New Jersey

The reasons why N.J. home sales plummeted 22% last year

Published

2 years ago

February 22, 2024

The reasons why N.J. home sales plummeted 22% last year

Low inventory and the highest interest rates in two decades caused home sales to decline 22% in New Jersey in 2023, according to data from New Jersey Realtors.

That follows a 20% decline in home sales in 2022, according to data from the Otteau Group.

Closed sales for all market segments totaled 84,305 in New Jersey in 2023, a 22% percent decline from 2022.

The townhouse and condo market segment saw the biggest decline in closed sales, dropping 24% in 2023 compared with 2022. The 19,175 closed sales in 2023 represented a 6,063 decline from 25,238 in closed sales in 2022, according to New Jersey Realtors.

There were 23.2% fewer single family home closed sales in 2023, and the market of housing for people 55 and older had 6.2% fewer closed sales.

“It has nothing to do with people not buying,” said Gloria Monks, president of New Jersey Realtors and a broker associate with Compass in Princeton. “There’s no inventory. When we get good inventory, it does sell.”

New listings in New Jersey were down 20% in 2023 compared to 2022. There were 107,517 new listings in 2023, down from 134,643 in 2022. Of those new listings, the majority, 71,701, were single family homes, according to New Jersey Realtors’ data.

Unsold inventory in New Jersey fell to 10,500 homes on the market as of January, compared to 12,900 a year ago, according to data from the Otteau Group.

Homeowners don’t want to sell existing property they may have a mortgage on when rates for a new 30-year mortgages are now more than 7%, as many who purchased a property before mortgage rates increased have a note with an interest rate below 4%.

“After rates start to move closer to 5.5%, or get below 5.5%, we’re going to see existing homeowners more willing to put their houses up for sale,” said Jeffrey Otteau, a real estate economist who heads the Otteau Group.

New Jersey should see an increase in the number of houses on the market by Memorial Day or the second quarter of 2024, he said, if interest rates fall, as expected.

But the 2024 market is off to a slow start. In Randolph, in Morris County, prior to 2020, inventory was about 130 homes for sale at this time of year. In the spring market, inventory would rise to about 160, according to Missy Iemmello, a broker sales associate and Weichert Realtors’ branch vice president, whose agents work in Morris, Sussex, Warren, Bergen and Essex counties.

There are currently 13 active listings in Randolph.

“This is the lowest I have seen in my career, since 2006,” Iemmello said. “I believe we are at the bottom and will start growing inventory, but I think it will be a slow uphill climb.”

The decline in sales is having an impact on the real estate profession.

“There are a lot of agents making decisions about whether to keep their license active or go into a referral service,” said Beth Kimmick of ERA Central Realty in Cream Ridge. With a referral service, they can’t actively sell but they can refer clients to other agents who will then pay them a small commission.

“It’s expensive to have a license and if you’re not doing business, it can be the world’s most expensive hobby,” she said.

Are you an agent, buyer or seller who is active in this changing market? Do you have tips about New Jersey’s real estate market? Unusual listings? Let us know.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the local news you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a subscription.

Allison Pries may be reached at apries@njadvancemedia.com.

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New Jersey

NJ’s biggest Catholic diocese hits pause on plan to merge parishes

Published

10 hours ago

March 4, 2026

Press Room

NJ’s biggest Catholic diocese hits pause on plan to merge parishes

Last June, the Catholic Archdiocese of Newark launched a review called “We Are His Witnesses,” which aimed to consider potential consolidations or closures of some of its 211 North Jersey parishes.

But amid confusion and pushback from many parishioners, Cardinal Joseph Tobin said Wednesday that the archdiocese will now extend its review to allow for further study and conversations.

In a letter published on the Archdiocese website March 4, Tobin, the archbishop of Newark, noted the challenges remain the same: a steady decline in membership and a shortage of priests projected to grow worse in the coming years. He did not specify how much longer the process would take but said he would have more to announce in June.

The largest of New Jersey’s five Catholic dioceses, the Newark Archdiocese serves approximately 1.3 million people in Bergen, Essex, Hudson and Union counties.

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Some parishioners, Tobin wrote, “came to believe — incorrectly — that the overall goal of We Are His Witnesses is to close churches. That has never been the purpose.

“This work is not driven by downsizing, but by mission: by the call to strengthen parish life so that it can truly form disciples and reach those who are not yet engaged in the life of the Church.”

The program’s aim is not to close churches, but to “strengthen parish life” he added.

He said a follow-up announcement would come on June 12 but reassured parishioners that “there is no need to fear that an immediate and wholesale closure of parishes will be announced.”

‘The Church is not a museum’

Current circumstances demand Church leaders to make difficult decisions, he said. “The challenges we face are real: fewer priests, fewer people in the pews, communities that look very different than they did even a generation ago, and financial strain. Ignoring the changed landscape does not preserve parish life; it weakens it. The Church is not a museum to preserve what it once was,” he wrote.

The initiative kicked off last summer, with meetings at churches around the region to allow parishioners to offer feedback. Many expressed fears about their future of their church, Tobin said.

Parishioners at many of the meetings and in letters to Tobin expressed concerns about the program. As a result, Tobin concluded that “it is clear that the communities of the Archdiocese need more time for honest discernment. We are extending this phase of our work to allow for deeper reflection and broader consultation throughout our local Church.”

“This is not a pause in mission. It is a call to take the mission seriously and to ask ourselves, with renewed honesty, what it means to be a missionary Church today.”

Msgr. Richard Arnhols, pastor emeritus of St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church in Bergenfield and a member of a committee of pastoral leaders helping to guide the review, said that, “Based on the input from the priests and people of the parishes which took place last fall, Cardinal Tobin has approved a period of additional study and reflection before any decisions are made.”

The first step is further conversation among parish priests, which will take place this month, he said.

Gregory Hann, a religious instructor at St. Vincent Academy in Newark, applauded Tobin’s decision. “If we continue to do things the way we have been doing them, we become a stagnant Church and we allow the comforts of our culture and the outside to keep us from moving from the Cross to glory.”

Nicholas Grillo of Bloomfield, a parishioner who attended several listening sessions at Holy Rosary Church in Jersey City, approved of the decision. “Hopefully the pause will give them time to reevaluate this going forward,” he said.

He added that it was a “waste of money” to pay large sums of money to a consultant that “doesn’t understand the intricacies of the Archdiocese of Newark,” he said, referring to the Catholic Leadership Institute, a Pennsylvania group that the archdiocese has engaged.

Instead, Grillo suggested, “they should put together a group of lay parishioners and priests from the diocese who can collaborate on a better path forward.”

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New Jersey

Devils Out to Rattle the Leafs | PREVIEW | New Jersey Devils

Published

22 hours ago

March 4, 2026

Press Room

Devils Out to Rattle the Leafs | PREVIEW | New Jersey Devils

THE SCOOP

The Devils began their season-high seven-game homestand with a decisive victory over the Florida Panthers on Tuesday night. The win was their second consecutive victory after picking up a win in St. Louis earlier in the week.

There’s not a lot of runway left in the season, and stringing together a run of victories is at the top of their minds. New Jersey is 11 points out of the final Wild Card spot, and 13 out of third in the Metropolitan Division. Tuesday will mark the Devils final game before the NHL Trade Deadline, which is on Friday at 3 p.m.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are having a down year, based on where the expectations were set heading into the season. The Leafs have struggled to gain any traction in their season and sit just two points ahead of New Jersey with 64. Toronto is 12 points out of third in the Atlantic Division, and nine points out of a Wild Card spot.

The Leafs have a tendency to give up an abundance of shots to their opponents, ranking first in the league in shots against, per game with 31.8, which bodes will for a Devils team that averages 29.4 shots per game, ranking sixth in the league. Despite their overall struggles, the Leafs do have the league’s fourth-best penalty kill, working at an 83.1 percent efficiency.

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New Jersey

Former Lumberton, New Jersey, mayor Gina LaPlaca pleads guilty to 2025 DUI, sentenced to treatment program

Published

1 day ago

March 3, 2026

Press Room

Former Lumberton, New Jersey, mayor Gina LaPlaca pleads guilty to 2025 DUI, sentenced to treatment program

A former mayor in Burlington County, New Jersey, pleaded guilty to DUI and child endangerment charges after a 2025 traffic stop, according to prosecutors.

Lumberton Township committee member Gina LaPlaca, 46, was indicted last spring on child abuse charges after county prosecutors said she was observed driving drunk with her young child in the car, while serving as the township mayor.

Police arrested her at her home after reviewing video from a witness showing her swerving out of her lane and nearly hitting a utility pole. Lumberton police discovered her blood alcohol concentration was .30%, over three times the legal limit of .08%.

On Monday, LaPlaca was sentenced to three years in a diversionary program for first-time offenders after pleading guilty to driving under the influence and a fourth-degree child abuse charge. As part of the plea deal, LaPlaca will avoid jail time as long as she abides by the terms of the program.

Under the terms of the Pretrial Intervention or PTI program, she must attend regular Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and comply with any requirements set by the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency.

Judge Craig A. Ambrose also ordered LaPlaca to have an ignition lock device on her car that will prevent it from starting up if the driver has consumed alcohol. She said in court she had already installed one in October 2025, the county prosecutor’s office said.

If LaPlaca violates the terms of the PTI program, she could be prosecuted for the child abuse charge.

LaPlaca completed an intensive treatment program in May 2025 and said in a statement that she is “fully committed to my recovery” and is doing the “daily, intentional work” that comes with it. She apologized to Lumberton residents while acknowledging a private struggle with alcohol addiction that was no longer private.

“The weight of my actions is something I carry deeply,” she said in a statement shared on social media. “What I did was wrong. It was dangerous. It was inexcusable. I drove while intoxicated with my child in the car — a choice that could have caused irreversible harm. That reality is something I will live with, and learn from, for the rest of my life.”

LaPlaca served as mayor through 2025 but remains on the township committee. Terrance Benson was sworn in as mayor of Lumberton this year.

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