The Boom Loop

Posted on June 6, 2026 by grim

From MSN:

San Francisco homebuyers have officially lost their minds

It was late January when Bill Law realized something had shifted in San Francisco’s real estate market. That month, the longtime tech worker and his wife submitted an offer on a $1.3 million home in the Sunset District, a west-side neighborhood that boasts good schools and easy access to both the ocean and Golden Gate Park. Hoping to stand out from the house-hunting scrum, the couple offered $300,000 above the asking price. They didn’t come close. The winning bid of $1.86 million easily eclipsed their offer.

“I definitely feel the frustration in the real estate market,” Law tells me. “Since January, it’s just — it took off like a rocket.”

Half a million dollars may sound like a stunning sum for a bidding war — unless you’ve paid any attention to San Francisco’s housing market over the past six months. In a city long on AI and chronically short on housing, some homes now trade for millions of dollars above their asking prices. Once-underrated neighborhoods like the Outer Sunset and Outer Parkside now provide fog-soaked backdrops for truly unhinged pricing contests. No major city has seen home values rise faster over the past year, helping the San Francisco metro reclaim its title as the most expensive housing market in the country.

The City by the Bay has seen many a boom-and-bust cycle, but seasoned San Franciscans will tell you that this one feels different. Recency bias? Maybe. The current AI-fueled bonanza, though, is notable for both its concentration of extreme wealth and the speed with which it’s minting new fortunes. With a wave of IPOs looming, including OpenAI, SpaceX, and Anthropic, overnight millionaires and billionaires are poised to deliver more shocks in the coming months.

It’s a head-spinning turnaround from the last time San Francisco real estate drew national headlines. In the depths of the housing slowdown in 2022 and 2023, Bay Area home prices were caught in the dreaded “doom loop” as newly mobile white-collar workers fled to home offices in cheaper cities like Austin or Denver. Census Bureau data shows the city’s population shrank by more than 60,000 people.

It’s tempting to write off San Francisco’s comeback as an AI-fueled anomaly, an extreme case divorced from most Americans’ reality. The city may stand alone in many respects, but the experience of buyers and sellers there also offers a neat encapsulation of the forces shaping the whole of America’s real estate market: the K-shaped economy, employers’ return to the office push, homebuilding hurdles, and, of course, the AI-bubble-or-maybe-not-a-bubble. San Francisco’s “boom loop” is just getting started — and a version may be coming to a city near you.

Posted in Demographics, Economics, Employment, Housing Bubble, National Real Estate | 5 Comments

Softer Market?

Posted on June 4, 2026 by grim

From the Realtors via MSN:

Home listing prices post sharpest drop in 9 years as sellers face reality check

Sticky mortgage rates and rising inflation fueled by the Iran war are testing the limits of the spring housing market’s resilience, but there is a silver lining for buyers as home prices in May experienced their steepest annual drop in at least nine years.

The national median listing price has been falling for seven consecutive months, and in May it plunged 2.4% year over year to $429,500, representing the sharpest annual decline in Realtor.com® data going back to 2017, according to the latest monthly housing market trends report.

May also saw the median price per square foot, measuring a home’s value relative to size, shed 2.5% from a year ago—a downward trend reflected in 35 of the 50 largest markets.

Meanwhile, the number of homes under contract—signaling that a buyer’s offer has been accepted but the deal is not yet finalized—rose for a sixth straight month, jumping 4.3% compared with a year ago.

“Those two trends are not a contradiction,” explains Realtor.com® senior economist Jake Krimmel. “Sellers are pricing to sell rather than pricing to test the market. Buyers, despite rates remaining higher than expected, are still showing up when prices are within budget.” 

Posted in Economics, Mortgages, National Real Estate | 71 Comments

Bring all the data centers to NJ

Posted on June 3, 2026 by grim

From Let’s Data Science:

AI Boom Drives San Francisco Home Prices Higher

Reporting from multiple outlets shows San Francisco’s housing market has accelerated alongside the region’s AI-driven wealth surge. The New York Times, citing Redfin data, reports the San Francisco metro-area median home sale price rose more than 10% year over year in April to $1.7 million. Fortune and Redfin data show a sharper divergence since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022: luxury home prices climbed 13.4% while lower-end prices fell 3.8%, according to a Redfin analysis reported by Fortune. Local reporting includes on-the-ground anecdotes: Business Insider recounts a buyer offering $300,000 over asking who still lost to a $1.86 million winning bid, and NBC Bay Area quotes a listing agent saying, “AI is definitely bringing buyers back.” Fast Company and Realtor.com data show median down payments in the Bay Area rose to 35% for luxury purchases in 2025. Editorial analysis: This collection of reports documents a wealth-concentrated bounce in demand that is pushing bidding intensity and liquidity requirements higher in San Francisco.
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The regional housing surge is tied in reporting across national and local outlets to new wealth tied to the artificial-intelligence sector. The New York Times, citing Redfin data, reports the San Francisco metro-area median home sale price rose more than 10% year over year in April to $1.7 million. A Redfin analysis reported by Fortune found that since the release of ChatGPT in November 2022 luxury Bay Area home prices climbed 13.4% while prices in the most affordable ZIP codes fell 3.8%, according to Fortune’s reporting of Redfin’s data and commentary from Redfin economists. Business Insider provides a purchaser anecdote in which a couple offered $300,000 above asking and lost to a $1.86 million winning bid, and NBC Bay Area quotes realtor Natalie Ortega saying, “AI is definitely bringing buyers back.” Fast Company, citing Realtor.com, reports luxury buyers in the greater Bay Area made a median down payment of 35% in 2025, up 6.6 percentage points from earlier years.

Posted in Economics, Employment, National Real Estate, New Development | 42 Comments

Bye Bye NJ

Posted on June 2, 2026 by grim

From RENJ:

Samsung leaving New Jersey, leaving Englewood Cliffs campus vacant once again

A high-profile office campus in Englewood Cliffs will be vacated for the second time in two years, with Samsung Electronics America reportedly set to move its headquarters to Texas.

According to multiple outlets, the technology giant has told employees it will shift operations to Plano, where it already has multiple divisions. That means most of the roughly 1,000 workers at 700 Sylvan Ave. in Englewood Cliffs will be reassigned to the new headquarters, according to The Asia Business Daily and other reports, a decision that would come just a year after Samsung moved into the sustainably designed, 325,000-square-foot campus while pledging to build strong ties with local officials and residents.

The company has called New Jersey home for more than 40 years, making the news especially tough to swallow for the business community. That included more than three decades in Ridgefield Park before it opted to move to the former Unilever U.S. corporate office in Englewood Cliffs, giving the building new life after the latter moved to downtown Hoboken.

Reports say a small number of Samsung employees will remain in New Jersey to support local operations.

“We are preparing for the relocation with the goal of completing the move within this year,” a company official told The Korea Times, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “After a thorough review, we will finalize plans for headquarters operations and workforce allocation.”

The Asia Business Daily noted that Plano already houses the office responsible for Samsung’s mobile and network businesses, adding that the company also has a semiconductor plant in Austin and a new foundry plant coming online in nearby Taylor. The report cited Texas’ growing appeal to businesses due to tax benefits and lower real estate costs, perks that have attracted the likes of Tesla and Oracle in recent years.

Longtime critics of New Jersey’s business climate were quick to voice their frustration.

“Today’s announcement from Samsung less than a year after it opened its new New Jersey headquarters, and on the heels of Exxon’s recent corporate departure from the Garden State after 144 years, is not surprising, but it is no less sad,” said Michele Siekerka, CEO and president of the New Jersey Business & Industry Association. “These are the results of decades of anti-business policies in the state. With New Jersey maintaining the highest corporate tax rate in the nation, by far, and its national reputation for business unfriendliness through regulation and other costs and burdens, we have seen our Fortune 500 companies go from 22 in 2018 to 15 in 2025.

Posted in Employment, New Development, New Jersey Real Estate | 72 Comments

Pandemic home prices were a scam

Posted on June 1, 2026 by grim

From Fortune:

Pandemic relief funds accidentally broke the housing market by helping scammers inflate local home prices nearly 6%, study finds

The housing market ended up bearing a disproportionate cost from successful scammers who filed fraudulent claims filed under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Homebuyers in 2020 and 2021 had to compete with fraudulent recipients of PPP funds who effectively treated the cash as an artificial stimulus and used it for discretionary spending, leaving every competing U.S. homebuyer on the hook.

According to a study by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, published this week in the Journal of Financial Economics, about $800 billion in small business relief loans, known colloquially as the PPP loans, was doled out during the pandemic’s early days, and some of those funds were used in fraudulent ways.

“In a horse race, pandemic fraud is one of the largest and most robust factors explaining house price appreciation during COVID,” the study’s authors wrote.

Areas where PPP fraud was rampant in the first years of the pandemic could expect home prices 5.8% higher on average relative to comparable markets with less grifting. 

Several factors have pushed up housing prices in recent years. One was that many Americans simply had more money to spend, their bank accounts healthily insulated by curtailed travel and entertainment expenses. In the early days of the pandemic, housing demand was further boosted by stimulus checks, loan relief programs, and extended unemployment payments that helped pad household incomes—including those wielded from PPP loans.
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The study sampled 18,761 ZIP codes across the country, covering over 90% of the U.S. population, and matched individual areas with places known to have a higher concentration of fraudulent PPP activity. Previous work by the same authors found suspicious PPP loans were geographically concentrated. For instance, in Cook County in Illinois, home to Chicago, the share of loans considered suspicious was 31.7%, as compared to only 8.8% in Manhattan, and 6.1% in Los Angeles County.

The authors then matched high-fraud ZIP codes to areas with fast-appreciating home prices. After testing against other economic variables that may have contributed to higher costs, and comparing housing activity in high-fraud ZIP codes to low-fraud ones in the same county, the researchers found illegitimate PPP loans to be one of the core drivers of housing prices.

Posted in Economics, Housing Bubble, National Real Estate | 34 Comments

NJ delays new flood rules

Posted on May 30, 2026 by grim

From the NJ Monitor:

NJ Taps Brakes On New Flood Elevation Rules

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection will delay the implementation of controversial new flood rules adopted on the final day of Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration by a year to give regulators more time to make amendments.

The move to walk back regulations that set new elevation requirements, expanded state flood maps beyond federal counterparts, and created new rules for wetland protection and stormwater management was announced Friday and follows a joint legislative hearing last month where local officials and business groups decried them as unduly restrictive.

“This extension gives us time to meaningfully engage with local leaders, communities, and other stakeholders across New Jersey to get this right,” Gov. Mikie Sherrill said.

The announcement extends a grace period that will allow projects to continue under old rules if they submit complete permit applications before July 20, 2027. As written, the rules’ grace period was due to lapse July 20, 2026.

The delay will prompt a 60-day public comment period that will include a public hearing after the rulemaking proposal is published in the state register in June, the department said.

The Murphy administration already pared down the Protecting Against Climate Threats: Resilient Environments and Landscapes — more succinctly, PACT REAL — rules last July before adopting them in January.

Senate President Nicholas Scutari (D-Union) in February introduced a concurrent resolution that would have declared the regulations out of step with lawmakers’ intent. On Friday, he said the rules could have foisted costs onto homeowners making repairs and welcomed the pause.

“We can find ways to address environmental challenges and protect our residents without imposing burdensome requirements on the people who live and work in our communities,” Scutari said.
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Business groups and some local officials have railed against the new flood rules for years, arguing they would raise costs and leave some communities without developable land to meet affordable housing obligations imposed by state law.

“We’re encouraging the administration to basically start from scratch so we can accomplish the administration’s goals of providing resiliency and environmental protection while also helping to streamline the permitting process so that we can grow our economy in a sustainable manner,” said Ray Cantor, deputy chief government affairs officer for the New Jersey Business and Industry Association.

Posted in Economics, New Development, New Jersey Real Estate, Shore Real Estate | 37 Comments

Pay whatever it takes to live in NJ

Posted on May 29, 2026 by grim

From the NY Post:

‘The Netflix effect’ just made a New Jersey home sell for $500K above asking price

What happens when Netflix builds a massive studio in suburban New York City? It sends local house prices through the roof.

NJ.com reports a five-bedroom residence in Little Silver, N.J. traded hands last week for $2.6 million — a hearty $500,000, or 24%, above its $2.1 million asking price.

The reason? It’s “the Netflix effect,” according to local real-estate professionals. The streaming giant is building a $900 million studio in Monmouth County — where Little Silver stands — which has fueled demand for living there, and prices to boot.

“I did expect it to go for over asking,” Stacie Bender, of Compass, told the outlet of the home, which stands about 50 miles from Midtown Manhattan. “I thought it would go for $2.3 million or $2.4 million. I was thrilled for the clients when it went for $2.6 million. And we had a strong back-up offer.”

However, a Netflix executive is not the new owner of this home.

Bender added the Netflix effect is driving even more competition in a local market where inventory is scarce. That said, the property lured in 40 groups to two open houses after listing on March 25. There were also around 40 private showings.

The first offer came in the day after showings began. Within six days of hitting the market, it entered attorney review.

“Originally people thought Netflix was going to bring more support staff. But we’re seeing job listings with salaries of $750,000-plus … and people looking for homes over $2 million,” Bender told the publication.

Beyond the forthcoming Netflix studio, this house also stands near prime Jersey Shore destinations, such as Long Branch and Asbury Park.

Posted in Economics, Employment, Housing Bubble, New Jersey Real Estate, South Jersey Real Estate | 89 Comments

I wouldn’t give up my 2.25%

Posted on May 27, 2026 by grim

From the Monmouth Journal:

Thousands Of New Jersey Homeowners Caught In Low Mortgage Rate Limbo

With today’s mortgage rates far higher than the pandemic-era lows, many existing homeowners face a painful trade-off: sell and move, but give up their low monthly payment; or stay put, even if their current home no longer fits their life.

In other words, the house may no longer fit, but the mortgage rate still does.

A new survey by Calgary Homes, a real estate platform, which polled 3,002 homeowners, set out to measure the scale of this “mortgage lock-in effect.” The research looked at how many homeowners would like to sell, downsize, relocate, or buy a more suitable home, but are choosing not to because they do not want to give up their existing mortgage rate.

The survey found that 42 percent of New Jersey homeowners who want to sell are unwilling to do so because they want to hold onto the lower rate they secured previously. At a state level, this equates to an estimated 37,300 homes effectively caught in mortgage-rate limbo.

The findings suggest that the housing market is not just being shaped by affordability, inventory, or buyer demand. It is also being shaped by homeowners quietly asking themselves a very modern question: “Is moving worth losing my mortgage rate?”

For many, the answer appears to be no.

Posted in Mortgages, National Real Estate, New Jersey Real Estate | 182 Comments

Huh?

Posted on May 26, 2026 by grim

From Newsweek:

Young Americans Face Choice Between Housing and Crypto

Young Americans kept out of the housing market by years of rising home prices and historically high borrowing costs are increasingly looking at cryptocurrencies as an alternative to real estate to build wealth. 

Often, they are forced to make a choice between the two—the promise of riches held by the rather volatile crypto market, or years of sacrifices to be able to step onto the ever-further-from-reach property ladder.

On Reddit, one of the most popular social media platforms among U.S. adults under 30 according to the Pew Research Center, several young users have asked for advice in the past year on whether to use their savings to buy their first home or instead invest in cryptocurrencies, seemingly stuck in what they describe as a “dilemma.“

That is a question that their parents—baby boomers or Gen Xers—never asked themselves, and which they would have likely struggled to even imagine. But young Americans are living in a completely different world compared to previous generations in many ways, especially financially.

“Zoomers and millennials definitely see Bitcoin and cryptocurrency as safe-haven investments they can actually afford right now,” Yaël Ossowski, deputy director at Consumer Choice Center, a millennial consumer advocacy group, and fellow at Bitcoin Policy Institute, told Newsweek.

“Home prices are up some 130 percent over the last 30 years. For anyone under 40 without family money, a down payment in a major metro is just out of reach,” Ossowski said. 

“Bitcoin is one of the few assets young people can actually buy in $20 increments, hold themselves without a gatekeeper, and that cannot be debased by the Fed or Treasury. Most would rather save in harder money with at least a chance of it holding value over the long term,” he added.

Posted in Demographics, National Real Estate, Where's the Beef? | 35 Comments

Strength of the Northeast

Posted on May 24, 2026 by grim

From Resiclub:

Northeast and Midwest housing markets are the tightest heading into summer 2026

Many of the softest housing markets, where homebuyers have gained the most leverage over the past four years since the Pandemic Housing Boom ended, are located in Southern and Mountain West regions. Many of those areas were home to many of the nation’s top pandemic boomtowns, which experienced significant home price growth during the Pandemic Housing Boom, which stretched housing prices beyond local income levels. Once pandemic-fueled domestic migration slowed and mortgage rates spiked, markets like Punta Gorda, Florida, and Austin, Texas, faced challenges as they had to rely on local incomes to sustain frothy home prices. The housing market softening in these areas was further accelerated by the abundance of new home supply in the pipeline across the Sun Belt. When and where needed, builders are often willing to reduce prices or make other affordability adjustments to maintain sales. These adjustments in the new construction market also create a cooling effect on the resale market, as some buyers who might have opted for an existing home shift their focus to new homes where deals are available. 

In contrast, many Northeast and Midwest markets were less reliant on pandemic domestic migration and have less new home construction in progress. With lower exposure to that migration pullback demand shock—and fewer homebuilders doing large incentives—active inventory in these Midwest and Northeast regions has remained relatively tight. That’s still the case entering the 2026 summer housing market.

Posted in Demographics, Housing Bubble, National Real Estate, New Jersey Real Estate | 53 Comments

Good news, there may be a house for sale

Posted on May 23, 2026 by grim

From ROI-NJ:

New Jersey Realtors reports rise in overall inventory in April

New Jersey Realtors said May 18 that New Jersey’s housing market saw a small rise in overall inventory in April, with single-family homes continuing to command the highest median sales prices, while adult communities have seen growth in both new listings and closed sales.

The median sales price for a single-family home in New Jersey in April was $575,000, an increase of 4% year over year, the highest growth rate of any category. Median sales price for townhouses/condominiums was $420,000, a gain of +0.5%. The median sales price for adult communities was $368,000, up +0.8%.

The median sales price for the total market was $515,000, up 3.1%. The percent of the list price received was 100.6%, a decline of -0.7%. There were 19,023 homes for sale in April, up +5.4% year over year. The number of days on the market for a home was 46, up 9.5%.

New Jersey Realtors data reflects residential real estate activity reported through all New Jersey multiple listing services.

Posted in Housing Bubble, New Jersey Real Estate, Where's the Beef? | 45 Comments

Pay up suckers

Posted on May 22, 2026 by grim

From NJ.com:

An exclusive list of N.J. towns have $1 million home values. See who made it.

Dozens of New Jersey ZIP codes had home values that topped $1 millionin April, according to the latest Zillow data, which uses a formula similar to the median.

But those affluent towns still find themselves in elite company among the state’s 564 municipalities.

Atop the list was Deal, where home values sat at a jaw-dropping $4.315 million. The Monmouth County borough ranks among America’s 20 most expensive places to buy a home.

Alpine in Bergen County — home at one time or another to Eddie Murphy, Jay-Z and Stevie Wonder — and Avalon in Cape May County followed. Home values in Alpine surpassed $3 million, and Avalon saw them approach $2.7 million.

Both Deal and Alpine saw huge leaps in value, at 11.3% and 10.7% respectively.

Poor New Providence in Union County finished just outside the list at $987,715, but saw a 5.47% increase in value.

Posted in Demographics, New Jersey Real Estate, Shore Real Estate | 65 Comments

Bye Bye Back Yard

Posted on May 21, 2026 by grim

From the NYT:

Meet the ‘Hyper A.D.U.’

Norrice Raymaker, a longtime homeowner in the Heights neighborhood of Jersey City, N.J., had cast an anxious eye on the once-dignified house on Beacon Avenue. When she walked by the three-story home back in 2017 and 2018, she admired its wraparound porch and vestiges of earlier landscaping.

But Ms. Raymaker, who was then a member of the local neighborhood association as well as president of the Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy, a preservation group, worried its days were numbered.

One historic house after another had already been demolished in the north-side neighborhood, only for property owners and developers to put up blocky buildings where Second Empire residences once stood. The new structures — set back from the street with living units over garages — were easily replicable by builders and derisively known as “Bayonne Boxes” in some quarters, a reference to the prefab form’s proliferation in nearby Bayonne during the post-World War II period.
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When Behrang Behin went to the zoning board with Alan Feld in 2019, their plan showed the townhouse structure on the rear of the lot. Instead of having rear yards, the townhouse units would get front yards enclosed with wooden fences, providing a further buffer between the house and townhouses and adding privacy for tenants in both structures.
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The board approved the variances needed for the project: “Permitting town-homes in the rear of the Property and restoring the existing structure maintains the integrity of the neighborhood and the character of the neighborhood while also preserving the streetscape,” the board wrote in its decision.

Although the pandemic delayed construction, the project finally was completed last year at a cost of $2.3 million. (Behrang Behin had obtained his license in 2020 and was able to sign the construction documents himself.)

His mother listed the apartments and reviewed applicants’ qualifications. Babak Behin handled tours of the units. His tenants provide him with a combined monthly rental income of $14,600.

Posted in Demographics, Economics, Housing Bubble, National Real Estate, New Development | 83 Comments

NJ’s April Market

Posted on May 20, 2026 by grim

From InsiderNJ:

New Jersey Realtors April Housing Market Data

New Jersey’s housing market saw a small rise in overall inventory in April, with single family homes continuing to command the highest median sales prices, while adult communities experienced notable growth in both new listings and closed sales.

Statewide Market Highlights—Total Market 
*All data below reflects year-to-date through April 2026 unless otherwise indicated. The percentage reflects the year-over-year change.

  • Median Sales Price: $515,000 (+3.1%)
  • Closed Sales: 21,075 (-6.3%)
  • Pending Sales: 25,291 (-3.0%)
  • New Listings: 38,479 (+0.6%)
  • Homes for Sale in April: 19,023 (+5.4%)
  • Days on Market: 46 (+9.5%)
  • Percent of List Price Received: 100.6% (-0.7%)

Single-Family Homes

  • Median Sales Price: $575,000 (+4.0%)
  • Closed Sales: 14,002 (-6.1%)

Townhouse/Condominiums

  • Median Sales Price: $420,000 (+0.5%)
  • Closed Sales: 4,968 (-9.9%)

Adult Communities

  • Median Sales Price: $368,000 (+0.8%)
  • Closed Sales: 1,945 (+0.8%)
Posted in New Jersey Real Estate | 30 Comments

Grow baby grow

Posted on May 19, 2026 by grim

From WDHA (What?!?):

Three Counties Drive New Jersey to Fastest Housing Growth in 30 Years

New Jersey built 36,596 homes each year from 2020 through 2024. This marks the quickest construction streak in three decades. Hudson, Ocean, and Bergen counties topped the state in new housing during those five years, a Rutgers University study shows.

The construction rate outpaced every decade over the past 30 years. James W. Hughes, a professor and dean emeritus at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, wrote the 42nd edition of the Rutgers Regional Report with Connie Hughes.

“The scale of development in the 2020s was a bit surprising,” said James W. Hughes, per NJ.com.

Hudson County added 5,777 homes per year between 2020 and 2024. Ocean County followed with 3,923 new homes annually, while Bergen County produced 3,648 each year.

Millennials wanted places where they could live, work, and play. That demand pushed waterfront growth, James W. Hughes said. Developers converted old factories into condos and apartments, using utilities and infrastructure that were already there.

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Orthodox Jews and retirement communities drove Ocean County construction. The area has 93 communities for people aged 55 and older, with 62,771 units total, county data confirms.

Rivky Feferkorn of Team Ari Realtors moved from Brooklyn in 2016. Schools and kosher food stores serve the Orthodox Jewish community there.

“It’s very different than going to the boondocks and trying to create that community,” Feferkorn said.

Bergen County sits close to New York City, which sparked building in Hackensack, Edgewater, and Fort Lee. Builders tore down older houses and put up bigger ones in their place.

Jason Pierce of Prominent Properties Sotheby’s International Realty sold an 11,000-square-foot home in Englewood Cliffs for $5.4 million in March. The sale broke a price record for the town.

The state hasn’t seen a recession in 15 years, which kept construction going strong. New home production hit bottom in 2009 when just 12,421 homes went up during the Great Recession.

The pandemic pushed millennials out. They left apartments in Brooklyn and Manhattan. They bought single-family homes in the suburbs instead, James W. Hughes said.

Posted in Demographics, Economics, Housing Bubble, New Development | 101 Comments