While a few of New Jersey’s cities are going through a development boom not seen in decades, the guts of the Garden State have always been its small towns. With 565 different municipalities, most of them tiny, certain zip codes have such concentrated wealth that Alpine, a borough of about 2,000 residents, was once named the Most Expensive Place to Live in America by Forbes Magazine.
At least at the top, not much has changed. Alpine again took the top spot on Property Shark’s recent “Top 50 Most Expensive Zip Codes in New Jersey” rankings. The real estate directory selected the priciest spots by calculating the average home sale price for every town, including every transaction that was finalized last year.
The average home sold in Alpine went for just over $2 million and the leafy suburb currently has a $21 million listing on the market. Bergen, the home of Alpine, was the most represented county on the list, also having Englewood Cliffs (#4), Saddle River (#8), Franklin Lakes (#11), Demarest (#16), and Tenafly (#20) nab spots in the top 20.
Monmouth county also had four places that ranked in the top 20 (Deal at #10 was their highest), and Morris and Essex counties each had three towns named apiece (including Short Hills at #2 and New Vernon at #5). Somerset was represented by Far Hills at #9, Ocean county’s Mantoloking clocked in at #6, and Cape May’s Avalon (#7) and Stone Harbor (#3) also made appearances.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, all the places in the top 20 were either relatively close to New York City or a town that features a beach. The rankings also noticeably don’t feature any Philadelphia suburbs on the Jersey side of the Delaware River, articulately demonstrating the difference in housing costs between those two cities.
Hudson County’s best showing was Hoboken, which clocked in at #33 and had an average sale price of $685,000. However, the Mile Square City had the highest total number of transactions last year at 830, dwarfing Beach Haven’s 548, the second most. Weehawken also capped off Property Shark’s list, coming in at #50.
The most expensive homes sold last year were both in Deal and coincidentally both went for a cool $10 million. In terms of currently available homes, a $45 million listing in Harding Township takes the cake. You can check out the full top 50 and priciest current listings and remember, always dream big.
