Hunterdon County’s only Monthly Real Estate

Market Conditions Newsletter

Hunterdon County May Real Estate sales remain active

As a Hunterdon County Realtor, I publish this report on a monthly basis to provide information on Hunterdon County homes for sale, including Flemington and Clinton NJ homes and real estate for sale, as well as all other Hunterdon County property.

Statistics compiled at the end of May of 2012 show an overall current months’ supply of ten months for all of Hunterdon County in New Jersey.

If your house is over $500,000 these statistics show that it is taking approximately fourteen months to sell a house.

And, If your house is over $700,000 these statistics show that it is Taking over twenty months to sell a house.  At the same time we have over 210 listings in the over $700,000 price range, putting further pressure on pricing in these upper price points.

You can see how these statistics are calculated here.

We did record 118 properties going under contract in April which is down 16% from the the 141 that was recorded for the prior month in Hunterdon.  And, at the during that same period, we listed 239 new properties.

These five areas in Hunterdon County reported no sales at all in May including:

• Bloomsbury
• Califon
• Flemington
• Frenchtown
• Stockton

And, these nine areas had only had one or two sales each:

• Bethlehem Twp.
• Clinton (town)
• Delaware Twp.
• E. Amwell
• Franklin Twp.
• Hampton
• Kingwood
• Milford
• W. Amwell

So, of the twenty-six municipalities in Hunterdon County, nine of them (35%) accounted for only eleven or 9% of our total sales last month.

At the same time, there were the several usual hot spots:

• Clinton Township with 21 sales
• Raritan Township with 33 sales
• Readington Township with 16 sales

These three areas accounted for seventy (59%) of our total sales last month.

An interesting disparity is arising as the average new listing came on the market is May at nearly $488,400 while the average sale in May was at nearly $395,000, or  24% less.  If this trend continues, it will be curious as to what further effect it will have on pricing in Hunterdon County.

When these numbers are broken down by price point, they look as follows:

While you could argue that some of these computations do not have enough statistics within them to be representative and are not only factor in measuring the market conditions for a specific area, in general they are a strong barometer of how a particular local market is doing.

Other conditions impacting this statistic, as recently reported by industry experts are:

• Home Sales:

Home purchase demand rose in April as consumer sentiment improved,  coupled with signs of stabilizing home priced favorably affected the market.  Another important factor driving the recent improvement is that the home purchase affordability has risen to dramatically in NJ due to the effects of low interest rates and price corrections since the peak.

In April, purchase contracts in NJ increased 23% compared to one year earlier and 25% on a YTD basis.

And, unsold inventory has declined 12% over the past year with the greatest declines in the over $1 Million market.

State-wide homes below $1 Million are at 8 months of sales (nearing normal market conditions which are 4 to 6 months of sales).  We have not seen these types of numbers in the past few years.

• New Jersey Job Front:

The US pace of job creation has slowed over the past few months.

At the same time New Jersey is showing the best improvements since 2000.

This should help the New jersey real Estate recovery.

• Rentals:

This market is being affected by two trends:

More restrictive mortgage standards are forcing younger age buyers to postpone their transition to home ownership until later in life than was previously seen.

And, many older age households are selling their homes and moving into rentals to close their gap in underfunded retirement plans which were affected by the recent economic downturns.

• Foreclosures:

While new foreclosure filings are down in New Jersey (as compared to last year) the state is still one of the worst in the nation in terms of mortgage delinquency.

This will have a lingering effect on New Jersey home prices.

All of these factors combined are putting  further downward pressure on NJ home prices.

One positive note is that interest rates are hovering just at or under the 3.75% range and we did sell 118 of the approximately 1224 properties listed in Hunterdon County last month giving us an overall months’ supply of ten.

Other recent Real Estate related News Items…

Houses that are priced properly are selling.  There is a current market for them with many active buyers.  More than ever, you need to be working with an experienced agent who has a strong grasp if the market conditions specific to your local area.

I can share information on all of these statistics with you.  Just call me at (908) 238-0118.

____________________________________________

____________________________________________