Tenafly Real Estate Market Update

Now that we've got the full year figures in, 2007 ended with 157 sales - up from 138 in 2006. This is no small achievement as 2007 was a year in which the number of transactions were down almost everywhere in the New York Metropolitan Area.

If you look at the average sales prices of the past few years, you'll see that the real estate market for home sales in Tenafly is solid:

Year Sales Avg. Sales Price

2007 157 $1,122,095

2006 138 $1,073,787

2005 188 $916,611

2004 218 $818,138

I've also done this by price range and it's really very interesting. In most price ranges, you'll see that things held steady or moderately increased in 2007. Where the market did show some weakness, pricing went very slightly. Actually, the weakest part of the market was the high end re-sale home that needed to be redone.

The reason for this is simple - mortgage rates. If a buyer was going to spend $2.5 million for a home on the East Hill that needed $500-700,000 worth of work, the mortgage rates made such a purchase illogical because that buyer could purchase a new home for only $200,000 more. At this level, it was a simple decision. As a result, this market segment was down about 5% from 2006 according to the data in the New Jersey MLS.

This morning, in the NJMLS we have a ratio of 5.72 to 1 for Actively for Sale to Homes With Accepted Offers. Such a ratio is more than respectable and shows a steady and solid demand for Tenafly homes. What the data is clearly demonstrating is that while this is not a roaring seller's market, we're not nose diving either.

I continue to feel that my projections remain on target - this will be another year where demand is good for homes in Tenafly, that pricing will not be moving up significantly nor will it be moving down significantly. We're doing just what I'd said 2 years ago - we'll be trading in a narrow range with very moderate price adjustment.