By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
Mayor Leonard Desiderio says that Sea Isle City’s housing market is so hot that some owners are auctioning off their homes themselves instead of using the services of a real estate agent.
David Farina, a real estate broker who has experienced numerous up and down swings in the housing market during his more than 40 years in the business, has never seen stronger demand for home sales in Sea Isle than now.
And Nick Preuhs, another Sea Isle real estate agent, characterized the booming market as “crazy.”
The figures bear them out. The median price for home sales in Sea Isle soared by 47.5 percent in 2021, according to housing data analyzed by NJ Advance Media.
The jump in median home sales landed Sea Isle in the No. 2 spot among the 25 New Jersey municipalities with the biggest increases in housing prices in 2021, NJ Advance Media reported in a recently published story.
The city of Camden took the top spot in New Jersey with a 48.9 percent increase in median home prices.
NJ Advance Media determined the top 25 housing markets in the state by analyzing monthly sales data in 2021 compiled by Redfin, a real estate brokerage firm.
In Sea Isle’s case, the median sales price increased from $818,083 to $1,206,333, Redfin’s data showed.
Although Farina and Preuhs agree that Sea Isle’s housing market is exceptionally strong, they doubted whether median home prices actually jumped by as much as 47.5 percent in 2021.
Farina, who is part of the Farina & Boeshe real estate company, estimated that it was closer to a 20 percent to 25 percent increase for 2021. Preuhs, a realtor with Long & Foster, believes it may have been about 40 percent.
“It’s still a really good market. It’s been crazy,” Preuhs said in an interview.
Reflecting a boom fueled by low mortgage rates, a surging stock market prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the shore being seen as a safe haven from the COVID-19 pandemic, Sea Isle has now become a million-dollar housing market.
Although the pandemic has had a devastating economic and health impact on so many communities nationwide, it has actually helped to drive the housing market higher at the Jersey Shore.
Homeowners living in crowded urban or suburban areas have fled to the shore, thinking that they can escape from the pandemic. The work-at-home trend that is replacing the traditional office workplace has allowed homebuyers to enjoy their shore retreats even more, realtors say.
“I don’t think it’s any secret that the off-season population has increased,” Preuhs said of Sea Isle.
With the combination of low inventory and high demand still at play, Preuhs has even seen some home buyers pay in cash.
“We’ve had a lot of bidding wars and sold a lot of properties over the asking prices. We’ve had a lot of cash buyers instead of a mortgage, which is somewhat strange because rates are so low,” he said.
In addition to low mortgage rates, home buyers are also benefiting from the high rent payments they are getting from leasing their homes to summer vacationers, Preuhs noted.
“Rents have also increased in Sea Isle and led to the cost of ownership being easier than usual,” he said. “With low rates and high rents, these places are almost paying for themselves.”
Farina also knows of bidding wars for Sea Isle homes, prompted by intense demand for shore property and a limited number of houses for sale.
“It’s not uncommon for a listing to come on the market and for it to sell within days, if not hours, and above the list price,” he said.
Farina, 77, said this market is like no other in all of his years selling real estate.
“I’ve seen ups and downs before, but I’ve never seen a market like this one. It’s driven by buyer demand, of course,” he said in an interview.
One trend in Sea Isle is for buyers to snap up old houses and then demolish them to create space for new duplexes, large single-family homes or mixed-use projects combining commercial space and condos.
Despite the big run-up in housing prices in 2021, Mayor Desiderio believes that Sea Isle still offers a lot of value for home buyers.
“We keep improving the town and don’t rest on our laurels. People notice that,” Desiderio said.
He mentioned Sea Isle’s plans for a $20 million community recreation center as well as a proposed dog park as the types of community improvements that make the city even more attractive to home buyers.
“We stay ahead of things,” he said.
In another sign of Sea Isle’s robust market, sellers are maximizing the value of their homes by putting them up for auction instead of relying on real estate agents to sell their houses, Desiderio pointed out.
“They are auctioning them off for a minimum bid and they are getting their prices – sometimes more,” he said.
Desiderio predicted that Sea Isle’s home prices will continue to remain strong for the foreseeable future.
