MAY 9, 2015, 11:30 PM LAST UPDATED: SATURDAY, MAY 9, 2015, 11:41 PM
BY KATHLEEN LYNN AND DAVE SHEINGOLD
STAFF WRITERS |
THE RECORD
Andrea and Joe Buccino bought their first home, a Cape Cod in Wallington, for $385,000 in 2005. A decade later, they put it on the market for $299,000 — one of many examples of how home values in North Jersey, like much of the nation, have struggled to recover since being slashed in the Great Recession.
An analysis of 2014 property sales data by The Record found that prices across most of Bergen and Passaic counties saw virtually no change last year. Overall in Bergen County, the median price of $405,000 remains 14.7 percent below the 2006 median peak of $475,000; Passaic County’s median is still off 25 percent, at $285,000. (Nationally, prices are about 16 percent below their peaks.)
And the slow recovery is most dramatic in the region’s lower-income, lower-priced housing markets.
At the top end of the market, in towns where the median value was at least $700,000 in 2006, prices are about 11 percent below their peaks. Homes in the middle range of values are about 17 percent off their peaks.
But at the lower end — in towns like Hackensack, Wallington, Garfield and Paterson — values held down by a greater concentration of foreclosures and distressed sales have barely recovered. They continue to languish 30 percent below their peaks — 26 percent if you take out Paterson and Passaic, where housing distress has been especially acute.
In actual dollars and cents, the housing troubles translate into median prices that are down in Paterson from $340,000 in 2006, to $185,000 in 2014; from $330,000, to $205,000 in Hackensack; $410,000, to $281,000 in Garfield; $380,000, to $250,000 in the city of Passaic; $423,000, to $260,000 in Wallington; and $410,000, to $300,000 in Elmwood Park.
At the high end of the market, the numbers tell a much different story. The median price in Ridgewood, for example, has climbed back to $685,000, near the 2006 peak of $710,000. In Ho-Ho-Kus, the median price in 2014 was $725,000, compared with $750,000 in 2006. While in Englewood Cliffs, the 2014 median of $1.1 million surpassed the $1.09 million median in 2006. Saddle River’s 2014 median of $1.5 million is approaching 2006’s $1.71 million. And agents in those towns describe the market as hot.
The picture is similar statewide, though there’s less gap between the low and the high ends of the market.
Comparisons with the peak of the market can be tricky. Prices in the years before the crash shot up annually, often by double digits, fueled by loose lending standards that led many households to borrow more than they could afford, leading to foreclosures and short sales, in which lenders accept less than is owed on the mortgage. The collapse, according to some experts, merely brought prices back to more realistic levels.
While the relatively stagnant prices at the lower end are good news for some buyers, homeowners who bought at or near the peak and are looking to move up, face being stuck with a big loss, or just stuck.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/price-gap-hinders-housing-recovery-across-north-jersey-1.1330541
