Rising home values have helped to fuel growth with Sea Isle's tax revenue.
By Donald Wittkowski
Bookings for summer rental properties, a key indicator of whether Sea Isle City’s vacation market will be strong, weak or somewhere in between, are surging by double-digit margins compared to last year, local realtors are reporting.
In short, if trends hold, it appears Sea Isle will enjoy a robust tourism season for the summer of 2018.
Consistent with previous years, vacationers are snapping up rentals for the prime weeks ranging from late June to mid-August this summer. The first two weeks of July to the first two weeks of August are coveted the most, realtors say.
At the same time, there is still an ample supply of rental properties to choose from, especially if vacationers book outside the peak weeks, according to real estate companies interviewed by Seaislenews.com on Saturday.
On average, renters are paying about $3,000 per week, although the price can climb to $7,000 for a weeklong vacation at a beachfront location, realtors say.
Broker manager Carol Hopely Russo, left, and sales associate Mary Jane Gleeson stand in front of the keys to summer rental properties handled by Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Fox & Roach Realtors.
At Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Fox & Roach Realtors, rental bookings have jumped 83 percent over last year, said Carol Hopely Russo, broker manager of the company’s Sea Isle office.
One factor lifting the rental market is the recent trend of vacationers coming to Sea Isle multiple times during the year, not just during the summer, Hopely Russo explained.
“They come in the spring and come back again in the fall,” she said.
BHHS Fox & Roach Realtors has beefed up its business by bringing rental specialists Mary Jane Gleeson and Roseann Regruto on board as sales associates.
Gleeson said vacationers are attracted by Sea Isle’s mix of beach fun, family-friendly entertainment, upscale restaurants and a well-known collection of bars and nightclubs.
“They love Sea Isle, because multiple generations of families have been coming here. It’s in their blood,” Gleeson said. “It’s family-oriented. And once you park, you can have everything at your fingertips.”
According to Gleeson, younger renters prefer staying close to the center of town to be near the bars, nightclubs and restaurants. Older vacationers gravitate to rental properties in the quieter Townsends Inlet section of Sea Isle, she said.
Although things are quiet now by the decorative Sea Isle City lifeboat in the center of town, the bustling summer tourism season arrives in just three months.
Drew Fasy, managing broker at Long & Foster, cited the robust economy, federal tax reform and strong consumer confidence as factors driving Sea Isle’s brisk rental market. The stock market’s run-up in recent years has also helped to push the rental market higher, despite the volatility on Wall Street in the past few weeks, he said.
“The economy is doing well,” Fasy said. “I think there’s confidence. I also think the tax reforms have the potential to be beneficial to people. There’s confidence, and people are spending money.”
The Landis Co. sign in front of the company's Landis Avenue office advertises summer rentals.
Lisa Haas, owner and managing partner of Landis Co., echoed Fasy’s comments about strong rental prices in July and August.
“As a rental owner, for those weeks that I mentioned, you can almost name your price,” said Haas, whose real estate firm is Sea Isle’s leader in the summer rental market.
Landis Co. has more than 1,000 rental properties in its inventory. About 75 percent of its renters have already booked with Landis Co. for the summer season. Overall, the rental business for Landis Co. is up between 8 percent and 10 percent compared to last year, Haas said.
“This season is strong compared to business last year,” she said. “Late June to mid-August is crunch time.”
As it has done in the past, Landis Co. plans to station about a half-dozen of its agents in the parking lot of its Landis Avenue office each Saturday this summer to expedite rental check-ins.
Haas said renters don’t even have to step inside the Landis Co. office to get their keys and check-in packets, which relieves some of the stress for them after a long drive to Sea Isle to begin their vacations.
In years past, renters would make it a ritual to drive to the Jersey Shore in February and March to personally meet with realtors and pick out their summer vacation properties. However, the proliferation of online services now has most renters booking through the realty companies’ websites.
Haas said about 85 percent of the renters doing business with her company book online. The remaining 15 percent stop by in person. In previous years, before the internet became so popular, about 85 percent of her customers rented in person, she said.
Renters also have the choice of using an array of online booking sites for vacation properties. Fasy, though, said renters appear to be shying away from the online companies to instead use the services of local realtors even more.
Fasy said the online booking companies recently changed their pricing strategies, which has hurt both the renters and the property owners. Now, vacationers are seeing that it can be less expensive to rent through the local realtors, he noted.
“You’re getting services that are a little less expensive. There’s also the confidence of renting through the brick-and-mortar realtors,” he said.
Sea Isle offers an array of upscale homes stretching from the back bays to the beaches.
