times as well as Jersey’s Best.

This article originally appeared in the Fall 2021 issue of Jersey’s Best. Subscribe here for in-depth access to everything that makes the Garden State great.

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For any homebuyer, novice or weathered, the 2021 housing market has been harrowing to navigate.

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Rosy
Real Estate Agent
Coldwell Banker

I am a Realtor in Princeton, NJ with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage. I serve the residential needs of Princeton, West Windsor, Plainsboro, Lawrenceville, Hopewell, Pennington, Montgomery, Hillsborough, Belle Mead, Rocky Hill, South Brunswick, East Windsor, Cranbury, Hightstown, Robbinsville, Franklin in Counties of Mercer, Middlesex and Somerset.

Please call me with your questions on selling, buying or renting residential real estate. Thank you !

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By some experts’ definitions, “this year, [the housing market] decidedly shot way ahead of the economy, to the point where we saw this incredibly overheated market characterized by massive multiple offers, contingency waivers, price escalation clauses, and, in fact, record prices,” George Ratiu, senior economist at realtor.com, tells Fortune.

Indeed, prices in 2021 have been skyrocketing, competition has been hotter than ever, and the low supply of homes ensured that many homebuyers were (and still are) paying top dollar, all while mortgage rates sat near rock bottom. While the housing market is still hot, there are signs that it’s beginning to cool off, with housing inventory (the number of homes on the market) starting to “meaningfully recover,” per an Aug. 23 monthly report from Zillow.

Translation: More homes on the market means more options for buyers and, likely, less competition per home.

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My name is Rosy and I am a Realtor with Coldwell Banker in the Greater Princeton, New Jersey area.

---

Do You Want to Sell your House ?

Are you looking to Buy a House ?

Interested in a Rental

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I can be reached at –
609-915-9665

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Are you interested to learn more about the Greater Princeton, New Jersey Market Conditions, feel free to contact me at 609-915-9665.

Increasing length of time in home impacts inventory, prompting adaptation

The “Homeownership Tenure and the Impact on the Real Estate Industry” report draws on observations and insights from ERA affiliated brokers across the country about how increasing homeownership tenure has impacted their business in the past, how they have responded and their views on what may follow in 2021 and beyond.

According to the National Association of REALTORS®, until 2019, homeowners were staying in their homes an average of eight years, up considerably from 2000 when the average tenure was four years. But given the market conditions of the past few years, homeownership tenure could possibly extend to 15 years or more.

The report investigates how the buying frenzy of 2020 may have impacted tenure rates. Last year, NAR indicated that 5.64 million people moved, a nearly six percent increase YOY. Many of those people may have moved outside of traditional life changes such as marriage, the birth of a child, divorce or retirement, bucking tenure trends. Understanding how this will play out in years to come will be critical in future bottom-line success for brokers.

Key takeaways based on the experiences of the ERA affiliated brokers featured in the report:

• Generating supply through innovative seller-focused marketing is key to capturing more market share.
• Creating connections with feeder markets has kept business in-house.
• Tapping into increased demand for multigenerational living has helped to capture a bigger piece of the pie.
• Cultivating renters through property management has created a solid pipeline for the future.
• Supporting agents with tailored marketing resources and CRM support has given them the competitive advantage of extra time to support existing clients and farm for future ones.

Quotes:
“Homeownership tenure is not a statistic that is typically tracked when evaluating market conditions, making this a unique industry report. In looking at homeownership tenure trends, it is clear that shifts in how long people stay in their homes impact inventory levels. Despite extreme ebbs and flows in market dynamics, successful companies are the ones that are able to balance short-term activity with long-term positioning. As we see from these ERA affiliated brokers referenced in the report, they have made strategic changes to their business in response to these shifts, knowing when and how to adapt continues to be a competitive advantage.”

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Grabbing an ideal temporary place to live in the offseason is a harder task than usual along the Jersey Shore this year, according to real estate professionals in the area.

There is greater demand for winter rentals up and down the coast for a number of reasons, they say — most are directly connected to the coronavirus pandemic.

And many of the newcomers to the winter rental market appear to be less interested in a specific town or city — they just want something comfortable for a few a months, anywhere along the shore.

“They’re looking from the Toms River area all the way up to Belmar, Long Branch,” said George Coffenberg, broker/owner of Preferred Properties Real Estate.

The new clientele aren’t just folks who want to enjoy a shoreline view while being able to work remotely. Many are in the middle of a strategic process that includes cashing in on the hot housing market and eventually moving into another home.

“People have sold their homes and need short-term rentals to kind of get settled and figure out where they’re going to buy,” Coffenberg said.

Since bidding wars on available listings are still occurring, Coffenberg said, recent sellers are sitting on the sidelines, waiting for things to calm down before buying again.

Unlike summer renters, folks who rent in the winter typically have to prove a solid financial history before a deal is made, as the leases are generally handled on a monthly basis.

“Typically, you’re going to pay monthly what it would be for a week in the summer,” said Mike Loundy, broker of SeasideRealtyNJ.com.

Loundy noted there’s a yearly crowd interested in winter rentals along the shore — some folks need to find a place to stay due to local work projects, for example.

“There’s beautiful accommodations available now that did not exist in the past, so we’re seeing it draw in people that we would not normally have seen,” Loundy said.

Contact reporter Dino Flammia at dino.flammia@townsquaremedia.com.

7 reasons why you need to kill the spotted lanternflies infesting NJ

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609-915-9665
Rosy
Real Estate Agent
Coldwell Banker

I am a Realtor in Princeton, NJ with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage. I serve the residential needs of Princeton, West Windsor, Plainsboro, Lawrenceville, Hopewell, Pennington, Montgomery, Hillsborough, Belle Mead, Rocky Hill, South Brunswick, East Windsor, Cranbury, Hightstown, Robbinsville, Franklin in Counties of Mercer, Middlesex and Somerset.

Please call me with your questions on selling, buying or renting residential real estate. Thank you !

---

My name is Rosy and I am a Realtor with Coldwell Banker in the Greater Princeton, New Jersey area.

---

Do You Want to Sell your House ?

Are you looking to Buy a House ?

Interested in a Rental

---

I can be reached at –
609-915-9665

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Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, housing prices in New Jersey have soared, and homes have been flying off the market within days.

While today’s heated market may call to mind a similar trend from the mid-2000s, experts say this time around there’s no real concern about another mortgage crisis caused by recent sales — demand for homes and the loans going to buyers are completely different today compared to 15-20 years ago.

The market may see a housing correction in the year or two ahead in the way of prices, but industry observers do not expect to see another “bubble burst” like the one that triggered the Great Recession in 2007.

“That time period was mortgage-driven cheap money. Today, it’s more driven by people’s desire to be in a house and wanting to own a real asset,” said Kevin Riordan, a real estate professor at Montclair State University.

Sales today involve more well-qualified buyers, Riordan noted. During the subprime mortgage crisis, many folks were spending beyond their means and soon felt the pain when they could no longer afford their purchase and the price of their home dipped below the price at which it was purchased.

Since the COVID-19 threat took hold of New Jersey last March, home appreciation rates skyrocketed due to low supply and very strong demand. It hasn’t sent many would-be buyers to the sidelines, though. In June 2021, the Garden State recorded a 41% increase year-over-year in closed sales, despite a 24% jump in the median sales price, according to New Jersey Realtors.

Jeffrey Otteau, managing broker at Hudson Atlantic Realty Advisors in Matawan, expects home prices to continue their climb through 2022, but not at a rate as high as what we’ve seen since the first quarter of 2021.

Prices in New Jersey will experience a correction in 2023, Otteau predicts.

“This is not a bubble that will burst,” Otteau said. “What we’re likely to see this time instead is some air leaking out of the balloon, so it will float a little lower without popping and collapsing.”

Otteau said there are signs that the New Jersey housing market is not as hot as it was just a few months ago. Sales activity has begun to slow down, and inventory is rising. Otteau expects to see mortgage interest rates rise, and that tends to reduce home-buying demand.

“The economy right now is continuing to get better, and the rising tide of a growing economy typically causes income to rise and jobs to multiply — all of which would run counter to a doomsday scenario,” Otteau added.

Contact reporter Dino Flammia at dino.flammia@townsquaremedia.com.

This spectacular Somerset County home is for sale

Look inside this gorgeous New Jersey colonial estate

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• Prospective homebuyers will face low supply and high prices for at least another year.
• The US doesn’t have enough homes to meet demand, and builders are struggling to keep up.
• Economists see price growth cooling in 2022, but only if construction picks up and demand holds steady.

America is still in a seller’s market when it comes to housing, and could stay there until next year.

Prices are climbing at the fastest pace in more than three decades, and homes are frequently selling above their list price, according to the National Association of Realtors. In May, the average listing was only on the market for 17 days, said Logan Mohtashami, lead analyst at Housing Wire. For it to become a buyer’s market, “For Sale” signs need to stay up for at least 30 days, Mohtashami said.

Unless construction picks up, the near-term outlook for prices isn’t promising.

Economists interviewed by Insider said price growth will remain elevated through the rest of the year and into 2022 because millennials will keep demand high — and they see the construction industry having a hard time keeping up.

Millennials are hitting peak homebuying age

In his best-case scenario, Mohtashami sees price growth cooling and supply bouncing back in 2022. But demographics complicate the outlook and could keep demand high. The surge of first-time buyers is going to be “historic,” Mohtashami said.

However, if millennial demand falls short, it could be a sign of an even larger issue. The generation’s homebuying prospects were already hammered by the Great Recession , Insider’s Hillary Hoffower reported. With the pandemic sending prices through the roof, the generation could become trapped in a vicious cycle of only renting and never having a home of their own.

“A lot of those buyers are among those for whom cost is prohibitive,” Nancy Vanden Houten, lead economist at Oxford Economics, said. “They haven’t bought a first home, or they’re paying a high rent so it’s hard to accumulate a down payment. They may also have other debts, including student debt.”

Fallout from the late-2000s housing bubble looms large

Ali Wolf, chief economist at Zonda, said more new homes should become available over the next two years, but for now, contractors are lagging.

“Builders didn’t know 2020 and 2021 were going to be some of the best years in the housing market ever,” she told Insider. “They would have needed to plan for this kind of growth in 2019. They didn’t.”

The shortage isn’t a completely new phenomenon. Home construction fell short for two decades, leaving the market with a deficit of up to 6.8 million units, according to NAR research.

Contractors “got burned” after the late-2000s bubble burst as homes away from city centers hurt their books, Zonda’s Wolf said. That damage is still top of mind and will probably hold supply back for years to come, Wolf said.

“I suspect we will continue to underbuild for years, because that deep demand pool further away from central business districts will start to shrink back to what the norm was,” she added.

Others are more optimistic. The severity of the nationwide housing shortage has captured the government’s attention. Federal and state policymakers are “more aware” of the years-long problem and its effect on inequality, Gay Cororaton, director of housing and commercial research at NAR, told Insider. That awareness could lead to zoning laws, apprenticeship programs, and funding to aid builders and boost supply, she added.

“The lack of housing is a crisis.  It’s something that needs to be addressed, it just can’t go on,” Cororaton said. “It’s causing that divide between those who have and those who have not.”

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The average price of a single family home in New Jersey has increased almost $100,000 in the past year, according to data from New Jersey Realtors.

The average home price for the first quarter of 2021 was $500,628 or 24% more than the $403,785 for the first quarter of 2020, the data shows.

“It has jumped dramatically,” said Robert White, President-elect of New Jersey Realtors and Managing broker at Coldwell Banker Realty in Spring Lake.

The price increase is being driven by low inventory and eager buyers.

“With the current inventory situation and the buying frenzy, you’re seeing … many homes selling over asking price in today’s market and that is forcing values to increase because appraisers are coming out and appraising at those higher numbers,” he said.

New listings were down 18% overall from January through March this year compared to last, but up about 8 percent in March 2021, compared to the same month last year. That’s partially reflective of the state shutting down in mid-March last year, said Spencer Freedman, an agent with Keller Williams Realty West Monmouth.

“But this time of year typically is always higher inventory,” he said. “People like to wait until their flowers are in bloom and the weather warms up.”

Despite the low inventory, closed sales were up 18%, from the first quarter of 2021 versus the same time period in 2020.

Percent of list price received was also up by 3%, from 97.6% of list price in 2020 to 100.2% of list price in 2021.

White says that number isn’t necessarily reflective of what’s going on in today’s market.

A house that’s listed for $500,000 will likely sell for $530,000 to $540,000, he said. “There’s just so much demand.”

And homes that are listed for sale are on the market for less time before selling than in the first quarter of 2020 — 47 days versus 73.

Tarah Logan, a sales associate for Berkshire Hathaway in Mullica Hill who works in Gloucester, Camden and Salem counties, said agents have to take buyers to look at a house the first day it hits the market or they may miss out.

“I can’t tell you how many times I refresh the MLS throughout the day,” Logan said.

Because of COVID-19 there are limited appointments to see homes in person. “Some agents give a couple of days for showings so they can get the best offer,” she said. “Some homeowners don’t want the showings, so they take the first couple offers and then shut it down.”

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The current housing boom will flatten in 2022—or possibly early 2023—when mortgage interest rates rise. There is no bubble to burst, though prices may retreat from panic-buying highs.

The boom produced some frantic buying, bids in excess of asking prices, and plenty of worry among would-be homeowners. But this has not been a bubble. A bubble is not simply rising prices, but demand not justified by fundamental economic factors. The key to the buying boom has been low mortgage rates plus a shift in desired housing type.

Mortgage rates hit what was then an all-time low of four percent in 2011, and then remained in that neighborhood until the pandemic, when they hit three percent. The decline in mortgage rates in 2020 dropped the monthly payment on a house by 12 percent, enabling many people to buy houses now rather than later.

In addition to the low mortgage rates, some people saw a future of remote work and wanted more space, which often means moving out of an apartment into a single family house. Others found urban living less fun, so they headed into the suburbs where houses are more common than apartments.

The increased demand for houses drove prices up, quite predictably. Yet the supply could not adjust as fast as demand. Home builders ramped up production in the second half of 2020, but after a few months they ran into supply constraints. Ready-to-build lots were all bought up, labor for construction was hard to find and social distancing made workers less productive. Now rising materials prices and goods on back-order squeeze profit margins. That’s how we find ourselves in the current housing boom.

But this boom is not a bubble, because the rise in prices is easily explained by the fundamentals of cheap mortgages and supply limitations. Recent housing starts are below historical averages, though that is justified by lower population growth. But with the shift from multifamily to single family housing, recent construction levels make sense. There need be no sudden drop in new construction to maintain a reasonable equilibrium.

When will the boom end? The two keys are satisfying the new demand and mortgage rates. Low mortgage rates allowed young families to buy houses earlier than they otherwise would have. It did not change the economics of buying for people who were never going to be homeowners. Instead, low mortgage rates enabled people to achieve their dreams earlier than they otherwise would have. In this sense, the strong housing market of 2020 and 2021 has been borrowing from the future. However, the shift in preferences from urban living to suburban living by people who previously could have bought houses is permanent new demand. At least, so long as they don’t become disillusioned about homeownership.

Mortgage rates are likely to rise when financial markets anticipate more inflation and action by the Federal Reserve to stem inflation. Although the Fed’s traditional tools impact short-term rates, with only small effect on mortgage rates, the new actions by the Fed impact mortgages directly. The Fed has been buying mortgages wholesale, depressing mortgage interest rates. The Fed has also been buying many treasury securities, which are often competitors to mortgages for institutional investors.

Mortgage rates are likely to rise a full percentage point by mid-2022, though this forecast exceeds the average prediction of my fellow economists. They doubt long-term interest rates will rise by a percentage point even out to December 2022. If they are right and I am wrong, then the housing market will remain strong longer.

Business leaders in the housing supply chain should enjoy their strong sales this year but not anticipate further growth in the coming years. Major capital projects must pencil out with sales back at 2019 levels.

Prospective home buyers should probably chill. It’s been a tough buying season. Although prices are unlikely to fall nationwide, there will probably be easier buying opportunities in 2023.

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Home buyers during the pandemic have been willing to take on long commutes in exchange for lower prices, a new analysis shows.

In some of the nation’s most expensive metro areas, home prices rose faster in areas with longer morning commutes to business districts compared with neighborhoods with short commutes, according to an analysis from Zillow Group Inc. and HERE Technologies.

That is a reversal from prior years, when home prices in those metro areas accelerated faster in neighborhoods close to job centers.

Analysts say the change reflects that commute length has declined in importance for home buyers, as many workers expect to travel to their offices less often going forward. At the same time, rapidly rising prices have made affordability a bigger concern for many buyers.

“It’s been a big change,” said Ed Pinto, director of the AEI Housing Center at the American Enterprise Institute, who expects the shift in home-buyer demand to be long-lasting. “There’s a huge group of people who can work from home, and they’ll continue to work from home when things go back to…normal.”

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