Lowest Home Prices in JC & Hoboken

Pavel Saikin
Nov 10, 2023
1 min read

Updated: May 8, 2024

Market reports focus on the average sale price, Realtors focus on posting their 'record breaking' sale for the 5th time this week, but a very important data set is often overlooked and underappreciated - the lowest sale prices.

Consider a set of 5 numbers: 10, 15, 15, 15, 20

The sum of these numbers is 75 and the average is 15
If the '20' increases by 2, the sum becomes 77 and the average 15.4
Or, if the '10' increases by 2, the sum is also 77 and the average 15.4

The lowest number, 10, had to increase by 20% in order to achieve the same outcome as a 10% increase from the highest number, 20. A stronger market sentiment is needed to push the low-end higher. By comparing the yearly lowest sale prices, a truer reflection of market trend can be observed without imbalanced data from new construction and ultra-luxury renovations.

The absolute lowest sale price can often be an outlier and the majority of low prices come from studio condos. To overcome low-end outliers, I compared the average of the lowest 10% of sale prices for 2bed/2bath condos from 2018-present. I chose 2bed/2bath condos because they are the highest demanded criteria and have the lowest odds of being a distressed properly.