a sales associate with Coldwell Banker at the Shore said the home at 306 20th St. in Brigantine, above, sold for $1,755,000 after just 24 days on the market

By KEVIN POST, Press of A.C. Business Editor | Posted: Sunday, August 29, 2010

Home prices in southern New Jersey increased in the second quarter, as sales statewide surged, driven by the now-expired federal subsidies for buyers.

The median price of an existing single-family home in Atlantic, Cape May and Cumberland counties was $224,400, up 2.6 percent from the second quarter of 2009, the National Association of Realtors reported.

Total home sales in New Jersey jumped 30 percent from the prior year’s period to an annual pace of 138,900 units.

On Wednesday, the Federal Housing Finance Agency said second-quarter prices for home purchases and refinancings in Atlantic County were down 6.7 percent from the year before, while in Cape May County they were 3 percent lower and in Cumberland County, 6.5 percent lower.

The FHFA survey said nationwide, house prices were down 4.9 percent from the second quarter of 2009. The FHFA tracks only mortgages handled by government-supported entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Local real estate professionals said they see signs of stabilization in the figures and in their experience in the market.

“There is some optimism,” said Peter Petridis, 50, of Brigantine, a sales associate with Coldwell Banker at the Shore in that city. “The market is not what we want it to be, but things are going in the right direction.”

Thomas Wissel, director of the Jersey Shore MLS for the Ocean County Board of Realtors, welcomed the firming prices but said sales are still soft.

“Median prices are creeping up, but the actual number of units selling is the tough part,” he said. “Those are way down from what they were years ago, but slogging along at the same level.”

Area Multiple Listing Service figures showed a drop in reported single-family home sales (existing and new) in July, suggesting the spring’s tax credits of $8,000 and $15,000 lured normal summer buyers.

Wissel said the Jersey Shore MLS had 143 closings in July, down from 180 in July 2009.

In Atlantic County, MLS sales dropped to 147 in July from 169 a year ago. In Cape May County (not including Ocean City), MLS sales in July were 152, down from 194 in the month last year.

The Realtors’ 2.6 percent home price increase in the region outpaced a nationwide second quarter rise of 1.5 percent, and came despite a 3.2 percent drop in prices in the Northeast overall.

The median price for the shore region may be benefiting from the sale of high-end homes on or near the water. The National Association of Realtors survey, started in 1979, counts whatever houses sold in the quarter, which vary in value.

Wissel said the Ocean County market is currently dominated by mid-priced and upper-end homes, with 459 of those available this month priced from $250,000 to $500,000, and 252 priced at more than $1 million.

Petridis has noticed the two-pronged market at his agency.

“The regular homes are pushing, going through, and the $200,000 to $300,000 range is a busy market,” he said. “Then there are some upper echelon homes coming through.”

He said the agency recently has sold a few homes for more than $1 million.

Others are looking for even pricier homes.

“We have buyers looking in the plus-$4 million range,” he said, seeking oceanfront property and in some cases sellers are holding out for a better price.

In another sign of slight improvement, homes are taking a little less time to sell.

The Prudential Fox & Roach HomExpert Market Report says houses in Atlantic County spent an average 115 days on the market in the first half of 2010, down from 122 days in the first half of last year.

Mortgage interest rates are also at record low levels.

Freddie Mac, the federally supported mortgage buyer, said the average rate in the second quarter on a 30-year conventional fixed-rate mortgage was a record low of 4.91 percent.

Wissel said the rates aren’t motivating buyers as much as expected because banks have largely returned to demanding a significant down payment, which is hard to save in the slow economy.

The region’s price increase reversed a drop of 2.6 percent in the first quarter in the Realtors survey. The FHFA’s first quarter survey reported Atlantic County prices down 10.1 percent from the year before and those in Cape May County off 8 percent.

Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors, reasserted this week that we won’t know the shape of the housing market until fall, when the distorting effects of the federal tax credits are past.

Wissel said it seems at least that the market has bottomed.

“If nothing else, the bleeding has slowed down and things are reaching a level, and we’ve just got to wait for things to turn around,” he said.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted composite index of mortgage applications for the week ending August 20 increased 4.9%. Refinancing applications rose 5.7%. Purchase volume rose 0.6%. Refinancing made up 82% of total applications.

Orders for durable goods — items expected to last three or more years — rose 0.3% in July after decreasing a revised 0.1% in June. The increase was largely due to improved demand for commercial aircraft. Excluding volatile transportation-related goods, orders posted a monthly decrease of 3.8%.

New home sales fell 12.4% in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 276,000 units from a revised rate of 315,000 units in June. It was the lowest reading since recordkeeping began in 1963. Economists had expected a pace of 330,000 units.

In its second report, the Commerce Department announced that gross domestic product — the total output of goods and services produced in the U.S. — increased at an annual rate of 1.6% in the second quarter of 2010, rather than the 2.4% increase initially reported.

Initial claims for unemployment benefits fell by 31,000 to 473,000 for the week ending August 21. Economists had projected claims would fall to 490,000. Continuing claims for the week ending August 14 fell by 62,000 to 4.46 million.

Upcoming on the economic calendar are reports on the housing price index on August 31, construction spending on September 1 and pending home sales on September 2.

Atlantic City Intl Airport

By ERIK ORTIZ Press of A.C. Staff Writer | Tuesday, August 24, 2010

More passengers traveled through Atlantic City International Airport in the first half of this year than in any comparable period ever before, validating a need for the facility to expand its services and position itself as an airport of convenience in the region, transportation officials said.

Figures provided Tuesday by the South Jersey Transportation Authority, which operates the airport, show the scheduled passenger count was more than 688,000 from January through July, an increase of nearly 29 percent from 534,339 passengers in the first seven months of 2009. The airport began commercial service in 1985.

June saw a 12 percent rise: 71,933 scheduled passengers in 2009 versus 80,746 in 2010. Scheduled passengers are those booked on a commercial flight departing the airport, currently through either Spirit Airlines or AirTran Airways. Arriving passengers are not counted.

The increase came even though Spirit, Atlantic City International’s main carrier, canceled daily flights to and from the Egg Harbor Township-based airport for five days in June because its pilots walked off the job in a contract dispute. Hundreds of Spirit pilots eventually ratified a new five-year contract in July.

SJTA spokeswoman Sharon Gordon said Spirit canceled 161 flights at the airport in June, 156 of which were directly related to the strike. AirTran benefited from the cancellations, flying out of the airport with “100 percent” capacity, Gordon added.

Now, the airport is planning a new economic impact study following one conducted in 2007. That report said more than 360,000 visitors came to the region using the airport and spent $185 million at local businesses.

Airport use is expected to increase following a $25 million expansion of its terminal and the opening of a federal inspection station to be used for customs.

“Spirit has already indicated that when we include the federal inspection station, they are prepared to offer direct international service,” Gordon said.

While the airport has wanted to diversify its carriers, having two low-cost airlines does help attract travelers, SJTA officials said.

In the first quarter of 2010, Atlantic City International had the lowest fares of the top 100 U.S. airports by passenger count, with tickets costing an average $187.78, according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

“The airport is easy to access, parking is just steps from the terminal, low-fare airlines make flying more affordable and the wait time from arrival to gate is minimal,” Bart Mueller, SJTA executive director, said in a statement.

But also helping its passenger numbers is that the airlines added more routes: Spirit began service to Boston last year and to Detroit in May, while AirTran began offering flights to Atlanta last year.

The airport did lose another carrier in May, WestJet, which ended service to Toronto because of low ticket sales.

Spirit, however, will add Chicago to its itinerary next spring.

While it is unclear how many passengers flying through Atlantic City International this year were local residents versus tourists, any surge in airport traffic will likely benefit the region, said Jeffrey Vasser, president of the Atlantic City Convention & Visitors Authority.

His authority is in charge of marketing the resort, and he recently went to Boston to lure travel writers and bloggers to Atlantic City. A vibrant airport is pivotal to ensure tourists have faster access here, he added.

“We want them to say what a great trip Atlantic City was and how convenient it was to get there,” Vasser said.

This home on East Mill Road has been repossessed by a bank and is on the market. While the estimated market value is $334,862, its estimated market range begins at $281,284. Photo by: Edward Lea

By LYNDA COHEN Press of A.C. Staff Writer | Sunday, August 8, 2010

Lost jobs and predatory loans have caused for-sale and foreclosure signs to pop up all over.

But if buyers have the right bank — and a good dose of patience — distress sales can be a good thing for those looking to get a home for a lower price, experts say.

“It’s a great opportunity the majority of the time,” said Mary Lou Ferry, owner of Farley and Ferry Realty in Margate. “But it can be time-consuming.”

Beware, though. “Short sale” doesn’t reflect how long such a purchase takes. Ferry advises clients to be prepared for about 90 days, although it can take much longer.

“There are certain banks out there that there’s such bureaucracy, it can be 12 months into a sale and you still don’t have an answer,” said JoAnn Torcasio, of Marketplace Realty in Margate.

She said she’s worked with both buyers and sellers who have had problems.

“The difficulty is usually on the bank side,” said real estate attorney Duane Phillips, who works in the Galloway Township-Absecon area. “It’s sometimes hard to get a decision because they don’t want to let a property go for too little.”

“Most of the agents out there are more than happy to follow the procedure and work as expeditiously as they can,” Torcasio said. “Sometimes, you just hit a brick wall.”

“Those type of situations are generally more complicated and more difficult to structure, particularly for the buyer,” said Daniel Young, an Ocean City-based real estate lawyer.

The key for buyers, he advises, is making sure to deal with someone who can enter into the transaction.

“Often you’re dealing with middle men working off a check list that don’t have any real authority,” Young said.

They also may not know details about the property.

“There are issues that an ordinary seller would know that a bank who took back the property may not,” Young said. “So the buyer may not be able to get representations they normally get.”

No matter how rough or smooth such sales go, Torcasio said, the lower selling prices these homes are getting needs to be recognized by the towns they’re in.

In certain neighborhoods, there are so many distressed-sale homes, it brings down the value of others — but not when it comes to tax assessments.

“When you go to get a tax appeal, they won’t take short sales and foreclosures,” Torcasio said. “That’s affecting people still in their homes.”

After significant drops from 2007 and 2008, prices in the region have stabilized and shifted slightly up and down, suggesting the market is seeking a bottom.

By KEVIN POST, Press of A.C. Business Editor | Posted: Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Median home prices in southern New Jersey in the first quarter of 2010 were down 2.6 percent from the same period the year before, while nationwide prices fell by 0.7 percent, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday.

The region’s price drop, after near stability the previous quarter, went against a nation-leading 9 percent jump in home prices in the Northeast as a whole.

Sales levels were strong in the state, however, despite severe winter storms in January and February.

New Jersey was one of just three states (with Michigan and Wyoming) to show a gain in sales — up 6.8 percent from the prior quarter and 14.5 percent from the same period a year ago — in the Realtor report. The state’s annualized sales rate was 120,600 homes.

“That’s extremely encouraging news,” Richard Shaffer III, president of the Atlantic City & County Board of Realtors, said after hearing the numbers at a NAR conference in Washington on Tuesday. “Strong sales will probably carry over into the second quarter, since a lot of sales from the federal tax credits will close then.”

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said the association is encouraged by the stabilizing of home prices. He said the federal incentives for homebuyers that ended in April resulted in about a million additional sales and were very effective in reducing excess housing inventory.

Nationwide, first-quarter sales of all existing homes fell 14 percent from the last quarter of 2009 — for an annualized rate of 5.1 million sales. That’s still 11.4 percent better than sales in the first quarter of 2009.

The median sale price for houses in the greater Atlantic City market — in which NAR includes Atlantic, Cape May and Cumberland counties — fell to $213,300 in the first three months of 2010 from $219,100 in the same period in 2009.

Carol Anderson, president of the Cape May County Association of Realtors, said home prices have fallen a bit as most sellers have become more realistic.

“Prices may have gone down somewhat, but those prices are the right prices for this market right now,” Anderson said.

The Cape May County Realtors said its sales were up 26 percent in the quarter to 354, from 280 in the first quarter of 2009.

After significant drops from 2007 and 2008, prices in the region have stabilized and shifted slightly up and down, suggesting the market is seeking a bottom.

Southern New Jersey’s median home price was $269,700 in 2007 and $253,300 in 2008, NAR said, dropping to $221,300 in 2009. In last year’s second quarter it dropped to $218,700 before rising to $223,000 and then edging downward.

Shaffer said the market for houses priced under $300,000 is doing very well, with sales coming in at about 4 percent off the listing price.

“I think pricier homes are affecting the price decline,” he said, with those typically selling for as much as 6 percent below listing price.

Across the nation, 91 of the 152 metropolitan areas where the Realtors track existing single-family home sales saw prices higher in the first quarter than the year before.

Judith Saylor, with Prudential Fox & Roach Realtors in Northfield, said home prices might fall a bit more in the area, depending on the location.

“I think we went so high so fast that there’s probably room for some more lowering of prices,” Saylor said.

One of her listings with a reduced-price sign on it — a 3,300-square-foot historic home on an acre on Shore Road in Linwood — was listed at $849,000 in June and has now been reduced to $719,000, she said.

“Sellers are still under the illusion that properties are worth so much money, and we’re under the illusion that we can get more than we really can,” she said.

The NAR quarterly survey, begun in 1979, tracks the prices of all homes sold in the quarter.

Zillow.com, which uses a proprietary formula to figure homes prices, said this week that Atlantic City area home prices were 6.4 percent lower than the year before.

Actually, how to think about buying a house.

You don’t see a lot of ads trying to sell you on spending too much money on a house. It’s more subtle than that. The marketing is all around us, and has been for years. The enormous social pressure and the expectations that come with it lead to misunderstandings and confusion. Here’s my advice to someone in the market:

1. In an era where house prices rise reliably (which was 1963 to 2007), it was almost impossible to overpay for a house. It was an efficient market, and rising prices cover many mistakes. Investing in houses in the USA was a no-brainer. More leverage and more at stake just paid off more in the end. This consistent, multi-generational rise taught us more than an ad every could: buy a lot of house  with as little downpayment as you could.
2. A house is not just an investment, it’s a place to live. This is the only significant financial investment that has two functions. Things like cars and boats always go down in value, so most of the time, if you’re investing, you’re doing it in something that you don’t have to fix, water, fuel or live in. You shouldn’t fall in love with a bond or a stock or a piece of gold, because if you do, you won’t be a smart investor. The problem (as people who sell and fix and build houses understand) is that you just might fall in love with a house. What a dumb reason to make the largest financial investment of your life.
3. The psychology of down markets is irrational. Rising house prices might be efficient (many bidders for a single item lead to higher prices), but when there aren’t so many bidders, irrational sellers (see #2) don’t lower their prices accordingly. So, inventories get longer and it’s easy for the prospective buyer to think that a certain price is the ‘right’ price because so many people are offering houses at that price. Just because someone offers a price, though, doesn’t mean it’s fair in a given market.
4. Along the same lines, anchoring has a huge impact on housing prices. If someone offers a house for $800,000 and you think it’s worth half that, you don’t offer half that. No, of course not. The price is a mental and emotional anchor, and you’re likely to offer far more.
5. The social power of a house is huge. When you buy a big house or an expensive house, you are making a statement to your in-laws, your family, your neighbors and yourself. Nothing wrong with that, but the question you must ask yourself is, “how big a statement can I afford?” How much are you willing to spend on personal marketing and temporary self-esteem?
6. Debt is an evil plot to keep you poor. If buying a bigger house (or even a house with a living room or a garage) is going to keep you in credit card debt, you’ve made a huge financial error, one that could cost you millions.
7. By the time you buy a house, you probably have a family. Which means that this is a joint decision, a group decision, a decision made under stress by at least two people, probably people that don’t have a lot of practice talking rationally about significant financial decisions that also have emotional and social underpinnings. Ooph. You’ve been warned. Perhaps you could add some artificial rigor to the conversation so that it doesn’t become a referendum on your marriage or careers and is instead about the house.
8. If you have a steady job, matching your mortgage to your income isn’t dumb. But if you are a freelancer, an entrepreneur or a big thinker, a mortgage can wipe you out. That’s because the pressure to make your monthly nut is so big you won’t take the risks and do the important work you need to do to actually get ahead. When you have a choice between creating a sure-thing average piece of work or a riskier breakthrough, the mortgage might be just enough to persuade you to hold back.
9. Real estate brokers, by law, work for the seller (unless otherwise noted). And yet buyers often try to please the broker. You’ll never see her again, don’t worry about it.
10. You’re probably not going to be able to flip your house in nine months for a big profit. Maybe not even nine years. So revisit #2 and imagine that there is no financial investment, just a house you love. And spend accordingly.

I’m optimistic about the power of a house to change your finances, to provide a foundation for a family and our communities. I’m just not sure you should buy more house than you can afford merely because houses have such good marketing.

Seth Godin's Blog

Mortgage Foreclosure

By KEVIN POST, Press of A.C. Business Editor | Thursday, April 15, 2010 |

Southern New Jersey foreclosures in the first three months of 2009 were down significantly from the final quarter last year, but still up sharply from the first quarter a year ago.

Atlantic County’s 807 foreclosures was 31 percent fewer than the prior quarter, but 61 percent higher than the period a year before, according to data released today by RealtyTrac.

A similar pattern held in Cape May County, with 297 filings, down 35 percent for the quarter, up 22 percent from a year ago; Cumberland County, 271 filings, down 31 percent, still 23 percent higher than a year ago; and Ocean County, 1,270 filings, 28 percent lower for the quarter, 45 percent higher than the first quarter of 2009.

In the nation as a whole, foreclosures rose 7 percent in the first quarter and were 16 percent higher than the previous year.

James Saccacio, CEO of Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac, said there was evidence the increases were in part the result of lenders catching up with a backlog from processing delays and foreclosure prevention programs.

For the 14th consecutive quarter, Nevada had the highest rate of foreclosures in the nation with one in every 33 homes subject to a filing. Arizona’s one in 49 ranked second and Florida’s one in 57 came third.

RealtyTrac ranked New Jersey 22nd, with a foreclosure rate of one in 226 homes.

California accounted for nearly a quarter of the nation’s foreclosures on its own.

Foreclosure rates were lower in southern New Jersey than the national rate of one in 138 homes, according to RealtyTrac.

In Atlantic County, the rate was one in 158; Cape May County, one in 346; Cumberland County, one in 206; and Ocean County, one in 216.

Ken Harney

by Kenneth R. Harney

Signs of recovery in the housing market and the national economy keep popping up – and are even beginning to surprise veteran analysts on Wall Street and elsewhere.

Though economists had expected the latest pending home sales index to be down – after all, February saw the worst weather in decades in large parts of the U.S. – the numbers actually took a big bounce.

The National Association of Realtors reported that pending sales jumped 8.2 percent for the month and were 17 percent higher than they were at the same time last year.

Contracts in the Northeast were up by 9 percent, the Midwest by 22 percent and in the South by 9 percent. Only the Western region came in negative – down by 5 percent. But even in the West, pending sales were 15 percent higher than they were the year before.

With the April 30 deadline for sales contracts to qualify for the two housing tax credits just weeks away, analysts expect home sales activity to remain high. Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, says he thinks we may be in “the early stages of a second surge” of real estate transactions that could continue into mid-year.

But let’s be clear: Home sales are not only being pushed by tax credits. Far stronger impetus is coming from steadily improving conditions in the national economy and rising consumer perceptions that finally things are getting better.

Look at the latest monthly employment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For the first time in nearly two years, there was significant new job creation during the month of March – 162,000 payroll positions.

That was helped along in part by Census Bureau hiring to conduct the 2010 census, but there was growth elsewhere as well: 15,000 net new construction jobs, 17,000 manufacturing jobs, and 11,000 business services jobs.

Home Depot and other big household-oriented retailers announced that they have begun hiring again. Retails sales nationwide jumped by 23 percent for the month; home furnishings and furniture sales were up 14 percent

Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Economy.com, told the New York Times that “consumers are (getting) almost giddy” in their zeal to resume spending, and they are cutting their savings to fund their new purchases.

All of this, of course, is great news for housing, which is hardwired to employment growth and consumer confidence

But don’t assume we’re out of the woods quite yet — not with the national unemployment rate stuck at 9.7 percent. And there’s another challenge taking shape on the horizon: Rising mortgage rates that are inevitable in an economy rebounding out of recession.

Published: April 12, 2010

Longport homes in 2009 sold for an average price of $510 per square foot, one of the highest rates in the state. Some, like this one on Beach Terrace, have a feature seldom found in other locations: two full kitchens. Thursday, April, 1, 2010 ( Press of Atlantic City / Danny Drake)

By KEVIN POST, Press of A.C. Business Editor | Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Nothing concentrates value in a house like being located in an oceanfront community, preferably one appealing to second-home owners and with a degree of exclusivity.

Houses are not much bigger in Stone Harbor, Longport, Harvey Cedars and other barrier island towns, but they sure are worth a lot more for their size.

Stone Harbor, for example, had the second-highest median price per square foot — $669 — for New Jersey homes sold last year. The median size of those houses was 1,546 square feet.

That’s significantly smaller than the typical Upper Township house sold last year, which was 1,796 square feet That shows how much easier it is to build large when you’ve got lots of land.

But the price per square foot in the township was just $161.

It has long been said that real estate is all about location. A short walk to the beach is great. Looking out big windows on the ocean or bay is even better.

As a result, the top 25 municipalities for price-per-square foot last year are pretty much a catalog of desirable shore locations — nine in Ocean County, five in Cape May County and one in Atlantic County: Longport.

Jeffrey R. Hesley, the tax assessor in Longport and Avalon, said home owners in those towns aren’t shocked by the high valuations of their properties.

“They’re pretty much keen buyers and very astute owners. They keep up with the market and what buys and sells, and what’s in their house,” he said.

Fifteen years of assessing the two communities — and 30 years in the business overall — have made Hesley familiar with what makes up the priciest properties.

“The real high-end, oceanfront stuff is going to have bumped-up things, so the floors will be marble instead of tiles, the counters will be stone instead of Corian,” he said.

Such things are not just difficult to value, he said, but also don’t count in determining a property’s basis for taxation.

“The quote-unquote ‘amazing stuff’ isn’t stuff you’d assess. The extravagant carpet, draperies, furniture, those kinds of add-ons really aren’t assessable,” Hesley said.

But, if they’re included in the home when it sells, they can increase the price. Or sometimes not.

“You might have a really expensive pink and purple carpet you put in the living room, but if I was looking to buy and

didn’t like it, then it didn’t really add value,” he said.

What does add value, besides location, are the five baths and six bedrooms the big barrier island houses often have, he said.

Nancy Stein has been looking inside island homes for about 25 years as owner of Girl Friends maid service in Longport, where the price per square foot was $510 last year.

The first thing you’d notice about Longport houses, she said, is that more of them have elevators than other affluent communities — partly because more of them are three stories.

That’s not the most distinctive Longport home feature, though.

“One significant difference is that many of them have two full-sized kitchens. That’s something that’s not unusual in a Longport house, whereas it’s unusual any other place,” Stein said.

Full redundant food preparation facilities may seem a bit much, but not when you consider the typical use of many Longport homes.

“They’re vacation homes that host a lot of entertaining, albeit only on the weekends,” she said. “For three months, only on weekends, a home that size with two kitchens, it may seem kind of strange, but they can be filled with large families and lots of people.”

Another feature Stein sees in Longport but not other areas is newly constructed places that have double bedrooms with adjoining baths “that are almost like a suite for the children and grandchildren.”

And, of course, the interiors are professionally designed and decorated, and pretty much everything is top of the line, she said.

Such characteristics of island houses push the average price per square foot significantly higher in Cape May and southern Ocean counties — which have substantial vacation and second-home communities — than elsewhere in southern New Jersey.

 Municipalities in Cape May County averaged $308 per square foot for properties sold last year. In southern Ocean County, the average was $309 per square foot.

The average in Atlantic County was barely more than half that, at $168, and in Cumberland County just $102.

A condo unit at 435 E. 20th Ave. in North Wildwood, recently sold. After a rough few years, the Wildwoods condo market is beginning to rebound.

By BRIAN IANIERI, Press of A.C. Staff Writer | Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Throughout the Wildwoods, condominiums arose where they could, like dune grass in the sand.

Inside converted motel rooms. Atop an old lumberyard. On lots with ocean views and on others overlooking convenience store parking lots.

As the real estate market exploded at the shore, condominiums in the Wildwoods were relatively affordable, less expensive than a house in Avalon or Stone Harbor or a duplex in Sea Isle City.

Then the bubble burst, as condo prices themselves soared amid a wave of development that would fall hard in the recession.

Now, condominiums throughout the Wildwoods can sell for 30 to 40 percent less than their 2005 prices. They can also come with stricter loan restrictions, local Realtors reported.

Wildwoods Realtors say the market is starting to pick up – or, at least, has finally bottomed out.

“September of 2005, somebody shut the faucets off,” said Don Martin of Don Martin Realty in the Wildwoods. “2006 was horrible. 2007 is when the developers had to slash prices, 2008 was very poor and got weaker as the year went on. We picked up a surge in the last of 2009.”

“I think people are starting to believe this thing is bottoming, and it’s time to make a move,” Martin said. “The thing that’s still hurting is job stability. It’s tough to buy a second home when you don’t know about your job.”

Condominiums are often seen as the ideal vacation homes at the seashore. They’re more hands off than a single family home. Owners don’t have to cut lawns or paint. And, there are more locations closer to the beach, and more to choose from.

Because of this, condominiums remain desirable although they were swept up in the wave of short sales and foreclosures that engulfed the entire real estate market.

“I would anticipate there to be not too much left in a three bedroom, two bath, decent quality, close to the beach under $400,000 for the summer,” said Jeanine Cabrera of Cabrera Realty in the Wildwoods. “Inventory during the bubble was $600,000, $700,000. I don’t think the steals are going to be there much longer.”

Meanwhile, guidelines for buyers to get financing for a condominium have changed since the real estate bubble.

“As the short sale inventory is getting absorbed, we’re seeing the banks are starting to raise the bar,” Cabrera said. “We’ve stopped going backwards, which is a good thing,” Cabrera said.

There have been changes in loan guidelines, including more restrictions dealing with the financial health of condo associations, said Jessica Lees of the Lees Real Estate Agency in the Wildwoods. Condo sales can be challenging at units where condo associations themselves are having trouble as association members are late or delinquent on their condo fees.

Weaker associations could make financing more difficult, and sometimes purchases require cash, said Michelle McCormick-Courtney of Wildwoods Realty.

She said buyers now tend to be those who had taken a step back when the market was at its peak. Now, the lower prices are appealing to them.

“I think that right now the market is an honest market and it’s based on value, it’s not based on a lot of hype,” she said.