>In Market Reports, Some Affluent Towns Do Better Than Others
By ANTOINETTE MARTIN
Published: February 17, 2011
AFFLUENT towns are different from other towns. Their citizens have more money, of course, and their homes have more value.
But some affluent towns are different from other affluent towns, in that their median home values rose significantly last year.
In the last quarter of 2010, the median sales price for the entire state rose by 1 percent from the year before, according to a new market report from the Otteau Valuation Group in New Brunswick. To this somewhat surprising news, the group’s president, Jeffrey G. Otteau, hastened to add that even that faint increase was unlikely to continue.
The rise after a long-term decline was most likely the result of a court-ordered moratorium on foreclosures at the end of the year, and will be reversed when the moratorium is lifted, which is expected to be soon, Mr. Otteau said.
Yet, throughout 2010 and much of 2009, there was a small group of communities that seemed impervious to the overall trend of declining prices — or else extremely resilient if dips occurred.
In the Bergen County village of Ridgewood, for instance, the median sales price (at which half the homes sold for more and half for less) rose 8.7 percent in the last quarter, versus the same period in 2009. The median price was $700,000, according to the latest statistics from Otteau. In 2009 it was $644,000.
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/20/realestate/20njzo.html?_r=1
