After Hurricane Sandy, there was a lot of concern about its effect on home prices in towns along the Jersey shore.

Would real estate values decline across the board? Would living on barrier islands become less attractive? Would home values decline in the parts of towns hit hard by Sandy and increase in the parts that weren’t affected by flooding?

While we won’t know the answers for several more months, we might get some clues by looking at home sales in the four months since the storm. Let’s look at Fair Haven first.

There was a lot of damage in Fair Haven caused by the high winds that accompanied the storm. However, it wasn’t affected by flooding as much as Rumson, Little Silver, Monmouth Beach, Sea Bright, etc.

Therefore, a disclaimer: What’s happening to the Fair Haven real estate market may not be representative of most towns along the coast.

When we look at Fair Haven home sales in the four-month period from Nov. 1 through Feb. 28, here’s what we find:

I always hesitate to draw conclusions when we’re dealing with less than 20 sales, but this information looks pretty convincing to me: the number of sales is up, the average and median prices have increased, and homes are selling faster.

It certainly doesn’t look like Sandy had a negative influence on Fair Haven real estate.

In 2012 the median selling price of Rumson homes went up by 8 percent, while Fair Haven homes went up by only 3 percent.

Could the last four months be telling us that home prices in Fair Haven will increase by a lot higher percentage this year? I’ll keep track of the sales and I’ll update you every month.

Next time we’ll take a look at Rumson.

Len

Leonard “Len” Dunikoski, GRI

REALTOR^® Associate

Diane Turton Realtors – Rumson Office

8 West River Road

Rumson, NJ 07760

(732) 239-0739  (cell)    (732) 530-6686 (office)

ldunikoski@dianeturton.com

http://www.rumsonfairhavenhome.com