What Are the Biggest Challenges In Our Market?

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One of the biggest challenges facing buyers and sellers today in the New Jersey Commuter Towns market is bank appraisals. They’ve been coming in very conservatively lately. In fact, three homes we sold in the last week had appraisal issues. There are a few reasons this is happening.

For one, a lot of these appraisers are not local and don’t know the local market, so their appraisals are bound to be off. Appraisers are also ignoring some comparable sales while picking sales that aren’t as relevant. Appraisers don’t put a premium on certain features that a buyer or seller had.

Appraisals take into account what has sold, so they only take into account what has passed, not what’s currently selling and under contract. Getting a re-appraisal is almost impossible these days, so it’s making our job as Realtors difficult. We want to get the highest value possible for your home, but a bad appraisal leaves us with only a few options.

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Hope for the best but plan for the worst.

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The buyer can walk with their entire deposit, they can split the difference, or in rare instances, they can make up the entire difference themselves. It’s good to hope for the best but plan for the worst. Just make sure you give yourself a healthy buffer, in terms of cash, when moving forward.

If you have any questions for us or you’re looking to buy or sell yourself, give us a call or send us an email. We’d be happy to help!

June Market Snapshot of New Jersey

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Selling a home? Click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation

On June 6th, 2016 I took a snapshot of the real estate stats in various areas of New Jersey that I serve. I intentionally excluded condos and townhomes just to make things even. If you take a look at the graphic in the above video, you can see some interesting stats by column. Here's what we found:

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Most of the towns with train lines close 

to New York are strong.

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• Most of the towns with train lines close to New York are strong.
• Fanwood and Cranford have the highest number of homes under contract compared to the number of homes for sale.
• New Providence has the highest original list price vs. sold price ratio and the shortest days on market.
• Summit and Westfield are not as hot as you would think, and towns like Bloomfield are doing much better than you would think.
• Towns without train lines are not faring so well.
• Watchung, Warren, and Basking Ridge are faring worse than you would think. Warren only has 28% of its homes under contract, which is quite dismal.
• Basking Ridge and Watchung are also not faring well at only 41% and 42% respectively.
• Great schools are not a guarantee to sell your home quickly or for top dollar.

Thanks for watching today. Please let me know if you'd like me to send you these stats for a closer look. If you or anybody you know is looking to sell and needs professional advice, give me a call!