The real estate market is booming in New Jersey, and one community about an hour outside of New York City is garnering a lot of attention in particular from potential buyers — so much attention that it is now among the hottest markets in the country.
Just 37 miles from the hustle and bustle of NYC sits the community of Basking Ridge, which since COVID, has exploded in popularity. During the pandemic, many hopeful homeowners set their sights on spots with more space and lower taxes — and their searches took them west of the city, beyond Essex County and into Somerset County.
That popularity has not yet waned. According to realtor.com, Basking Ridge is fourth in all of the U.S. in its latest survey of the hottest real estate markets.
"Even though the median price in Basking Ridge is relatively high, relatively speaking it's a bargain in the New York City metro area," said Realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale.
By the numbers, the average home price in Basking Ridge is just shy of a million dollars, and on the market for slightly over two weeks on average. But the value is what's attracting buyers: They'll pay 33% less per square foot than the New York metropolitan area average, making it one of the hottest destinations for families to settle down and buy a home.
Realtor.com looks at two key metrics in making its top ten list: How many people view the town's listings, and how long houses typically stay on the market. In Basking Ridge, it's just 16 days.
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"We had ten offers and it went way over asking price," said Judy Weiniger, of Weiniger Realty, who noted that she sold a four-bedroom colonial earlier in the summer "within four days."
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While being a "hot town" may be good for sellers, it's a challenge for buyers.
"The demand and our lack of supply, which is happening everywhere in our area, is driving these prices for people who need homes," said Weiniger.
Basking Ridge has benefited from the results of several other surveys that came out earlier in the year: Safewise ranked the town the second safest in all of New Jersey, and Ridge High School, which is the public school in the town, was ranked in the 25 in the state.
As for the rest of the realtor.com list, it leads with Gahanna, Ohio, just outside Columbus. The New Jersey town of Mount Laurel also made the cut at number 6.
Of the top ten hottest real estate markets in the country in the survey, seven are in the Northeast, and only one — Rochester, New York — has more than 50,000 people living there.
