James Thomas Boyer

Many would be home buyers have been sitting on the fence trying to time the New Jersey real estate market for quite a while now.  The question now though is, have we reached a bottom?  Will these New Jersey home buyers know the bottom when it is reached? 

The answer the the first questions is probably we have reached a bottom, but in reality you cannot really know a bottom has been put in until probably 12 months afterwords, when it is too late to have taken advantage of that so called bottom.

The answer to the second question in about 99% of the cases is a resounding NO.  Most home buyers who are sitting waiting for the optimum time to buy wait to long.  Why do they wait to long, they tend to listen to the news media to much.  The news media is the same group who was overly optimistic in 2003 - 2006 basically telling people that housing affordability was running away from them and they better jump on board or that train was going to leave them behind for ever.  I still remember some of the news reports talking about an entire generation of people who would end up being renters and never being able to own a home.

New Jersey Real Estate Update

Let me first state a long held belief I have had about the homes that are for sale.  In general only about 20% of the NJ homes listed for sale are actually priced to sell.  The other 80% of the homes that are listed in gsmls are just listed, the home owner and their NJ REALTOR have not priced the home for reality.

Morristown NJ homes for sale

There are currently 118 homes listed in gsmls with an active status.  In reality there are probably only 24 homes listed for sale at prices that will draw a ready and willing NJ home buyer.

Madison NJ homes for sale

There are 60 homes in Madison New Jersey listed in gsmls with a active status.  In reality there are likely only 12 homes that are currently priced to actually sell.  12 homes is not much.

Chatham NJ homes for sale

There are currently 105 Chatham Boro & Chatham Township.  That means that probably 21 homes are actually priced to sell in Chatham New Jersey.  That is not much, I have 3 different home buyers who are interested in Chatham, and let me tell you there are some great deals availible, and there are some real stinkers for the price.

Summit NJ homes for sale

124 Summit NJ homes listed in gsmls.  That means that likely 25 homes are actually priced to sell in Summit New Jersey.  I have shown or previewed at least 30 homes in Summit in the past 3 weeks, once again there are some very good deals, and there are some Summit NJ home owners who need a reality check.

There are many other towns that I do business in and know a great deal about.  Too many in fact to keep on listing, but the same metric seems to apply in all of them, only about 20 percent of those listed for sale in gsmls our local Multiple Listing Service are really priced so that they will sell.

With mortgage brokers like my friend Bob Scarzella (908-252-3958 Office, Robert_Scarzella@countrywide.com) over at Country Wide quoting rates as low as 4.75%  on a 30 year fixed as recently as 01/08/09 Mortgages are a great deal.  With home selling prices hovering around the 2004 / 2005 level, and the Federal Government doing everything possible to end the housing recession, now is likely a great time to be a home buyer in Northern New Jersey.  It is unlikely that prices will decline much from here.

Don’t forget the $7500 first time home buyer credit expires on July 1, 2009

James Boyer
NJ REALTOR
RE/MAX Properties Unlimited
973-539-6300 Office
973-647-0253 Direct

 The Community Food Bank Fail! No Way!!

We all know that times are tuff, the economy is slow, people are losing their jobs, and fewer people are able to contribute to charity.  It is possible that people could be going hungry with all this going on.

You can help.  Please give a little bit.  Contribute to the Community Food Bank of New Jersey.

People of all walks of like are finding times tuff, we in the New Jersey Real Estate business have been feeling the pain of the downturn of the New Jersey real estate markets for the past 2 years now and many of my fellow New Jersey Realtors have had to leave the business to be able to support their families.  Those of us who are holding tuff and sticking with the the business in places like the Morristown NJ real estate market will be giving back in any way we can.

James Boyer
Morristown NJ REALTOR
RE/MAX Properties Unlimited
973-539-6300 Office
973-647-0253 Direct

Community Food Bank of New Jersey | New Jersey Real Estate | New Jersey Realtor | Morristown NJ Real Estate, Morristown NJ Realtor | MLS # 2600522

There seems to be this attraction to a perceived deal.  Why not, everyone wants to get a deal on something right.  Well I am here to tell you there are plenty of great deals out there on New Jersey Real Estate.

Here is what you need to know about buying a foreclosure in New Jersey before you get all excited about it.

• When buying a foreclosure there is no option to do a home inspection.
• When buying a foreclosure the foreclosing bank will not turn on the water, electric, gas, or other utilities.
• When buying a foreclosure you the buyer are responsible to get the Certificate of Habitability that many towns here in Northern New Jersey require.
• The risks of purchasing a foreclosure are high compaired to purchasing a regular home, but so are the potential rewards.

If you are thinking of purchasing a New Jersey foreclosure home it would be wise to work with a New Jersey Realtor who has purchased foreclosed property in the past and has flipped property successfully.  That way you can improve your chances of success in this potentially very rewarding investment.

James Boyer
New Jersey REALTOR
RE/MAX Properties Unlimited
973-539-6300 Office
973-647-0253 Direct

Excellence in Summit NJ Real Estate and surrounding communities.

October was a interesting month for home sales in Morristown New Jersey.  With the credit crunch there were certainly some home purchase deals which fell apart because of mortgage companies not wanting to fund the home purchase loan, and there were some home buyers who were scared away by all the bad news. 

It happens every presidential election year where a new person takes office.  Everyone becomes much more possitive once the new guy is elected, and the possitive attitude only increases once the newly elected president takes office.

The general public’s attitude has been so negative over the past several months, negative to the point that it is not sustainable.  I think that it is not going to take much to turn things moderately more possitive.  These sorts of things tend to feed on themselves actually.  Once the public’s mood starts to turn, more possitive things will start to happen, and then the next wave of possitive things will happen.

I believe that the New Jersey real estate market will be this way as well.  Just this weekend, I took 3 different couples out to look at homes, and I have to say that the deals were so good, that all of them were amazed.  Two of the three couples are seriously considering putting offers in on homes we looked at this weekend.

To me this is a very good sign for the Morristown NJ real estate market, as well as Chatham New Jersey and Summit New Jersey.  For more information about Morristown NJ homes for sale visit the Morristown website listed here.

I came accross this article today while reading Ryan Ward’s Atlanta Real Estate blog.  I found it interesting, though I do not agree with everything it has to say.  The article is published by the National Bureau of Economic Research and can be found here.

The Link Between Foreclosures and House Prices

House-price declines vary across states and … headlines pointing to extreme circumstances in a few states can be misleading about the United States as a whole. Despite increased foreclosure rates throughout the country, only 12 states are projected to see price declines of 6 percent or more through 2009.

Rising foreclosures will not cause U.S. home values to plunge, despite widespread concerns to the contrary. That’s the conclusion of a new and first-of-its-kind study, The Foreclosure-House Price Nexus: Lessons from the 2007-2008 Housing Turmoil (forthcoming as an NBER Working Paper) by Charles Calomiris, Stanley Longhofer, and William Miles. Although the authors recognize that other factors not captured by their analysis could weigh on home prices, the effects of foreclosure shocks - which promise to grow over the next several months, and which have been a source of worry to homeowners and economists - seem to be smaller than many have feared. Even under their most extreme scenario, in which foreclosure rates would substantially exceed current forecasts, the resulting average drop in home prices between the national peak in the second quarter of 2007 and the fourth quarter of 2009 would be less than 6 percent.

The authors emphasize that house-price declines vary across states and argue that headlines pointing to extreme circumstances in a few states can be misleading about the United States as a whole. Despite increased foreclosure rates throughout the country, only 12 states are projected to see foreclosure-induced price declines of 6 percent or more through 2009, led by Nevada, Florida, California, and Arizona. “This suggests that home prices are quite sticky, and that fears of a major fall in house prices, with all of its attendant negative macroeconomic consequences, typically are not warranted even in extreme foreclosure circumstances,” they write.

Part of the reason that foreclosure shocks have small effects on house prices is that these shocks tend to occur late in the housing cycle, after housing starts have declined and the supply of existing homes on the market has fallen sharply. These effects largely offset the price consequences of a supply surge caused by foreclosures.

Another contributing factor to the observed stability of house prices is the measure of price change chosen by the authors. The authors argue that it is appropriate to focus on a house price measure related to the prime conforming segment of the mortgage market (which accounts for more than three quarters of American homes). The authors seek to measure foreclosure effects on the values of homes sold by typical sellers, not the declines in prices of homes undergoing foreclosure-induced distress sales. They argue, therefore, that the house price index from the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) — which does not include subprime home sales — is the most reliable and useful dataset for their purposes.

Using quarterly data for each state going back to 1981, the authors model the dynamic linkages among five variables: foreclosures, home prices, employment, permits issued for single-family homes, and existing home sales. Using state-level data makes it possible to measure linkages using the frequent and significant ups and downs that occur in state and regional housing markets. In contrast to the aggregate national market, individual states have seen larger and more volatile swings in foreclosures and house prices since the 1980s. By concentrating on the states, the authors also can take into account the effects of widely varying employment growth during that period — an effect that continues to define important regional differences, in particular between housing trends in the Rust Belt and the West.

One limitation of the authors’ model is that it assumes that rising foreclosure rates have the same incremental effect on house prices regardless of whether the foreclosure rate is high or low. In fact, the incremental effect of increases in foreclosures on prices is much larger when foreclosure rates are high than when they are low. The authors adjust their model to account for this by increasing their assumed foreclosure forecasts for 2008-9 by 53 percent. To test the sensitivity of their results to even greater foreclosure risks, they also build an “extreme-shock” scenario and boost the foreclosure projections by 75 percent. These two scenarios create modest downdrafts in home prices that average 4.7 and 5.5 percent, respectively, through 2009.

“We do not have a crystal ball,” the authors conclude. “Our estimates are based on relationships among house prices, foreclosures, and other variables observed in the past. It is conceivable that unusually tight consumer credit conditions, or other factors, could weigh on the housing market and produce more price decline than we estimate.” But “based on the past experience of the housing cycle, even when one proverbially bends over backwards to inflate estimated foreclosures and take account of…their effects on house prices, there is no reasonable basis…for believing (as many commentators do) that the housing wealth of consumers has fallen or will fall by much more than 5 percent,” they write.

– Laurent Belsie

I think that the research does not much relate to the real estate markets of Northern New Jersey though.  Here the Foreclosure rate has not been nearly as high for several reasons.  1. many of the homes in the area are owned by long time residents who purchased their homes years ago. 2. There were not near as many sub-prime loans written for purchase of New Jersey Real Estate. 3. In Northern New Jersey we have a considerably higher number of people who work in or with the finance industries and as such likely are a little more financially savvy when it comes to understanding different loan products.

With the recent financial issues on Wall Street we shall see if the recovery in the Northern New Jersey real estate markets will continue, or be pushed down once again.

James Boyer
Summit NJ REALTOR
RE/MAX Properties Unlimited
973-647-0253 Direct
973-539-6300 Office
Summit NJ Real Estate Pro

Summit NJ Real Estate | Get Your Next Home Here

The Summit NJ Real Estate market continues to preform much better then the New Jersey Real Estate markets in general.  As anyone who knows much about Summit New Jersey, Summit is one of those special places that seems to have everything going for it.  To be truthful, Summit New Jersey has its issues just like any other town here in New Jersey or dare I say accross America.

For many people outside of New Jersey, Summit tends to be a starting place for doing research on the area and deciding where they should buy their next home.  This is because Summit is one of the best known towns in New Jersey, well best known for all it’s positive aspects.

Some of the many positive things Summit New Jersey is known for.

• Great Public Schools, Summit’s schools are continually rated among the best in the state.
• The Midtown Direct Train Line, from Summit you can be in Manhattan in 37 minutes.
• Wonderful, Walkable Downtown. There are many great Restaurants, Shops, and more
• Historic Victorian and Colonial architecture, Summit’s tree lined streets are a site to behold.
• Summit NJ is just minutes from the Short Hills Mall, The most upscale mall in America.

Thinking of buying one of the Summit NJ homes for sale, or looking for New Jersey homes for sale visit jboyerhomes.com where you will find every home listed in the MLS system.

James Boyer
Summit NJ REALTOR
RE/MAX Properties Unlimited
973-539-6300 Office
973-647-0253 Direct

This comes from a real life experience I have had and a swear I do not know what the New Jersey REALTOR was thinking when he/she said this.  I do know that it was one of the worst things that could be said in front of buyers from outside of the United States. 

My impression of what people from outside of the United State think of this country is, that the US is full of violent crime and that everyone experiences it at some point in their lives.  We all know that this is not true, but this is my perceived view of what people from other countries think of us.

So I was at a real estate closing with my home sellers attorney, and the home buyers attorney, the buyers REALTOR and the home buyers of course are all sitting in the conference room with the door to the conference room wide open, so we can hear everything that is being said in that conference room.   All of the sudden the buyers had a question about the alarm system in the house, and who should they call to activate it right away.  The home buyers REALTOR chimes in and says, oh you don’t have to hurry, I still have not hooked up my alarm system, and I have not had a problem.  He/She continues by saying, even after the guy across the street from me was kidnapped and murdered I did not feel like the alarm was needed. 

Now to this everyone who was not in the room just winced and wondered out loud, he/she did not just say that did they?  I still cannot believe a New Jersey REALTOR would even talk about such a thing in front of any home buyer, let alone home buyers who are moving here from another country.

New Jersey Real Estate Agents should know better than to say anything so shocking, be it true or not true, it is just not a good subject to talk about, and possibly could be viewed as a violation of ethics to be talking about crime in specific neighborhoods.  I know that everything I have learned in the five years I have been a full time REALTOR has taught me never to say such things.  Being a New Jersey Real Estate agent comes with some things that just are not to be talked about.

James Boyer
New Jersey REALTOR
RE/MAX Properties Unlimited
973-539-6300 Office
973-647-0253 Direct

For more New Jersey Real Estate news visit the NJ Real Estate Blog

Well, here we are at the end of June 2008 and the New Jersey real estate market keeps perking along.  To be sure there is a lot of fear among the public that home prices will continue to decline.  That is quite possible, though it is good to keep in mind that even if home prices were to drop 10% if mortgage interest rates go up 1% your buying power is reduced by about 9%. 

 The lesson to be learned is that even if you hold out for a lower price on a New Jersey home but have to pay a higher mortgage interest rate, in the end your cost is about the same.

 Visit the bloodhoundblog for a update on the mortgage industry and the federal reserve actions.

If you are interested in Northern New Jersey Real Estate visit the Morris County NJ Real Estate source.

Summit, Chatham, Madison, & Morristown NJ Home Buyers, The Bottom In Mortgage Rates Has Been Reached, and actually interest rates have been slowly drifting higher over the past few months.

With the United States dollar continuing to be weak and inflation growing in the economy it is not surprising that home mortgage interest rates are moving higher.  Future home buyers should not expect to see mortgage interest rates to be moving down again in the near future. (more…)