Real Estate Activity Lessens in Cape May County, N.J.
Nearly 30 percent fewer properties were bought and sold in Cape May County, New Jersey, last year compared with 2005, confirming a definite cooling in a previously hot housing market.
According to the Press of Atlantic City, more than 8,300 properties changed hands in 2006, a surprising drop of about 3,500 from the prior year.
“The market has made an adjustment. Our business reflects the ebb and flow of the real estate market,” said Cape May County Clerk Rita Marie Fulginiti, whose office released the annual totals Thursday.
Cape May County is not necessarily indicative of the rest of the Garden State. This particular segment of the New Jersey housing market is dominated by people who do not live in the county full time.
As the housing market slows down, people have more opportunity to wait and see what housing prices do, said Dr. Richard Perniciaro, director of Atlantic Cape Community College’s Center for Regional Business Research.
“Right now, you have people waiting to see what happens to prices. A lot of it is a wait-and-see market, more so than Atlantic County, where more people are coming here for jobs, so they have to move,” he said.
In Cape May County’s market of second-homes and retirement houses, people have more flexibility about when they want to buy, and aren’t necessarily as dependent upon the latest New Jersey mortgage rate fluctuations.
“It’s natural that it has such large swings, because people don’t have to go at a certain period of time,” he said.
From 2000-2005, the number of residences in Cape May County increased 7.7 percent — or twice the state average, according to the U.S. Census, as people flocked to the state’s southernmost tip, often using second mortgages to secure vacation properties.
But Cape May County, unlike other southern New Jersey counties, saw a 3 percent population decrease in that time period. That data, experts said, provided further confirmation of second home ownership and a trend of baby boomers seeking homes and age-restricted houses in Cape May County.
As the number of home mortgage loans increase, the year-round population doesn’t follow suit. doesn’t In 2004 and 2005, the county reached the high points for the number of properties to change hands, 11,961 and 11,814, respectively.
Despite fewer property transfers in 2006, the taxable value of land is higher than ever. In October, Cape May County showed that the value of taxable land rose 26.5 percent to almost $40 billion.