Where are all the homes for sale?
I check multiple websites daily and I see the same listings over and over. Are people not selling right now? I've been looking for about 6 months now and nothing!
house hunting 
Skippy You may already be trying www.zillow.com as well as MSN Real Estate and Yahoo Real Estate, but the thing is, even if houses were on the market, they are sometimes taken off right before the school year starts so as not to disrupt the children's school year. Usually people will start putting homes up for sale in the early Spring in hopes of a sale as the school year is ending.
Of course that's only for people that don't have an urgent need for relocation.
Phil D. Might be time for a little help. Call lnn larocco of remax in flanders. She sold our house inone week in kenwood. Got our price. Lives in the neighborhood. Good luck!
dsl102927 Mine just went under contract, after only a couple of weeks on the market.
Keep looking often, and if something you like pops on the market, jump on it.
JerseyWolf did you know there is a real estate section of the classifieds on hackettstown life? Lists homes for sale and open houses. There's even some today. Good luck!
DoxieMommy Two things - people are selling left and right. There are 150 homes for sale just in Hackettstown/Mansfield/Independence. Add other areas and there's lots of inventory.
Second - if you're only going to look at websites, you're missing out on any number of homes. You have to be active and not passive if you really want to find something right for you. These days some listings already have contracts and are there just to get customers in, others are exclusive and held back on MLS. You're going to need to be looking at FSBO resources as well as agents.
GC Perhaps your budget and your expectations are not in line. Quit watching HGTV and be sure you know what's out there in the real world. Good luck!
maja there are quite a few for sale in kenwood section, behind fast alley on mountain ave in hackettstown.
Dansker GC, the OP is saying they are seeing all the same inventory, not that there isn't any. And they are right that there are a lot of homes that just aren't selling.
Maja may be right about being picky, but if one has time to be picky isn't that what you should do?
house hunting, I've been looking too and feel the same way. Just doesn't seem to be "a lot" of new stuff being added regularly in the style I've been looking for. The FSBO sites I have looked at haven't been great either.
Besides having an agent, and looking at gsmls, zillow, trulia, realtor.com, and a hodgepodge of fsbo sites, what other search tools are available?
Justintime 
Darleen We put our on the market and went under contract in 4 days- I think there are still a lot of homes that are WAY over priced. It's probably because they bought really high. All the houses that are priced right are moving quickly.
What this means for you....you need a realtor that is proactive. I know that they can set up a search of what you are looking for and if a house meeting that criteria goes on the market you know immediately
Also, it seems like houses over $350K are the ones sitting around. People don't want those large homes or mortgages anymore. However, it seems like homes between 200k-275k sell pretty quickly if priced right.
Nosila a friend and I each used http://www.terrymeolasellshomes.com/ Terry Meola and we were very pleased with her services. She went above and beyond. She lives in PV and knows it well.
5catmom You need to get to the weekly MLS Weekly Flash Sheets to see just what comes up new that week; a million years ago that's how we did it given our search took months. With the weekly updates, we just scanned the new stuff coming in.
Yeah we had to have an agent, but he stepped out of the way and just gave us the flash reports and we only used him once we decided to look at something.
strangerdanger Agreed about the emailings - OP, definitely have your agent sign you up if you don't already get them. They are very helpful. Our experience with them confirms pretty much what the OP is saying though, at least given the parameters we're looking for.
Regardless of what people think,imop real estate is doing goo right now. You have to move fast if you see something you like. I bought my house last year everything we looked at was overpriced and needed work. When we did find a nice place there were allready multiple offers in place. The one we got was only on the market 2 weeks. Had to pay asking price to beat out 3 other offers.
Forcefed4door I think there are a lot of potential buyers, yes. But IMO prices are still too high on most listings which is why so many stay listed for so long.
The other part, which could just be my biases showing, is that home prices themselves aren't really too bad if you think about the cost of compatible new construction. It's the property taxes on top of the home price that makes the entire deal look bad. I've seen quite a few homes that I thought were priced right, but after throwing in the property taxes the numbers just didn't make sense.
There have been 5 homes sold in our neighborhood in the last two months. All within a couple of days of listing. Not enough time to even be on and off MLS.
Mark Mc. Completely forgot about these reports:
http://www.10kresearch.com/reports/NJAR/NJAR_NCJAR_MMI_2015-07.pdf
Change the month and year to see other reports. This is for "North Jersey", and I don't think it includes Warren County. If anyone finds comparable reports please post.
Btw GC, your neighborhood is one of the few newer places in the area. Wouldn't you expect people to want newer over old? No surprise that homes sell quick there.
JIT - There are a dozen places as new or newer including the development next door and neighborhoods in both Independence and Mansfield. That's irrelevant - the point is plenty of homes are selling quickly as several people here have said. Sitting on their hands over the internet and watching web sites isn't going to tune anyone into that.
If you are looking for the "properly" priced home and good taxes, you will need to leave NJ or be very patient in your search.
CraftBeerBob GC, you're assuming the op is sitting and waiting. In the homestyle they are looking for what makes you sure what they are saying is false. Don't you suppose the specifics of what they are looking for makes a difference?
And newer homes being more desirable than not is irrelevant? Whatever you say GC...
JIT- I agree, the home prices aren't too expensive it's the taxes that are turning people off.
I think I need a new realtor, the one I'm working with isn't working for me. I have to send him listings and he ignores my email for days and when he finally gets back to me, the house I was interested in is gone! That's happened twice already!
GC- if looking online for homes doesn't work, what do you suggest I do...drive around looking for homes for sale and hoping they're in my price range???
"I think I need a new realtor, the one I'm working with isn't working for me. I have to send him listings and he ignores my email for days and when he finally gets back to me, the house I was interested in is gone! That's happened twice already!"
RUN!!! You want a realtor that WANTS to work. You should never have to wait days to get a response. You def have the wrong realtor and that could be your issue.
What is your price range if you don't mind me asking?
house hunting - Your original post said nothing about price. Which is it - number of houses, or the price?
If the houses have disappeared, it's got nothing to do with the listing. It's the realtor. You're right. You needed a new one after the first time that happened, let alone the second.
I am a referral agent and have access to the top 1% of agents for anywhere in the world.
If u r interested in getting the name of a good agent for the area u r looking u can PM me and I'll get u some names.
Nellejoy househunting. I don't know what your timeline is, but my house will be up for sale next may. We had it built in 1996 ,4 bedroom in a very nice community near rt.46 in Liberty twp..If you would like more into, please leave your email or a way to get in touch..If we can do this without a real estate agent , we both will save some money...
boobalaa I also live in Liberty Township near Mountain Lake. 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath, just under 1/2 acre and will be listing within the year. Let me know if interested.
If i only new thenAnother suggestion, for you, would be to do some "reverse advertising." Basically, place some friendly "house wanted ads" on places like HackettstownLife. Include your desired location, criteria, move-in date, price range, whether you're pre-approved for a mortgage or paying cash, whether you have an existing house to sell, etc. Invite FSBO sellers and sellers' agents to contact you.
Yes, you're going to have to deal with a bit of "spam" emails, and you may want to create a new email address, just for the ad. You're also going to get a bunch of agents offering to represent you. Just be polite and respond to all. If you're not interested in a particular house, tell them why, and invite them to contact you, if they learn about any others.
If you're lucky, what may happen is that someone planning to sell a home, or a friend of such a person, or an agent who is planning to list a home in the very-near future, will contact you, in order to possibly save themselves some time, trouble and/or agent commissions. Remember--anyone who is planning to list a home for sale knows about it, before they actually list it.
If you find a house you want to see, you don't need to use "your realtor".
ANY realtor will be able to get you in to take a look (or just keep calling realtors until one gives you the street address if you're just interested in a drive by). Hopefully you didn't sign any "buyer's agent" type of contracts.
Mark, if you're shopping for a house, and you aren't contracted with an agent, AND you know what you're doing, the best person to call is the agent who listed the house. He/she will likely act quickly, having a vested interest in selling the house. Also, he/she will almost certainly be getting a commission for selling the house and will have offered a commission to a buyer's agent. But if he/she acts as both the buyer's and seller's agent, you can often get the buyer's agent's fee waived and reduce the cost of the purchase. With a typical 2/5% commission on a $300K house, that's a savings of $7,500. You save money, the seller gets a quick sale for the same profit, and the agent gets a quick and easy commission from the sale--everyone comes out ahead.
Any realtor has a vested interest to show/sell you a house whether it's their listing or not. Better for them if it's not, because then it's a free windfall (none of their time/money had been spent on open houses, etc) and their commission is the same...
As a seller, a good realtor is important. As a buyer, not so much...
Where are you looking? Several houses for sale in the Kenwood section of Hackettstown.
JBJSKJ JBJSKJ, I have a post on that topic. Guess you missed it. I asked why are there so many homes for sale in the Kenwood section. Nobody replied. Again, nobody replied. Go to www.weichert.com and you will find all the homes for sale.
Singlemaleinnj Market has picked up. Many "Under Contract." Have you noticed? Hackettstown is going hipster.
I think a lot of people are trying to buy before the interest rates go up. After that, the market might just become stagnant again.
Mark hit the big thing - if there is no buyers contract signed (wasn't done much when I was a realtor) - but, you can have 'feelers' out at every agency in the area, I would go with one from each 'brand' - listings come up and are gone before they even make it onto the MLS. Larger offices with more agents have the higher chance of them finding your home.
trekster3- Does anyone know anything about the Oxford area? I only heard about it recently and since there doesn't seem to be any homes or townhomes for sale in Hackettstown I figured I'd look elsewhere.
5catmom - I think you mean gsmls.com. There are always homes for sale, but how many under $150k?
Under 150K in NJ... Hope you like tiny houses or fixer uppers.
I was worried about the timing when I listed my house last month. Had an offer under contract within a week.
Well with the way the economy is, it's kind of hard to be able to pay a lot for a house. I'm not looking for a huge house. The problem is, my rent keeps going up and my salary isn't! A lot of times it's cheaper to own than to rent so I figured I'd try that route, but that doesn't seem to be working. Maybe I should just look for a cheaper apartment.
My comment was more a dig at the insane prices in NJ, not your salary, etc.
Rent vs own isn't always an easy comparison between maintenance costs, capital gains/losses when you sell, flexibility to move again, etc.
I probably lost money versus renting when I add up all the mortgage interest, improvements, and selling price after owning my house for 10 years... but, it was mine to change, improve, etc.
Now I'm renting a house and it is nice to just send an email to the management company saying "hey, this is broken, fix it".
Oh I didn't think you were taking a dig at me :)
It's just very frustrating that the price of absolutely everything is increasing but salaries are not. It's getting very hard to survive these days. I did find a nice and affordable townhouse but it's in a flood zone so that concerns me.
Even some apartments (that aren't completely gross) are close to $2,000 a month...that's a lot for one person.
There are lots of bargains on rentals with houses not selling. If your rent is going up that much, dump it. At $2000 it would be a lot for one person, but that would also be more than just a one bedroom and a lot more than a single person needs.
That townhouse is no bargain for what it is, and realistically the flood zone isn't the issue. It sounds like you're really just needing a change in apartments. Wait on a real house when you have a good budget for it.
HH, since you're obviously not very familiar with the area, I'm not sure I would recommend Oxford, unless it particularly suits you. It's a bit remote, so commuting to work, shopping, etc., will likely be less convenient and more costly. (Every mile you drive costs you money!) Also, as someone who flips houses for a living, I wouldn't choose Oxford, as I believe other areas represent better chances long-term increase in real estate values.
GC- those prices are for a one bedroom. Rents are getting out of control.
Maybe a change altogether will be financially smart. Leaving NJ might be the right choice, it's so expensive here and employers don't seem to understand that.
A big problem I see is higher end homes with big price drops. You look at the prices and they are low for what you get, but of course thanks to our public spending the taxes are as high as ever...
iJay There are plenty of one bedroom nice apartments in Hackettstown area (I should emphasize - AREA, 10 miles radius from the famous intersection in the middle of Hackettstown) that are MUCH cheaper than $2K. It's not Williamsburg or even Astoria. Search this forum and you will find plenty of suggestions for apartments renting depending on your life style and commute preferences. To be honest, I myself don't know even a single apartment complex in our area that rents one bedroom for $2K (or even one bedroom with a den).
Lena You can get a low price townhouse in Oxford. Best to take a Sunday drive and see if you like the area. People's opinions only reflect what suits their own personality.
house hunting - There are 3 bedroom townhouses in Peachtree at $2000/mo. There is a glut of competing rentals in Panther Valley, Peachtree, Oak Hill, and others all for $1200-$1500 for 1-2 beds. I'm with Lena and just not sure what you're looking at. Go to one of the rental threads via the Forum Search. There's plenty out there without breaking the bank.
FYI
https://www.yahoo.com/realestate/rent-crisis-more-americans-barely-able-to-afford-003246523.html
Kinda looks like the conditions I remember in the 30s after the 29 crash.
Old Gent Consider PA............If you get out on to RT. 80 from 517, you can actually SEE the Delaware Water Gap mountains / Hills. I know several people that came from Easton and worked in Jersey City.............no joke. NJ is expensive. If you can handle a small commute it might be worth a look. They are building like crazy (and have been for some time) just over the line............
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