A few clients have asked us some version of the same question lately: with everything they are hearing about the housing market slowing down, should they even be thinking about buying or selling right now. It is a fair question. It just depends on which housing market they mean.

The national story is real, just not the whole story

This year's headlines about a cooling housing market are not exaggerated for most of the country. Existing home sales are sitting near their lowest levels in three decades, and nationally sales are down more than 4% through the first half of the year. Price growth has slowed to close to nothing in a lot of places, well under 2% by most measures. If you are reading a national outlet, that is the story: a market that has cooled off and buyers who are staying on the sidelines.

New Jersey has not followed that script. Multiple market reports this year have placed New Jersey among the strongest states in the country for home price growth, at one point leading every other state while the national average barely moved. Part of that comes from inventory that never really loosened up. Part of it comes from people leaving Manhattan and other high cost cities and finding that New Jersey lets them keep more of their paycheck without giving up easy access to the city. Whatever the mix of reasons, the state has been swimming against the national current most of this year.

Down the shore, it gets even more pronounced

Zoom into Ocean and Monmouth County and the gap widens further. According to New Jersey Realtors' July report, the median single family home in Monmouth County sold for $812,225, up close to 5% from last year, with homes moving in about a month on average. Ocean County, a market that has historically traded at a discount to Monmouth, was not far behind, up 6.6% year over year to a median of $650,000, with the number of homes for sale actually shrinking compared to last year. Asbury Park alone is up more than 14% over the past year.

Developers are putting real money behind that confidence, too. Down at 1201 Ocean Avenue, the LIDO project just closed on a $211 million construction loan, the largest ever arranged for a project in Asbury Park, for a building that will not open until 2028. Nobody commits that kind of capital years in advance unless they believe the coastal market here has real staying power. Coastal living down the shore is not just riding the state's momentum. In a lot of ways, it is its own market.

And then there's the 55+ crowd

Downsizing buyers play by different rules. Most are coming out of a bigger home with real equity behind them, so today's rates barely register the way they do for a first-time buyer. And they are not shopping by comp. If a home sits in the exact section of the community they want, near the clubhouse, near the water, wherever matters to them, they will pay thirty thousand more than the house two streets over and not think twice. Demand for the right spot beats the spreadsheet every time.

Our honest read

If you already own, and you are thinking about your next move, whether that is downsizing into a 55+ community, moving closer to the water, or relocating within the Shore, you are operating in a market that has held up better than most of the country, with a buyer pool that in many cases is not waiting on rates to make its next move. That is worth knowing before you assume the national headlines describe your situation.

Where this leaves you

Where you fall in this depends entirely on where you are starting from. If you want to talk through what the market actually looks like for your specific plans, whether that is a first home, a move down the shore, or a 55+ community, we are glad to walk through the real picture with you.