North Jersey Housing Inventory Update

Posted by James Bednar under North Jersey Real Estate:

GSMLS - http://www.gsmls.com
(Garden State Multiple Listing Service)
Single Family Homes, Condo, Coop
(Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Morris, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex, Union, Warren Counties)

10/11 - 19,084
10/18 - 19,035 (0.3% Decrease)

NJMLS - http://www.njmls.com
(New Jersey Multiple Listing Service)
Single Family Homes, Condo, Coop
(Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Passaic Counties)

10/11 - 9,261
10/18 - 9,183 (0.9% Decrease)

Extreme Town Makeover

Of the "A" list Hollywood actors, Leonardo DiCaprio is probably on top of the growing number of eco friendly stars who put their time and money where their mouth is. His current project is producing a TV show that will transform troubled towns into environmental models. Inspired by Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth, "E-topia" will chronicle the reconstruction of an American town as it is transformed into a "Green utopia of tomorrow."

Established in 1998, the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation has actively fostered awareness of environmental issues through participation with such organizations as Natural Resources Defense Council, Global Green, USA, the International Fund For Animal Welfare, and National Geographic Kids.

The Sound of Dirty Birdies

Want a rationalle for including a local jug band in Ecorealty?
Well, there's few musical genres more Down to Earth than a jug band; they call themselves the Dirty Birdies; they've been based in Bloomfield since they began in 1965 --making them possibly the world's oldest surviving jug band as decreed by The Guiness Book of Records. They're featured performers this weekend at The National Jug Band Jubilee in Louisville, Ky. And we love their sound which you can sample on their cool website.

Inflation Jitters Drive Mortgage Rates Up

On Friday, Freddie Mac released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey in which the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.37 percent with an average 0.5 point for the week ending October 12, 2006, up from last week when it averaged 6.30 percent. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 6.03 percent.

Justices Reject Challenge to Waterway 'no-build zones'

Third River Near Broad St. in Bloomfield

From The Star Ledger:
The state Supreme Court will not consider an appeal by the New Jersey Builders Association challenging the state's water protection regulations, leaving intact rules that are considered the toughest in the nation....

The builders were attempting to appeal an April state Appellate Court ruling that held the state Department of Environmental Protection had the power to establish 300-foot "no-build zones" around New Jersey's most pristine waterways, effectively putting up to 300,000 acres off limits to construction.

The zones do not prohibit construction of single-family homes that were approved before Feb. 2, 2004, and are not part of a larger development. Towns that have stormwater management plans can reduce the buffers to 150 feet.

Housing For The Birds

From Business Week Online:

Designer tree houses are a personal way to add fun and value to your home, and they're not just for kids anymore. This next-generation tree house is a prefabricated modular structure that is fully livable and can be adapted for a family of up to eight.(lower photo)Free Spirit Sphere by Tom Chudleigh, Errington, British Columbia
About $44,700 to buy and install; $134 for one-night rental

Eco-Auditing at Bloomfield College

BCU's Halls Of Ivy

Bloomfield College is participating in an innovative environmental compliance peer auditing program. The college’s participation ensures that its campus is environmentally compliant; satisfies environmental regulatory obligations and provides a safe living and learning environment for students, faculty and staff.

The environmental peer audit approach blends a self-audit and a third-party independent audit and enables trained peers from participating schools to audit each other’s campus under the direction of an experienced professional auditor. Joining Bloomfield College in its commitment to the program are eight other NJ schools including Atlantic Cape Community College, Camden County College, Centenary College, College of Saint Elizabeth, Cumberland County College, Drew University, Georgian Court University and Saint Peter’s College.

The New Jersey Council of Community Colleges sponsored this program which is supported by the New Jersey Association of Independent Colleges.

The program will enable Bloomfield College to comply with all major federal environmental programs including air, water, pesticides, solid and hazardous wastes, hazardous substances and chemicals, environmental response, emergency planning, community right-to-know, and toxic substances control.

[Full disclosure: Along with President Richard Levao, three of the most eco-friendly people we know, Paul Russo, Pat Kenschaft and Fred Chichester, currently teach at BCU.]

Site Specific, NJ on Web

With campus security at an all time high, it's often a daunting task to get the art enthusiast to venture to exhibits on a college campus. Fortunately, enough of Site Specific, NJ's environmentally oriented images are available on line to give viewers a look at the distinct points of view of all seven photographers in this ambitious Union County College show. Guest curated by Montclair's Mary Birmingham, the show is running through October 26. (Photo deleted a request of photographer)

Smart Growth Financing

ParkLoans 75% Below Market Rate!

From the NJ Environmental Infrastructure website:

To encourage development in urban areas and preserve open space, the Environmental Financing Program (EIFP) offers a special low-rate loan for qualifying Smart Growth projects. The current rate is only 1.07%!

Under a regular EIFP loan, 50 percent of the loan is from zero interest State Revolving Funds and 50 percent is funded through a market-rate Trust loan (50/50 split). By combining the funds, program participants’ loans are half the market rate.

Basement Bed Ban Bugs Buyers

Many buyers have asked us to only show them homes with finished basements. If they indicate they are planning to rent them out as an extra source of income, we are honorbound to inform them that the law precludes basement living. Full baths are OK, but not full kitchens or bedroom facilities. Today's Star Ledger explains the reasons why it's becoming a major issue in NJ -- and most of the US.

When the Preferred Buyer is a Polluter

From The Times of Trenton:
HOPEWELL BOROUGH -- Brenda Goeke thought she had found the house of her dreams: a two-bedroom bungalow on a quiet street in desirable Hopewell Borough. Little did she know that her Somerset Street home was sitting on millions of gallons of polluted groundwater that could take decades to clean up.

Now Goeke, along with neighbors of the former Rockwell Industries plant that polluted the land, want the company to buy out their homes because they charge that the contamination has turned their slice of bucolic Mercer County into a worthless investment that no one will want to buy -- at least not for years to come.

"To be quite frank, Rockwell is not going to purchase any property because it all can be fixed," said Ulrike Williams, a corporate director of Rockwell Automation. "They are newer homes and the modifications are rather simple. They can be made -- we have seen it before."

Living Neat

Our ongoing Spring Cleaning efforts have evolved into a Fall Cleaning Crusade, so we were re-inspired into action by Bloomfielder Ariane Benefit's terrific website.and blog.
From her homepage:

Why get organized?

Because getting organized improves your physical and mental health and your emotional well being!

You don't have to be perfect. Just being reasonably organized enhances your self-confidence, self-respect, and overall well being. It lowers stress and helps you find more time and energy to do the things that matter most to you, like spending time with family, pursuing creative hobbies, eating healthy, and exercising.

MIT Designs "Invisible" Floating Wind Turbines

From TreeHugger.com:
An MIT researcher has a vision: Four hundred huge offshore wind turbines are providing onshore customers with enough electricity to power several hundred thousand homes, and nobody standing onshore can see them. The trick? The wind turbines are floating on platforms a hundred miles out to sea, where the winds are strong and steady. Since the wind turbines are not permanently attached to the ocean floor, they are a movable asset. If a company with 400 wind turbines serving the Boston area needs more power for New York City, it can unhook some of the floating turbines and tow them south.

Today's offshore wind turbines usually stand on towers driven deep into the ocean floor. But that arrangement works only in water depths of about 15 meters or less. Proposed installations are therefore typically close enough to shore to arouse strong public opposition.

Paul D. Sclavounos, a professor of mechanical engineering and naval architecture, has spent decades designing and analyzing large floating structures for deep-sea oil and gas exploration. Observing the wind-farm controversies, he thought, "Wait a minute. Why can't we simply take those windmills and put them on floaters and move them farther offshore, where there's plenty of space and lots of wind?"

Fun Time for Buyers

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Home sales slowed and a key measure of prices fell for the first time in 11 years last month, spurred by the biggest glut of new homes on the market in more than a decade, an industry group said Monday.

The National Association of Realtors report on existing home sales showed that the median home price in August was $225,000, down 1.7 percent from a year earlier. It was the first year-over-year decline in median prices since April 1995, when that measure slipped only 0.1 percent. And it was the biggest year-over-year drop since the record 2.1 percent decline recorded in November 1990, when the nation was in recession.

While month-over-month declines in prices are not uncommon, year-over-year decreases in prices are a more serious sign of a slumping housing market. Even in other recessions, home prices generally have risen year-over-year on a national basis. The median price is the point at which half the homes sell for more and half sell for less....

The downward pressure on prices came from the record inventory of homes on the market in August. The group said there were 3.9 million homes on the market, up 38 percent from a year earlier. That gave the market a 7.5-month supply of homes, also up sharply from the 4.7-month supply available in August 2005, and the average 4.3-month supply throughout 2004.

The last time the group estimated a 7.5 month supply was April 1993.

Woody Bites the Buzz Saw

BOILING SPRING LAKES, N.C.,) -- Over the past six months, landowners here have been clear-cutting thousands of trees to keep them from becoming homes for the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker.
The red-cockaded woodpecker was once abundant in the vast longleaf pine forests that stretched from New Jersey to Florida, but now numbers as few as 15,000. Continue reading from AOL news(Click on headline):

Blowin' In the Wind

From the Star Ledger

Windy Acres: Of bobolinks and lawsuits

Say "Windy Acres" to a certain set of people -- land-use planners, environmentalists, builders and the like -- and it doesn't only conjure an image of 292 undeveloped acres of rolling Hunterdon County farmland close to Route 78. It's become much more than that.

Jeff Tittel of the New Jersey Sierra Club calls Windy Acres "the poster child for suburban sprawl."

Mike Disler, president of the Metro New York/New Jersey Division of Pulte Homes, which owns the property and would like to turn it into a mix of senior and low-cost housing, calls it "the poster child for why there is an affordability crisis in housing in this state."

And so it goes in a saga that began in 1985 and has become one of the longest-running development disputes in the state. It's a conflict between developers and environmentalists; between municipalities and the requirements mandated by state's Council on Affordable Housing; and, above all else, the conflict in this crowded state over what has long been our most limited resource: open land.
...
The Cliff's Notes version of the dispute goes like this: In 1985, Windy Acres owner Irving Hilsenroth proposed building an office park there. In 1987, the Clinton Township Planning Board rejected the proposal and rezoned Windy Acres residential, deciding it was an ideal site to help fulfill the town's affordable housing quota as required under the state Supreme Court's landmark Mount Laurel ruling.

In 1995, Hilsenroth returned, proposing a 1,140-unit mix of single-family homes, townhomes and low-cost units. In 1997, he partnered with Pulte Homes, a Michigan-based developer that, with nearly $15 billion in revenue last year, is the nation's largest home builder.
...
By 1999, Pulte -- which eventually bought the property from Hilsenroth for $13.6 million -- had gained general approval for building 1,019 units, scaling down the size slightly to give some of the protected species on the land -- like the turtles -- enough buffer zone.

But soon Pulte had a lot more than a few turtles to worry about. The town was beginning to mobilize politically against Windy Acres, which was projected to increase the number of households in town by 30 percent.

Let the Sun Shine In!

Passaic Co. Greenways, Present and Future

Earlier this year we ran a greenway-centric map of Essex County that generated much interest. It was an intriging site utilized by planners and dreamers. Garden State Greenways is still offering of it's large format pdf county maps. Here's one of Passaic County that dramatically distinguishes north from south.

Falling oil prices bring down mortgage rates

From Inman News:

Long-term interest rates are sitting on a six-month low, the 10-year T-note at 4.75 percent and low-fee 30-year mortgages at 6.5 percent. The reasons that these rates are so low are not the widely advertised pre-recession or housing collapse.

Aside from improving the inflation outlook, the big drop in energy costs will relieve household budgets. As is, consumption has not faltered much: August retail sales were forecast to decline and instead rose.

Housing is slowing, no question, its past stimulus fading to nil, but housing trouble will not exert drag unless waves of foreclosures result in a price spiral. The newest foreclosure and loan-delinquency data do not support the scare headlines, and there is widespread misunderstanding about the process of a housing slowdown.