Anthony Licciardello | October 22, 2026
New Jersey
Seven New Jersey counties, one set of measures, updated every month. The county number is where most people stop reading and it is the least useful figure on the page — a single county can hold a market selling 11% over asking and one selling below it. This is the index to all of it: how to read the five measures that matter, what each county is doing right now, and the town-level work underneath.
A county is not a market. It is an average of thirty or forty of them, and in New Jersey the spread inside one county is routinely wider than the gap between counties. Union County looked mildly soft in September while Summit inside it closed at 111% of asking. Ocean County looked uniformly weak while its barrier-island boroughs and its year-round townships were running opposite directions. So the method here is always the same: read the county to locate the question, then go to the town to answer it. Both levels are below.
By Anthony Licciardello, Broker · The Prodigy Team · Updated October 2026 · Figures current through September 2026
How to read it Twelve counties ranked County by county Using this FAQ
Most market commentary reports one number and one direction. Prices up, prices down, cuts rising. The trouble is that every one of those statements is true somewhere in New Jersey this month and false somewhere else, often inside the same county line. September is a clean example: the share of listings cutting their asking price rose in all twelve of the state’s largest counties, without exception — and median sale prices rose in seven of them.
Both of those are facts about the same market. Reconciling them is not a matter of picking a side; it is a matter of reading five measures instead of one, and then reading them at the level a buyer or seller actually transacts at, which is the town and often the section of town.
Every county and town figure on this site is reported on the same five measures, in the same order, because the order is what makes them readable.
1 · Share of listings with a price cut. How often the asking price was wrong at the start. It says nothing about value.
2 · Sale-to-list ratio. What buyers actually paid against the final asking price. Above 100% means competition; below means concession.
3 · Share sold above list. How often the ask was set below what the market would bear — a measure of pricing accuracy, not of demand.
4 · Median days on market. Absorption speed, and the figure that sets a seller’s carrying cost.
5 · Median sale price. The only one of the five that measures value, and the slowest and noisiest of them — it moves with what sold as much as with what things are worth.
Read in that order they resolve almost every apparent contradiction. A rising cut share with a steady sale-to-list ratio and flat days on market is a pricing correction: sellers opened too high and came down to a market that had not moved. A rising cut share with a sale-to-list ratio falling through 100% and lengthening days is a price correction. New Jersey currently has nine of the first and three of the second.
Whenever a median moves sharply, look at the number of sales beside it. A median reports the middle transaction, so it reflects the mix of what sold as faithfully as it reports value — and the mix shifts fastest exactly when volume is falling. Hudson County posted the largest median gain in New Jersey in September, up 11.4%, on 17.4% fewer sales. That is composition, not appreciation.
Every bar is longer than a year ago. The three in oxblood are the counties where the other four measures agree that something real is happening. The nine in amber are repricing.
Ranked on the measures that identify weakness rather than on the one that gets quoted: Ocean is the only New Jersey county where the typical home sold below its asking price, at a 99.1% sale-to-list ratio, with the highest cut share in the state and the lowest share selling above ask. Middlesex is the slowest at 75 days, seven days longer than last year, with the steepest fall in above-list share — while its median still rose. Mercer has the steepest price fall at −3.5%.
At the other end, Essex closed at 104.4% of asking with a 5.6% higher median and twenty days knocked off its market time; Hunterdon is the fastest county in the state at 22 days; Morris and Union both sit near 103% of ask at 27 days. All four had price cuts rise. None of them are weak.
The seven counties we are licensed in, with September figures and the town-level work underneath each. Counties are listed strongest to weakest on the sale-to-list ratio, which is the measure that tells a seller what buyers are actually paying against ask.
Median $706,419 (+5.6%) · 42 days (−20) · cuts 9.7% (+2.3 pts) · sale-to-list 104.4% · above list 65.2%
Strongest sale-to-list ratio in New Jersey, and twenty days faster than a year ago.
Livingston market · Short Hills report · Montclair by neighborhood
Median $658,526 (+3.2%) · 27 days (−3) · cuts 11.6% (+1.3 pts) · sale-to-list 102.6% · above list 61.0%
Firm, and the clearest example of a county average hiding a split: Summit closed at 111.2% of ask while Mountainside closed at 99.0%.
Westfield Q3 · Cranford Q3 · Clark Q3 · Mountainside Q3 · Garwood Q3 · Summit report · Towns by price
Median $633,582 (−0.6%) · 31 days (+4) · cuts 15.6% (+0.9 pts) · sale-to-list 101.2% · above list 52.5% (−5.8 pts)
Mildly negative on every line without being sharply negative on any. A watch item.
Commuter towns · North Plainfield market · Warren neighborhoods
Median $621,110 (+7.6%) · 22 days (−5) · cuts 14.5% (+0.2 pts) · sale-to-list 101.0% · above list 49.4%
The fastest county in New Jersey and the second-largest median gain. Our coverage here is newest and the town-level pages are being built now.
Median $558,750 (+1.6%) · 75 days (+7) · cuts 13.7% (+2.6 pts) · sale-to-list 100.9% · above list 46.4% (−6.6 pts)
Slow rather than falling. Values are holding; the time and carry needed to realise them went up. Sales volume rose 0.9%, so the buyers are still there.
County report · Construction pipeline · Monroe report · Pricing an Edison home · Woodbridge pipeline
Median $733,858 (+1.2%) · 25 days (0) · cuts 17.3% (+2.2 pts) · sale-to-list 100.7% · above list 45.2%
Fast and flat. The third-highest cut share in the state sitting on top of an unchanged median and unchanged market time — a pricing story, not a value one.
Wall Township report · Marlboro market · Manasquan seller data · Tax appeal guide
Median $488,906 (−0.3%) · 32 days (−3) · cuts 20.3% · sale-to-list 99.1% · above list 33.5%
The only county in New Jersey where the typical home sold below its asking price. It is also the county least describable by one number — the barrier-island boroughs, Lakewood and the year-round townships are three different markets.
Ten towns, five markets · Toms River market · Toms River vs. Brick · Brick’s four submarkets · Lavallette report · Seaside Heights market
The five counties outside our licence area — Bergen, Morris, Hudson, Passaic and Mercer — are tracked on the same five measures because they set the context for the seven above, and because buyers moving within the state compare across them. Bergen and Morris are firm. Passaic is odd: its median fell 2.6% while its days on market collapsed by 33 and its sale-to-list ratio rose. Mercer is the weakest county in the state on price. Hudson’s apparent strength is the volume artefact described above.
If you are selling, the county figure tells you one thing only: which question to ask about your own town. In a county with a rising cut share and a steady sale-to-list ratio, the question is whether your opening price is defensible against the last ninety days of closings on your street. In a county below 100% sale-to-list, the question is different — you are pricing into a buyer pool that expects to pay under ask, and the opening number has to assume it.
If you are buying, the useful county-level reading is speed and above-list share together. A county at 22 days with half its homes going over ask is one where you need your financing settled before you look. A county at 75 days is one where you have room to negotiate and time to inspect properly.
Ask whoever is advising you for the sale-to-list ratio and the days on market for your town, not your county, and for the same two figures a year earlier. Those four numbers settle most pricing arguments in about a minute, and anyone working your market should have them to hand. If the answer comes back as a county average, it is not an answer about your house.
“I have been licensed in New Jersey and New York for twenty-two years and I still cannot tell you what the New Jersey market is doing, because there is no such thing. There are about three hundred of them. What I can tell you is what your town did last month and what the three towns next to it did, and that is the conversation that actually prices a house.”
Anthony Licciardello · Broker, The Prodigy Team
Twenty-two years, more than five thousand closed transactions, and dual New York and New Jersey broker licences across seven counties and Staten Island. We track all twelve counties on the same five measures every month so that a town figure always has something to be compared against. Reach the desk directly at 718-873-7345.
Sale-to-list, days on market, cut share and above-list share for your town and the ones next to it, read against the last ninety days of closings on your street.
Is the New Jersey housing market strong or weak right now?
Both, depending on the county, which is why one statewide number is not useful. In September 2026 the share of listings cutting their asking price rose in all twelve of the largest New Jersey counties — and median sale prices rose in seven of them, eight were as fast or faster than a year earlier, and six saw a larger share of homes sell above the asking price. Genuine weakness is concentrated in Ocean, Middlesex and Mercer.
Which New Jersey county is fastest to sell in, and which is slowest?
Hunterdon is fastest at 22 median days on market, followed by Monmouth at 25 and both Union and Morris at 27. Middlesex is slowest at 75 days, seven days longer than a year earlier, with Bergen close behind at 73. Speed matters more than most sellers expect, because days on market is what sets the carrying cost of a listing.
Why are the county figures so different from what I see in my own town?
Because a county is an average of thirty or forty separate markets, and in New Jersey the spread inside a county is routinely wider than the gap between counties. Union County read as mildly soft in September while Summit, inside it, closed at 111.2% of asking and Mountainside closed at 99.0%. Use the county figure to work out which question to ask, then use the town report to answer it.
What is the sale-to-list ratio, and why does it matter more than the median price?
It is what buyers actually paid as a percentage of the final asking price. Above 100% means homes are clearing over ask; below means sellers are conceding. It matters more than the median because it is far less sensitive to what happened to sell that month. A median reports the middle transaction, so it shifts with the mix of homes sold — a quarter with fewer large closings pulls it down without any home losing value.
Which New Jersey counties does The Prodigy Team cover?
We are licensed in New Jersey and New York and work seven New Jersey counties — Monmouth, Union, Essex, Ocean, Middlesex, Somerset and Hunterdon — plus Staten Island. Bergen, Morris, Hudson, Passaic and Mercer are tracked here as context rather than as service areas, because buyers moving within the state compare across all of them.
How often is this report updated?
The county figures are refreshed monthly as each reporting month closes, and each month’s detail is published as its own dated report that links back here. Town-level reports are published on their own cadence, quarterly for the closing-record series and as events warrant for development and pricing pieces. Expired monthly reports are never deleted; they carry a banner pointing to the current month.
Union County towns by price · Middlesex County market report · Ocean County: ten towns, five markets · Somerset County commuter towns · Monmouth County tax appeals · NJ tax appeal playbook · The 2027 NJ supply cliff
Sources and method. County figures — median sale price, number of homes sold, median days on market, share of listings with a price drop, sale-to-list ratio and share sold above list price, each with its year-over-year change — are read directly from the Redfin county housing-market pages and verified in-browser each month; the figures on this page were read on October 20, 2026, against the September 2026 reporting month. The twelve counties covered are Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris, Ocean, Passaic, Somerset and Union. Town and borough figures in the linked reports come from The Prodigy Team’s own multi-source closing records, cross-checked across several portals, and are reported rather than reconciled where published sources disagree. County figures are averages across every municipality within them and will differ, sometimes sharply, from any individual town.
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