Patrizia Giassa

Spotlight on Madison, NJ

Madison is a ‘rose’ of a New Jersey town in bloom for all seasons. Madison is a town of history, culture, fantastic shopping, and fine dining.

Nicknamed “The Rose City,” Madison began as “Bottle Hill” in 1715 under colonial rule. In 1806, Chatham Township was formed to include the villages of the current Madison, Chatham, and Florham Park. The name of the village was changed to Madison in 1834 and eventually seceded from Chatham Township in 1889, adopting a borough form of government.

Located on the Morristown Line with trains heading to Hoboken and to Penn Station in Midtown Manhattan, the Madison train station provides residents with the ability to make the daily commute to NYC easy or to visit the Big Apple for a show, dinner or weekend. A full range of resources are available on our website, click here.

Besides the local movie theater, yoga studio, and newly renovated Madison YMCA, there are many places to go in Madison, quite a few of which are located at Drew University, a highly rated liberal arts college with notable graduate programs. Drew University, affectionately known as “The Forest” for its arboreal abundance, has many events open to the public throughout the year. Currently on the campus are several remarkable activities, including “Faces of Africa” Sculpture and Wall Hangings, a free art exhibit currently is being held at the Korn Gallery, a production of “Romeo and Juliet” at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey located on the campus, and don’t forget to make an appointment for the Florence and Robert Zuck Arboretum, which contains many local flora and fauna including turtles, goldfish, catfish, and muskrats, and regular stops for migrating Canadian geese, ducks, and herons.

Prospective patrons are quite at home at the many shops in town, including wonderful bookstores such as Chatham Bookseller (http://www.abebooks.com/home/chathambookseller/) , a gem of a store for rare, used, and out-of-print books. In addition, Madison also has an antiques shop, nail salons, jewelry stores, a Whole Foods grocery store, and is within twenty minutes of the Livingston Mall and the Mall at Short Hills.

In terms of dining, Madison boasts numerous restaurants representing many diverse cultures from Italian fair, to classy Cajun cooking, to refined Asian cuisine. The Garlic Rose, (http://www.garlicrose.com/) a mainstay of Madison, features Italian food with a penchant for developing the personality of the pungent bulb for which it’s named. Pop’s may sound like a hole-in-the-wall but it introduces an air of refinement and personality to modern Creole cooking. Last but certainly not least, Shanghai Jazz (http://www.shanghaijazz.com/) connects East to West by bringing the utter coolness of a jazz bar to an edgy eclectic blend of Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Vietnamese food. Shanghai Jazz features live jazz 6 days a week and was rated by Downbeat magazine as one of the top 100 jazz clubs in the world.

Whatever you’re in the mood for, whether it is a nice place to raise a family or fine shopping and dining, by any name, “The Rose City” is sweet. Visit the our website for demographics, school reports and to search Madison NJ real estate listings.

Here are the numbers showing activity, for listings and sales of real estate in Chatham Borough comparing the months of March 2008 vs 2009.

This is showing what we all know has been true ... home prices in New Jersey had become too high for first time buyers to make their move toward home-ownership - in fact between 2000 and 2005 incomes in NJ rose 16% while home prices rose 86%. Although home prices in Chatham have held much better than most of NJ and the nation, there has been an adjustment that probably will continue through 2009. This can be seen in the number of sales - only 2 in 2009 vs 5 in 2008. And, we currently have 68 active listings vs 61 last year. The good news is that we are matched up with last year with under contracts. Now, if they all close, we'll be in good shape!

1. For more information about Chatham real estate and to search Chatham area homes for sale, as well as Madison homes, Summit real estate, Chatham condos, and Convent Station townhouses, please contact Trish Giassa at 201-960-2090 or email Trish@BestNJhomes.com
   

I finally did it! It has taken hours and hours of research, organizing, typing and thinking and doing, doing, doing! I finally set up my website on WHERE TO LIVE IN NJ!

So far about 20 New Jersey towns and communities are featured. Each has a brief description, mostly written by someone who lives or lived or works there, so it is really personal. Then I've included links to town websites, parks, schools, maps for commuters and articles that feature that town or something in that town.

In addition there are extensive demographic data for each town such as:

• Age distribution of residents
  
• Households with children vs single households
• Average household income and net worth
• Cost of living
  
• Climate
• Crime index and more

The towns are segregated by county and also listed alphabetically.

I am now working on keywords and descriptions and adding more content. Frankly, I've not seen a website that has so much content and so many resources on where to live anywhere ... but if you know of one I can learn from, I'm very happy to hear about it.

I'm looking for help with three things:

1. Feedback on how to make this site even better
2. For you to tell others about it so more people see it and give me feedback and input (Bookmarking and Share buttons are everywhere!)
   
3. Referrals for (mostly Northern) New Jersey

So, visit and tell me what you think! http://www.WhereToLiveInNJ.com

Thanks so much in advance!!! Trish Giassa

Keller Williams Realty, Summit NJ 201-960-2090 Trish@WhereToLiveInNJ.com

Recently I read a book by Laurie Moore-Moore, founder of the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing. A very smart lady and a very insightful book! In it, she suggested looking at sales during a certain period (in this case I'm going to choose 2008) to see how many "real buyers" were in the market and which price ranges performed better or worse than others. So, here is this report for homes and condos sold in Chatham Township, New Jersey in 2008. This information is garnered from the Garden State Multiple Listing Service and is deemed to be accurate but not guaranteed.

Let me know what you think. Let me know if you have other information that you think would be helpful to see in these reports. I look at this data right side up, upside down and sideways over and over again. Sometimes the obvious is not easy to see. I welcome your questions and feedback so I can also learn from this process.

For more information about recent sales and real estate Chatham Township or Chatham Borough or homes for sale in Summit, New Jersey, please contact me via cell or text at 201-960-2090, or email Trish@BestNJhomes.com. My website provides links and descriptions and photos of Summit, Short Hills, Chatham, Madison and other communties in New Jersey. Please visit.

Real Estate news continues to flood the media. Nationally and at the state level, the news has been disconcerting to most. The following statistics about homes sales in Millburn and Short Hills will shed some light on what went on in our local real estate market in 2008. These figures are according to the Garden State Multiple Listing Service (GSMLS).

A look at important indicators shows a mixed bag of results in the township. In contrast to other parts of New Jersey and the U.S., the inventory of unsold homes on the market here has stayed very low and even fallen at some points during the year. The year ended with only 69 homes being listed on the GSMLS. This is much lower than in previous years. The low inventory has helped keep the selling prices somewhat more stable than elsewhere.

In Millburn and Short Hills last year the average selling price dropped just less than 6%. The overall New Jersey price drop was expected to be at around 12% statewide, so our township seems to have fared much better than the early reports for New Jersey on the whole. In 2008 the average selling price was around $1,216,000 as compared to $1,293,000 in 2007.

The overall number of homes that traded in Millburn and Short Hills in 2008 showed a 15% decline over the previous year. 307 homes were sold in 2007 and 260 homes sold in 2008. As might be expected the homes that continued to sell at the best rate were homes with asking prices under $1 million dollars. A nearly equal number of homes sold in that range over this period with 149 selling in 2007 and 141 selling in 2008. In the $1-$2 million dollar range the number of homes sold dropped from 110 to 85. The most expensive homes, those over $2 million showed the largest decline dropping from 50 in 2007 to 36 last year. The most expensive home in 2007 was 180 Highland Avenue which sold for $5,600,000. In 2008 a slightly pricier home was the most expensive one traded. This was 71 Hillside which sold for $6,065,000.

The good news for sellers is that most homes are actually taking less time on the market to sell than they did a year ago. In 2008 the average number of days that a home was on the market was 52, whereas in 2007 it generally took 62 days to get a house sold. This is most likely due to the fact that the inventory of available homes is low. When a motivated buyer comes along, they have less selection to choose from therefore it takes less time to house hunt. Buyers do seem to be taking more liberties in negotiating as they managed to secure sales prices at 96.7% of the asking price in 2008, down a little from 97.9% in 2007.

Are you in Millburn or Short Hills, NJ and interested in finding out what your home would sell for in today's market? Call us for a FREE, No Obligation Evaluation.

If you're in the market to buy, Millburn School District is among the best in the nation! With interest rates and prices at record lows, this may be the best time for you to buy a home in a top NJ market and school district. Contact us for a list of the BEST PRICED HOMES IN TOWN ... just email Trish@BestNJhomes.com with your requirements and we will email you our weekly list of the Best Priced Homes in Millburn and Short Hills, NJ.