What’s keeping Montclair’s housing market looking, well, less depreciated? It’s not homes selling in the 07043 zip code. Nope — according to this New York Times article, we can thank Montclair’s Estate section in 07042 for keeping the overall average sales values up — at least according to Ken Baris, president of Jordan Baris Realty in West Orange. Baris states 42 homes that sold in the Estate section, sold at a median price of $1.218 million. The article, which compares Montclair, Millburn and West Orange, mentions folks discouraging the use of “Upper” for 07043 as divisive (oh, not that old chestnut again). Lots of interesting zip code talk from realtors on Trulia.
Here are two relatively new listings — one in Upper Montclair, the other in Estate Section.
Both homes are listed for $879,000. The Estate section home, at 9 Locust Drive, is .52 acres with taxes of $23,653. The Upper Montclair home at 3 Wellesley Road is .26 acres and taxes of $21,738. Click on the address links — Locust Drive looks incredibly dated, while Wellesley looks freshly renovated.
How do you predict these will sell? Is Wellesley priced too low? Is Locust too high? Play realtor and tell us what you think will happen.
Actually, the article stated that 07043 and the estate section were keeping values up but the rest of the town had dropped considerably. And that people come to Montclair specifically looking to buy in 07043, but sales people tend to discourage that. So basically, outside of the estate section, 07042 is is not doing so well.
“In the area often called Upper Montclair (ZIP code 07043), the descent to $615,000 from $700,000 was herky-jerky, up and down, between April 1 and the middle of September, according to Altos. But in the rest of town (ZIP code 07042), the median skied nonstop down a steep mountain: $700,000 all the way to $400,000.”
“If you took out the estate section,” Mr. Baris said, “Montclair would have depreciated as a town.”
This was the quote that caught our eye.
Yes, but not because of 07043 which is what you seem to be implying. Just sayin’…
jg – It will be interesting when the assessments are redone for 2012 to compare the 2007 number to the 2012 number. The variations are going to be staggering. I have a friend who owns a condo in town that just settled his tax appeal for an assessment that is almost 40% below his 2007 number. Yet there are homes today that sell close to or above the 2007 assessment.
I also think the revised 2012 tax rate might cause a few cases of cardiac arrest…and not just for members of the CCM.
I think members of our council will be shocked when they see how low property values are in some parts of town. I’ll be paying much more because 07043 is in much better shape than many many other areas of town, even though my house is worth less than it was in 2007. It’s going to be a huge mess and is going to result in many many more appeals.
Thanks jg, but we in the Borough of UPPER MONTCLAIR, aka the “43,” featuring a cool Downtown section in our Uptown, don’t need no defendin’.
We got it like that, we know. But it’s unnecessary (and a wee bit tacky), to speak of ourselves so glowingly. If articles like this make those in LOWER Montclair (“Forty Deuce”) feel better about themselves, so be it.
Really, here in the 43, we’re still partying like it’s 2007!
jg – But the appeals won’t be successful. If Realty Appraisal does what they did in Glen Ridge, and my parent’s own in Monmouth County, the new assessment will be below 100% of market value. Then when you come to informally discuss the accuracy of your assessment they will say “Do you really believe your house is worth less than this number ?” without revealing that “this number” is actually supposed to be only 90% of the value of their home. You won’t win at the county in 2012, unless you can show your home is worth less than that number. And then in 2013, when “that number” is exposed for what it is (90%), the town will get their 15% buffer over the average ratio, so you will still need to show you are above 100% even though the town average is 90%.
Also, a fair number of people will not even question the assessment they are given at all, because they will see the 90% number on paper and think they got a deal. Sadly their neighbor will get a 95% number and also think they got a deal and never question it until it is too late.
It’ll definitely be interesting – I just can’t imagine the ruckus though, if half the town’s taxes go down and the other half’s go up. If the medians mentioned in the article are an indication of overall property values in 07042, that’s a pretty precipitous drop.
In Glen Ridge, most assessments came in below market value, except for a couple of areas: Douglas comes to mind, which had been under-assessed and came in at market value. I heaved a sigh of relief when our assessment was low, and our taxes stayed the same. But the flip side is, if your assessment is low and you want to sell your house at market value, the buyers may have trouble getting a mortgage for more. You just can’t win.
I respect your knowledge, gator, and you’re probably dead on balls accurate. But you are a major downer. Please don’t take offense at this remark, however. I am planning to come back to you for advice when the appraisal goes through and I once again become a desperate man.
Can I just say that it’s a crying shame that I had to work my cojones off today, a day that Liz was apparently the on-duty Barista, because I love nothing more than to pester and cajole her all day long. Well, there may be a few things I love more than that. A cold Guinness, perhaps. Seinfeld reruns. But you get the idea. Oh well, c’est la guerre.
I thought the four-three was in the South Bronx, Prof. Something about Fort Apache?
Sorry walleroo, I just speak the truth. Believe me, no one would be happier than me to not have to make our annual pilgrimage to East Orange anymore.
And one more thing re ASI/Realty Appraisal. When we got our 2007 assessment number, I had no problem getting my property record card from ASI before we went in to meet with them. That allowed me to review the card for accuracy in measurements, condition, etc before we had our meeting and we were able to bring photographs to prove any of the discrepancies. Realty Appraisal refused to provide this to my father before his meeting. This puts the taxpayer at a significant disadvantage, because you have no time to review before the one chance you have to make corrections before you have to pay to litigate. Hopefully that has changed, but it’s something to beware of.
And kit – I think there are quite a few north end neighborhoods that came in more aggressively than homes in the south end as well. Many of the south end homes we looked at sold for significantly more than the assessment. The assessment on the house we bought in the north end was actually 100k above our purchase price. We’ll see what happens when we have our talk with the assessor later this year.
You’re so cute, Conan.
If Paris Hilton can share a name with a famed, beautiful City and we all get that that’s all they share.
We in the “43″ happily share our designation with the South Bronx and any other area.
We know who we are, and what we stand for. So we don’t worry about any confusion.
Interestingly, one of my old haunts was 91943. Actually long ago the town was 92042, and then changed to 919. Then they added 41 and 43. Anyway, just an odd bit of serendipity.
I would say that we are approaching the obvious value range in local real estate, taxes notwithstanding. You really can buy a lot of house in MTC, if you’re willing to bear the tax burden. I remember saying this same thing 20+ years ago too… Arguably the schools are better now, but not as good as some nearby communities, town governance is laughable (taxes), and we have a relatively high baseline of crime. These are the issues that work to depress our values on a relative basis to say, Summit, Short Hills, Essex Fells, etc.
07042 vs 07043 is a canard. This is a large town with many nuances that new arrivals would probably never be aware of. The reason that 07042 has had higher priced sales is pretty much because thats where the majority of the larger houses are, and many of those houses have declined a fair amount on a relative percentage basis. The availability of size and scale also attracts newcomers.
Transportation, shopping, parks, basically every part of town has something going for it. The kids all go to the same schools. You can buy a big “look at me” house, or a jewel in a great enclave across town. Your neighbors are going to be pretty much these same people you see in restaurants or along the sidelines at the soccer game.
If you’ve got money you can find value in the higher end of our housing stock. Buyers in today’s market are people that have cash to put to work, unlike the prior influx of people that were leveraged to the hilt, and now finding that absent esoteric financing they can’t afford an 800m house on a 150m income.
not worth 879k…crazy how high some of these listings are, buyer pool is so so so thin…no point in buying a house, at least in montclair right now especially with taxes at 24k/yr. Rates are super low you can borrow for free and still homes are sitting on the mkt for a while, my bid would be 25 to 30% below ask on both of these, levering resi equity is a terrible trade right now, especially with the carry costs (taxes) as high as they are, do something else with your money, get a nice rental and wait for prices to crash further bc they will as rates have to rise to combat core inflation although since no job growth home px’s will drop and then drop even further with said increasing rates (As borrowing costs increase) stay far away!!