Michael's Bergen Blog

Median sold prices for single family homes and for condos/co-ops/townhouses have turned up in the last one to two months. But the median price of multi-family homes is trending slightly downward. That difference may be partially a result of the home buyer tax credits, which apply only to primary...

The decrease in average sales price from 2008 to 2009 in northwest Bergen County was 11%. But a closer look at how it breaks down is very telling. Homes with two or three bedrooms were down only 7% while homes with six or seven bedrooms were down 31%. However even the high end of the market has b...

The number of homes on the market in Bergen County is surprisingly low. With 3,078 active homes, inventory hasn't been this low in January since 2005. In addition, the number of homes currently under contract in mid-January is at a three-year low. At the high end of the market, the news for sell...

The Ridgewood area real estate market has been holding its own over the last year. As you can see from the charts below, the median price hasn't changed much, except for the usual price bump during the spring market. And the year ended with an inventory level lower than where it started. In gene...

The improvement over last fall in the number of home sales is dramatic. In Bergen County, homes under contract over the last 30 days is up 50% over the same period last year. The median sales price is down 9.2%.In northwest Bergen County, where foreclosures are much less common, activity is up 54...

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 ...

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 ...

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 pro...

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 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 t...