Hey, friends. How are you today? I am going to get into some local real estate news. What I like to do is talk about what's happening right here in the Philadelphia Metro and since I'm licensed in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
By the way, my name is Dawn D'Amico. I am a licensed realtor. I work with REMAX and today we are going to take a peek at what the housing market is doing in Philadelphia County and Camden County, NJ.
Camden County is right over the Delaware River from Philadelphia. You would be surprised at some of the deals you could get over there. Plus, you can still be close to Philadelphia.
Philadelphia County is only the city of Philadelphia. Camden County encompasses not only the city of Camden, but a lot of the other towns around it. When people are relocating and they want to be close to Philadelphia, they are going to choose a town here.
So, like I said, Camden County is not just the city of Camden, but you have towns such as Pennsauken Township, Cherry Hill (a very desirable area), Collingswood (another really cool town in New Jersey), Haddonfield, Lawnside, Somerdale, and Bellmawr just to name a few.
So, let's talk about the pricing differences between Philadelphia County and Camden County and take a look at their growth.
Camden County
First, we are going to take a look at Camden County, New Jersey. The Camden County housing market is somewhat competitive. But the median price in Camden County is so much lower than Philadelphia County. Even though it is still really affordable, it is actually up 11% since last year. The price per square foot is up as well.
The median sale price is $130,000. That means 50% of the homes in Camden County as a whole sold for over $130,000 and 50% sold for less than $130,000. What they are telling us here is that the median days on market is going down. So, that means competition is tough here if you are a buyer.
It is still very much a seller's market. Of course, the number of homes sold is down, but the reason is that people who are locked into a low interest rate mortgage, they are not selling right now unless absolutely necessary. So, that is causing the number of homes being sold to go down, driving the price up and just making it harder for buyers.
In Camden County, the sale to list price is 97%. That's really good. That means that when a seller puts their home on the market, they are getting over 97% of their asking price.
About 43% of homes are sold over the list price in Camden County. This happens when a house gets put on the market at an attractive price. The buyers come out of the woodwork and say, "Gee, that is a great price. We have got to put a good offer on it." Then, they have got a quick sale at a great price.
Now, homes with price drops. This is when an agent puts the home on the market for too high of a price. Maybe the agent is inexperienced, or maybe they are over promising the seller in order to get the seller to work with them. I see this happen a lot when an agent is desperate for work. They will over promise the seller and then they will over time get them to drop the price. Hopefully, to get the home sold. But this is not a great tactic. I do not recommend that.
Sometimes it is the seller that is being unreasonable. In that case, sorry, if you are an unreasonable seller, do not call me. I always tell people the truth, what they can get for their house. And if they like what I have to say, then we work together.
All right, migration. Who is moving to Camden County, New Jersey?
We have got all these people from all over the place, people from all over the US, mostly from up north. And the least amount of people are coming from Texas.
People are moving to Camden County from New York. 4,600 people moved to Camden County from New York. We have a bunch from Washington, DC. And a few hundred from San Francisco, and then it goes down from there. Chicago, San Diego, Portland, Texas.
Where are people who are leaving Camden County going? They are going to Maryland, Miami, Orlando, and other parts of Florida.
As far as schools, if you want to find out what the rankings are for specific schools in the areas that you are interested in Camden County, I highly recommend Niche.com. It is a free website where you can type in whatever town or neighborhood you are looking at, and it will give you really detailed information about that town, about the schools, even neighbors talking about the schools.
Another concern for people moving into Camden County is that 47% of properties there are at risk for severe flooding in the next 30 years. So, if you are old and you do not care about the next 30 years, great, but if you do, you might want to look into the flood zones that are happening there.
A lot of people, when they are coming to move to the area from out of state, they are wanting to know what is the transportation like? What is walkability like? So, it is over 50% walkable. In Camden, obviously, it is more walkable in the city than it would be in the suburbs.
There is pretty good access to transportation, but not a whole lot. So, if that is important, make sure you take a look at what public transportation is available in whatever specific town you are looking at. Philadelphia actually connects to New Jersey transit. But, the bike ability score is not too great.
Philadelphia
Let's take a look at the Philadelphia housing market. Philadelphia housing market is much more expensive. However, it is seeing slower growth than the Camden County housing market. The median sale price is at $259,900. That means that half of the homes in Philadelphia County sold for higher than $260,000 and half sold for lower than $260,000. A lot more homes have sold over the past year and the amount of days on market is up. But I can tell you this, in very, in very desirable areas of Philadelphia, the homes sell much quicker, especially if they are priced right. Any home that is priced right is going to sell quicker and for more money than the list price.
Home prices were down 1.7% compared to last year, that's not much, but it is significant compared to the Camden County market, which saw an increase, 11% increase over last year. It is taking longer for homes in Philadelphia County to sell than in Camden County.
Demand is pretty much the same as Camden County. 97.5% sale to list price, only 23.2% sold for over the list price. And we have 31% having price drops now. Price drops are usually happening if the listing agent or the seller were unrealistic to begin with, it is always good to price reasonably and let the buyers drive the price up. That is always the best way to go.
Where are people moving from?
New York. Overwhelmingly, just like Camden County, we have loads of people coming from New York. Then, the second highest is Washington, DC, but significantly less. Then, we have San Francisco, Chicago, San Diego, Portland, Austin, Buffalo, and so forth. Now, why are people leaving and where are they going?
They are going to Maryland, just like people leaving Camden County. They have to look at Salisbury, Maryland. Looks like we should be looking into that place. It looks like it is drawing a lot of people. Then, we have people going to Miami, Orlando, Tampa, Myrtle Beach, Sarasota, and other Florida towns. Everyone who is leaving Pennsylvania, most of them are going further South.
As for schools, I always say each neighborhood is going to be different, so I highly advise you if you have children or plan to you got to check out Niche.com where you can see reviews from parents. If that is important to you, check it out.
Now, we took a look at Camden County, what the flood risk was, and we saw that close to half of Camden County is at risk of being in a flood zone in the next 30 years. Here in Philadelphia, we will have only 32% at a risk of severe flooding. So, that's better.
As far as transportation, Philadelphia County only encompasses the city of Philadelphia. There are neighborhoods that are more walkable than others. Of course, the closer to downtown Philly you are, the more walkable, but we have a very high walk walkability score in Philadelphia.
We have a very good transit system. Just be careful. It says it is bikeable, but if you are going to drive around on a bike, be sure you are looking because a lot of motorists are not looking out the window these days. They are looking at their phones. If you are going to bike, do so at your own risk, even though Philadelphia itself is increasing bike lanes and even a lot of suburbs are doing that, too.
All right, so guys, that is the news for this week in the Philadelphia Metro, if you are looking to move within or outside of the Philly Metro, I am happy to help you.
I have helped a lot of buyers and sellers moving into or out of the area. I have even helped sellers sell property when they were not even here. I recently helped a guy who lives in Taiwan sell a property here and he. did not even have to come back.
So, if you are buying, selling, investing, need my help, please reach out to me below and I'll be happy to help you any way that I can.
Make sure to watch the video below if you want to see where I found all of the stats.
Dawn D'Amico: 215.962.9307
damico.dawn@gmail.com
