The name Jeffrey Otteau may not mean anything to you, but it’s a name that’s well known to New Jersey REALTORS®. Jeffrey Otteau is the President of the Otteau Valuation Group, and is well known for his insight into real estate trends. He is frequently quoted in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, and this morning he presented his semi-annual update on the New Jersey real estate market at the Sheraton Eatontown.
As part of his presentation, Mr. Otteau identified the 21 towns with the strongest real estate markets in New Jersey. There were 8 in Bergen County, 4 in Essex County, 2 each in Monmouth and Morris Counties, and 1 each in Hudson, Mercer, Middlesex, Union and Somerset Counties. The two Monmouth County towns that he identified were Fair Haven and Little Silver.
Otteau identified the strongest markets by looking at the real estate absorption rates in each town. If you’ve been following my monthly real estate blogs, you’re familiar with that term. It’s a calculation of how long it would take to sell all of the homes on the market, assuming that homes continue to sell at the rate they have in the past 12 months. According to Otteau, the Fair Haven real estate absorption rate is 2.9 months, a number that clearly indicates a “seller’s market” and predicts stronger (higher) prices in the near future. He reported the Little Silver absorption rate at 2.7 months.
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I calculate the real estate absorption rate slightly differently than he does, but our numbers are very close. I report those numbers in my monthly real estate blogs, together with 3 other objective measures of the local real estate market: number of sales, number of homes listed for sale and year-to-date median selling price. Whether you’re thinking of selling your home or if you’re just interested in local real estate, objective LOCAL data provide the most reliable information for you. Make sure you build a relationship with a REALTOR® who can give you that data.
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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)
