Bergen County housing market flattens due to minuscule inventory

According to Neal, people looking to buy a home are in a position where they have no choice but to move. This includes people getting divorced, real estate sales and bankruptcies. This dynamic is forcing many buyers to renew their leases or overpay for them.

Data from Alto’s research reflects what officers see in Bergen County.

New listings there have taken a big dive since November. While a decline in listings is a normal part of the seasonal cycle, the pace has slowed dramatically. By the end of November, the 90-day moving average of new listings was up 18.5% year over year. Today that growth rate is just 3.8%.

The seven-day rolling average of new listings has fallen 66.7% – the third week in a row it has plummeted by a huge margin. But it should be noted that the weekly counts are volatile. The most recent number of new entries is only five.

Current home sales have also fallen. While the 90-day moving average continues to rise 17.2% year over year, it is a far cry from late November, when the figure rose 29.9%. More telling in the short term is that weekly new supply is down 86.9% year over year.

Altos Research’s Market Action Index measures the balance of power between buyers and sellers. The current reading on a 90-day rolling basis is 45. The index considers any score above 30 as an advantage for sellers.

“We are still in a seller’s market, but what we are not seeing are as many offers as before,” Keller Williams Officer Laura Gill said. “If it’s a renovated, cute little starter home in the $500,000 to $600,000 price range, we might still get 20 offers. But for anything in a more typical price range of, let’s call it $900,000, you’ll still get multiple offers. But it would be five or six offers rather than twenty.”

Buyers will have a hard time finding the starter home that Gill describes. Altos data shows the median home price in Bergen County is $925,000. That’s good for 5.7% annualized growth over a 90-day period. While that’s a reasonable growth rate, it has dropped significantly since early 2024, when the province recorded a price increase of almost 20%.

Looking ahead, it is difficult to see that the situation will improve any time soon. Mortgage interest rates remain high, with the current 30-year conforming interest rate at almost 7.1%. HousingWireMortgage Interest Center. The Federal Reserve has indicated that any rate cuts in 2025 may not be as large or frequent as previously forecast, and Bergen County home buyers do not have a rosy view of conditions in the new year.

“There’s hope, but no real optimism,” Neal said. “They hope there can be a Trump effect. They hope that there could be an inflation effect or a rate cut by the Fed. There is hope, but no real confidence.”