New Jersey Real Estate Is A Mixed Bag Of Statistics by Richard Bonn
It appears that by every metric, except foreclosures, the housing market has stabilized and many areas of New Jersey and some are recovering. This according to the data released in the past few weeks.
Nationwide, existing home sales in June are up 9 percent from January, on a seasonally adjusted basis. Sales of new homes have climbed 17 percent during the same period. And construction, while still anemic, has risen almost 20 percent since the beginning of the year. But in the New Jersey-Long Island metro area, the jobless rate rose to 8.8 percent in June, from 8.2 percent in May, the Labor Department said.
Unemployment figures will lag behind as an indicator, but still the data is mixed.
New Jersey's largest builder, K. Hovnanian, did not see a particular surge in June, but instead have seen an uptick overall since March, division president Jim Driscoll said. The company put several developments on hold, or mothballed them, and are focusing on selling out their current communities. What has helped is that inventory is down. For example, K. Hovnanian has 12 potential homes left in the 100-unit community Hunter's Brook in Hackettstown, Driscoll said.
Buyers may have been trying to slide in under a November 30 deadline for a first-time home buyer tax credit of $8,000 available to people below certain income levels who have not owned a primary home within the last three years. It's too late now for someone to start building a new home and have it finished and move in by the deadline, Driscoll said. "First-time home buyers are an extremely important part of our local market here in Bergen County" Mary Ellen Courtney of Gateway Realtor said. They're the ones who will benefit the most by this unusual tax credit," Courtney said.
U.S. builders broke ground on more houses than forecast in May, offering a sign that the industry's slump, now in its fourth year, may be approaching an end. Toll Brothers, the largest luxury home builder, and Hovnanian, New Jersey's biggest builder, this month reported quarterly losses as revenue plunged. Still, the companies narrowed their losses from a year earlier.
"Some buyers are beginning to re-enter the new home market," Robert Toll, chairman and chief executive officer of Toll, said in a June 3 statement. "Cancellations appear to be leveling off" even as "concerns about job security and the economy continue to inhibit traffic," he said.
The rental market in New Jersey, which up to now has only grown stronger as the sales market declined, is finally showing its own signs of weakness. In Edgewater, where Savanna Partners put $100 million into converting the Peninsula at City Place from rental to condo just two years ago, units are now being offered as rentals again. This time with two months free on a 14-month lease.
Jonathan Schultz, a partner at Pyramid Property Partners, the developer and owner, said two and three bedroom apartments were leasing for $2,300 to $2,800 a month, while the two penthouses (which used to be listed for sale at nearly $1 million each) were renting for $3,000. "We've noticed vacancy creep across northern New Jersey," said Jonathan Moore, a vice president at the Value Companies, which owns 3,500 apartments in four states, "Where it used to always be 99 percent occupancy, now you see 96, 95, 94 percent occupancy." Now Value is offering renter incentives at about half its properties, according to Mr. Moore.
Uptick, down tick, recovery or no recovery the numbers coming in are a mixed bag at best.
Richard Bonn is the owner of N-J-Homes-For-Sale.com. For more information on Richard please visit http://www.N-J-Homes-For-Sale.com
Article Source: ArticleSnatch Free Article Directory
It appears that by every metric, except foreclosures, the housing market has stabilized and many areas of New Jersey and some are recovering. This according to the data released in the past few weeks.
Nationwide, existing home sales in June are up 9 percent from January, on a seasonally adjusted basis. Sales of new homes have climbed 17 percent during the same period. And construction, while still anemic, has risen almost 20 percent since the beginning of the year. But in the New Jersey-Long Island metro area, the jobless rate rose to 8.8 percent in June, from 8.2 percent in May, the Labor Department said.
Unemployment figures will lag behind as an indicator, but still the data is mixed.
New Jersey's largest builder, K. Hovnanian, did not see a particular surge in June, but instead have seen an uptick overall since March, division president Jim Driscoll said. The company put several developments on hold, or mothballed them, and are focusing on selling out their current communities. What has helped is that inventory is down. For example, K. Hovnanian has 12 potential homes left in the 100-unit community Hunter's Brook in Hackettstown, Driscoll said.
Buyers may have been trying to slide in under a November 30 deadline for a first-time home buyer tax credit of $8,000 available to people below certain income levels who have not owned a primary home within the last three years. It's too late now for someone to start building a new home and have it finished and move in by the deadline, Driscoll said. "First-time home buyers are an extremely important part of our local market here in Bergen County" Mary Ellen Courtney of Gateway Realtor said. They're the ones who will benefit the most by this unusual tax credit," Courtney said.
U.S. builders broke ground on more houses than forecast in May, offering a sign that the industry's slump, now in its fourth year, may be approaching an end. Toll Brothers, the largest luxury home builder, and Hovnanian, New Jersey's biggest builder, this month reported quarterly losses as revenue plunged. Still, the companies narrowed their losses from a year earlier.
"Some buyers are beginning to re-enter the new home market," Robert Toll, chairman and chief executive officer of Toll, said in a June 3 statement. "Cancellations appear to be leveling off" even as "concerns about job security and the economy continue to inhibit traffic," he said.
The rental market in New Jersey, which up to now has only grown stronger as the sales market declined, is finally showing its own signs of weakness. In Edgewater, where Savanna Partners put $100 million into converting the Peninsula at City Place from rental to condo just two years ago, units are now being offered as rentals again. This time with two months free on a 14-month lease.
Jonathan Schultz, a partner at Pyramid Property Partners, the developer and owner, said two and three bedroom apartments were leasing for $2,300 to $2,800 a month, while the two penthouses (which used to be listed for sale at nearly $1 million each) were renting for $3,000. "We've noticed vacancy creep across northern New Jersey," said Jonathan Moore, a vice president at the Value Companies, which owns 3,500 apartments in four states, "Where it used to always be 99 percent occupancy, now you see 96, 95, 94 percent occupancy." Now Value is offering renter incentives at about half its properties, according to Mr. Moore.
Uptick, down tick, recovery or no recovery the numbers coming in are a mixed bag at best.
Richard Bonn is the owner of N-J-Homes-For-Sale.com. For more information on Richard please visit http://www.N-J-Homes-For-Sale.com
Article Source: ArticleSnatch Free Article Directory