Happy New Year and thanks for your thoughtful questions.

I am certainly no expert on wall street but I think more regulation is bad for stocks and bad for real estate. I think having the stock portion of bonuses vest over several years and having a higher stock vs cash component may be bad for real estate in the near term. But in the long term, it may make employees take actions that are good for their firms in the long term rather than just looking for short term wins. If this results in more profitable and stable companies than that will be good for real estate.

In terms of property taxes, Christie says he will lower them, but I guess we have to wait and see. We have heard this before. Obviously, if they go up significantly it will be bad for NJ real estate.

Quick question, how do you think more wall st government regulation and more bonus compensation in the form of stock will affect home prices in bergen county? Also, given the current fiscal deficit in the NJ state govt, do you expect property taxes to rise over time and, if yes, what impact would higher property taxes have on Bergen County home values?

Many Thanks and HNY,

LLL

You make some good points. You are clearly a bright man/woman. On that note, what is your name? I feel kind of silly addressing my comments to LaLaLand.

Anyway, the article you posted from NorthJersey.com supports my point of view. I think the general gist is that we are at, or near, the bottom. “Buy low – Sell High” applies equally to real estate as it does to stocks. If you wait for the market to up then you are too late.

Regarding the turbulence in last year’s market…there will always be factors that would allow someone to say a year-over-year comparison is “apples to oranges”, because no two years are ever the same, but unfortunately you have to work with the data that is available and that is what I do. I can’t change the events. I just try to interpret their impact as best I can.

I actually enjoy your feedback. You are keeping me on my toes.

Have a great day.

There are two factors that stabilized the housing market – 1) the increase in the conforming mortgage maximum to $729 and 2) the govt subsidy to first time home buyers. Neither was targeted at excessive markets like bergen county. There is still a long way to go in the correction of $1M+ homes, unless either – 1) the $729k high value conforming cap is raised or 2) the 150 basis point spread on non-conforming loans tightens. Some of your own active listings are feeling the effects of this today. There are two markets – a liquid low-end market and an illiquid $1M+ market. This is the realism you should be sprinkling on clients rather than bar charts comparing the last four months of 2009 to a period last year in which it seemed the world was ending.