While it’s no secret that living along the Hudson River can cost a pretty penny, a few suburban towns also rank high among the Garden State’s most expensive places to lease a home.
Earlier this month, real estate listing and news service RentCafe released a study detailing areas across the United States that have the highest median rents. The Santa Barbara-based company looked at almost 4,400 zip codes in over 130 markets and created national, regional, and state rankings.
A perennial contender for highest rents in New Jersey, Hoboken’s 07030 zip code led the way again during 2019. The zip code had the highest average rent in the Garden State at $3,531/month over the year, a 2.7% annual increase in that metric.
Two zip codes in Jersey City snatched the next spots on the list, with the state’s second most expensive zip code being 07310. The area encompasses all of Newport and Downtown’s northern end, which is seeing a huge construction boom that consists mostly of rental buildings. Average rent in the zip code clocked in $3,297/month.
The remainder of Downtown Jersey City, which falls under the 07302 zip code, came in third for highest rents in the state. It cost $3,291/month to rent a home here, or just a few dollars less than Jersey City’s first entry on the list.
The top five is rounded out by two other zip codes along the Hudson coastline in Edgewater and Weehawken. Edgewater’s 07020 clocked in at $3,219/month while Weehawken’s 07086 came in at $3,005. While Weehawken’s rents may be a bit lower compared to other towns with views of New York Harbor, their year-on-year increase of 3.9% was the highest on the list.
The first suburban town to make the list was Union county’s Cranford, where rents inside their 07016 zip code were sixth-highest in the state and averaged $2,956/month. Fort Lee’s 07024, home to the George Washington Bridge, came in seventh at $2,595/month. Three different zip codes inside Florham Park, Secaucus, and South Orange rounded out the top ten.
A quick look at the study’s national conclusions explains why rents along New Jersey’s side of the Hudson River are so high. Of the top 50 most expensive zip codes in America, 26 of them are in Manhattan. The study says average rents in New York’s 10282, which encompasses parts of Battery Park City and Tribeca, are the highest in the nation at $6,211/month.
Besides Manhattan, the Queens zip code of 11101, which encompasses Long Island City, ranked #46 in terms of highest rents. Another zip code in Brooklyn that includes the Downtown and DUMBO neighborhoods, 11201, ranked #49.
If there’s any good news for New Jersey renters in the survey, it’s that the state wasn’t home to any of the 50 zip codes with the highest rents nationwide. Besides New York’s 28, the rankings included 18 zip codes in California, mostly in Los Angeles and the Bay Area, and four in and around Boston, Massachusetts.
