Half-million dollar homes are now the norm in 8 NJ counties

Think about the house in which you grew up. What it was worth back then is no doubt light years from what it’s worth now. A seller’s market continues to frustrate buyers and inventories remain low in the Garden State. The supply and demand stuff you learned back in school was never so in your face as it is now.

When I was a kid, my mom and dad were pretty poor and had to rent. The house I lived in the longest in my hometown of Rahway was on Kline Place next to the middle school. This was it.

A simple, 3 bedroom, 1,204 square foot house. We had to leave in 1975 when the owner died and family put it up for sale. It sold for $34,000.

Today? According to Zillow.com it’s worth $411,000.

Still less than June’s average New Jersey home price of $484,467 but more than the national $348,853.

Back when some of us were young a half-million-dollar home would have been a mansion. It would have been like a home in Alpine compared to what we lived in.

Today though, it’s just becoming the norm. An article on nj.com says in 8 New Jersey counties the average home price is now over half a million dollars.

Those are…

8: Union County

$532,543 average

7: Hunterdon County

$547,204

6: Hudson County

$558,814

5: Essex County

$560,309

4: Somerset County

$572,963

3: Morris County

$598,947

2: Bergen County

$638,016

1: Monmouth County

$639,425

Of those counties, Somerset saw the biggest year-over-year increase, 3.59%.

Will the bubble burst and when? With such low inventories in New Jersey, it’s hard to see that far to any horizon.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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