margate real estate
The total value of Margate real estate went up more than $46 million last year, to about $3.4 billion, according to the city's official assessments.
Survey shows home prices fell 1 percent in 4th quarter in the Atlantic City metropolitan area
Home prices in Ocean City and the rest of Cape May County fell 3.4 percent in the fourth quarter, according to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's house price index.
Both declines were the largest since 1995. The survey tracks sales and refinancings of the same homes to prevent home size from influencing the results.
Franklin Williams, president of the Ocean City Board of Realtors, said he and others in the industry there hadn't seen significant price weakening.
"Actually, it's looking like the first quarter of this year is going to be above the last," said Williams, who is a broker/salesman with Prudential Fox & Roach Realtors in Ocean City. "January sales are showing an increase over January the previous year."
Williams said that in 2007, prices in Ocean City were unchanged, while sales volume was up nearly 12 percent.A real estate professional who works in Philadelphia and has a house in Margate said the new figures are just starting to reflect significant price drops in the market.
Marc Wiser, vice president of Legend Properties, was shocked by Realtor figures earlier this month suggesting prices in Atlantic County were still going up.
"It makes no sense, when every single property that is within blocks of my Margate house has been lowered due to a lack of activity," Wiser said then.
The housing price decline reported in the federal survey makes more sense, but it too has further to go, he said.
"The house next door to mine was listed at $799,000. It's now $535,000. Around the corner a home was listed for $649,000. It's now $449,000. Both have been on the market well over two years, and I can go on and on," Wiser said.
Tom Wilhelm, with Century 21 O'Donnell of Ventnor, Brigantine and Egg Harbor Township, remained guardedly optimistic.
"The data suggest a pricing bottom forming in the Atlantic City and Ocean City Metropolitan Statistical Areas," Wilhelm said. "These relatively benign pricing decreases are on the heels of extraordinary five-year gains and I wouldn't draw any conclusions until the data trends are more substantial. Overall, area homeowners have fared very well in their property investments over a five-year period."
Nationwide, house prices gained a 10th of a percent in the fourth quarter, the federal report said. In New Jersey, prices fell a quarter of a percent, ranking it 41st out of the states in home price appreciation.
A companion survey by the Housing Enterprise office that only includes house purchases and not refinancings showed a grimmer trend: a nationwide price drop of 1.3 percent in the quarter.
The Standard & Poors/Case-Shiller Home Price Index, also released Wednesday, painted a bleaker picture still: a 5.4 percent plunge in home prices in the fourth quarter.
That index tracks typical single-family homes in 20 selected cities nationwide. It also includes houses bought with jumbo and subprime loans that aren't covered by the federal survey.
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