Ber
gen County Homes For Sale
Bergen County homes for sale is something I track as well as Bergen County closings. It’s important to look at both as well as homes going under contract. Timing is important too.
House sales for the first quarter of any year tell us more about the year before than anything else. While everyone wants to know what’s sold, sales then come from contracts written months ago last year. We want sold homes to show us this year’s real estate trends. They can’t until we get to mid year.
March 1st had 1,993 homes for sale in the New Jersey MLS. You’d expect a normal year to have at least 2,500 if not more. 2018 seems to be repeating 2017 because the number of active listings since January 1st is quite similar. 2018 has 3,170 while 2017 had 3,102 for a 2% increase.
It’s only been over the past 2 weeks that homes have begun to come on the market at a good rate. This year has truly started slowly. Projections showed that we’d start quietly and they were right. Inventory is slowly building as the pace of homes coming on the market is accelerating. The bottom line appears to be that 2018 is another year of low inventory but slightly better than 2017.
Bergen County County Homes Under Contract
While looking at sales now makes no sense it does make sense to look at under contract figures. If you’ve been reading my blog articles then you know why.
Under contract homes show the strength and pace of the market. The status of a home changes to under contract once Attorney Review is completed. Although UC home sales can fall apart, they’re not volatile enough to be irrelevant. They are current too. Think about it.
A home usually is reported as under contract 2-3 weeks after an offer is accepted. Sales are reported 2-3 months later. I analyze sales by looking back to see when they went under contract. Sometimes it’s so far back that it’s too old to be statistically significant.
992 homes went under contract last year while we have 1,043 this year for a 5% increase. Look at how this plays out. We have over double the number of homes under contract than are coming on the market. This tells us a lot. Demand is up and buyers are taking action. They are getting off the fence.
The Bottom Line
The question is Why? The answer is because of rate hikes, prices going up and the tax reform bill. Jeff Otteau said that as we get closer to April people will better understand that the tax reform is a win for everyone. Even people who can’t write off as much will win because tax reform is revitalizing the economy and bringing jobs back to the US.
Please understand that this was not a political statement. It was his unbiased analysis of the tax reform bill. He felt that the public has b
een misinformed by the media and the Administration’s opposition because they don’t understand it or have other agendas. Because of this buyers would be wary early on and the market would stall in the early part of the year. Read my January article on this written after I attended his tax seminar.
The bottom line for 2018 is that we are coming out of an expected stall in the market and are on our way to a more robust real estate market. Bergen County homes are going to have another good year while inventory remains a challenge for home buyers.
You can search the inventory directly from the MLS through my website to see what’s out there. If you have any questions, want to chat or make an appointment, just call or text me at 201-741-8490. Comments are welcome too!
