Michael Shetler

Last year at this time, Wall Street was in crisis. September saw the failure of Lehman Brothers and the takeover of several large banks. As a result, October home prices were down 21% from a year earlier in northwest Bergen County. But since then prices have come back over halfway - the average price of a single family home is now down only 8.5% from October of 2007.

- Michael Shetler

source: NJMLS. Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed. October single-family home prices.

A comment I frequently hear is there are lots of homes for sale in the area. Local homeowners sensitive to market conditions tend to think there are more "For Sale" signs in the neighborhood than there used to be. In reality, the inventory of homes on the market in Bergen County is at its lowest level since 2005.

source: NJMLS. Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

I've been reporting recently that the bottom half of the market has been active but the top hadn't yet seen a recovery. The latest data suggests the entire market is doing better. Activity has increased across the board from last September, and prices are down only marginally. As the year has progressed the market has been slowly gaining steam. As long as interest rates stay below 6%, we should continue to see a stable market.

source: NJMLS. Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed. Single family homes in Bergen County.

n local real estate, activity is up. And in Ridgewood anyway, so are prices. While the median price of single family homes across Bergen County is down 14% compared with last summer, Ridgewood prices have actually inched slightly higher.

Activity is up throughout Bergen County. The question for the short term though is whether activity will remain healthy with the tax credit for first-time buyers due to expire December 1. A typical closing takes 45-60 days from the time an offer is accepted, so we may see a fall-off in activity after September.

The top half of the market is a different story. High-end buyers typically exceed the tax credit income requirements and are probably not purchasing their first home. This part of the market has been hurting the most and may start to see more of a recovery in the fourth quarter with the stock market bouncing back and employers returning to profitability.

The market for homes under $700,000 has been incredibly strong recently. I've seen many bidding wars in the last month, some driving the sale price over the list price.
Activity has been surprisingly strong. As of today, there are 88 homes under contract in northwest Bergen County. Last year on this day there were only 65. In Ridgewood there are 20 under contract today versus 14 last year.
But now for the real shocker - the median sold price July 1 -17 in Ridgewood is higher this year than last year, $764,000 in '09 vs $682,500 in '08. Across northwest Bergen, the median is up 5.7%. But in Bergen County as a whole, the median is down 17.0%.
Why such a big difference between northwest Bergen and the county as a whole? Preforeclosures and foreclosures are bringing property values down in neighborhoods where they're commonplace. But there are very few distressed properties in northwest Bergen.


- Michael Shetler