Somerset County February Real Estate sales remain active with 190 Sales
As a Somerset County realtor, I publish this report on a monthly basis to provide information on Somerset County homes for sale including Somerville NJ and all other areas.
Statistics compiled at the end of January of 2012 show an overall current months’ supply of ten months for all of Somerset County in New Jersey. You can see how these statistics are calculated here.
The higher end of the market shows a different picture with only 14 properties of the 190 active listing going under contract in the over $900,000 market resulting in a nearly 18 months’ supply for that market.
Overall, we recorded 190 properties going under contract in January in Somerset County.
Four areas in Somerset County reported no sales at all in January including:
- Rocky Hill Boro
And, these five areas had only had one or two sales each:
- Farr Hills Boro
- Manville Boro
- Millstone Boro
- Raritan Boro
- South Bound Brook
So, of the twenty-one municipalities in Somerset County, six of them (28%) accounted for only seven (4%) of our total sales.
At the same time, there are several hot spots:
- Bernards Township with 21 sales
- Bridgewater Township with 26 sales
- Franklin Township with 36 sales
- No. Plainfield with 15 sales
These 4 areas accounted for 98 (52%) of our total sales.
The latest Months’ Supply by Municipality can be viewed under the “Local Market Update” tab at the top of this page.
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.
Here is a graph showing the activity:
Other conditions impacting this statistic, as recently reported by industry experts are:
- The NJ housing market is continuing to build momentum. This activity is concentrated in the under $400K market which is typically the first time buyer segment. Buyers are taking advantage of the lower home prices and mortgage interest. This does vary by county with the those within easy commuting distance to NYC showing the best results.
- Unsold homes being offered for sale in NJ has continued to fall. This is mainly concentrated in the higher price levels as many sellers have decided to fix up rather than sell at the prices that they now can get for their homes.
- While job recovery in NJ has been slower than for the nation, the state has experiences strong private-sector growth over the past several months and has seen net increases in 15 of the past 22 months. If this trend continues, it will obviously help with the home purchase activity. The last month measured did show a slight loss.
- Foreclosure filings in NJ continue to occur at artificially low levels due to the lingering effect of foreclosure moratoriums. However this is resulting in a growing backlog in the state which has one of the largest shadow inventories in the nation. Our total inventory will rise dramatically as the pace of NJ foreclosure filings resume as NJ now ranks 4th in the country with nearly 1 out of 6 homes in some stage of delinquency.
All of these factors combined are putting further downward pressure on NJ home prices.
One positive note is that interest rates are hovering just under the 4% range and we did sell 190 of the approximately 1,850 properties listed in Somerset County giving us an overall months’ supply of ten.
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.
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