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Amanda Cruz thought she was playing it safe, as the New Jersey real estate agent recently placed an offer for a client at $150,000 over the asking price — a figure she feared was “a little bit high for the market.”
It turns out she wasn’t even close.
“Someone else came in much higher than us. Like, we weren’t even in the ballpark,” Cruz explained in a now-viral social media post currently gaining hundreds of thousands of views. “My buyers didn’t get the house.”
AVERAGE MONTHLY MORTGAGE PAYMENT HITS NEW HIGH, TOPPING $2K FOR FIRST TIME EVER
“Then I have a listing in Middletown,” she continued. “No offers for two and a half weeks. Yesterday, same day, four offers, all over asking, all phenomenal offers. And this is going on in other parts of Monmouth County as I speak to other agents as well.”
Her experience isn’t a one-off; it’s the front line of a statewide surge. While the rest of the U.S. housing market recorded 0.5% growth in early 2026, according to recent data from Cotality, New Jersey has seen a nearly 6% surge.
More specifically, Newark recorded a 6.7% year-over-year price jump, marking the steepest hike of the 100 largest metros across America. Housing supply in New Jersey reportedly remains well below pre-pandemic levels, with nearly 40% of homes selling above asking prices.
Cruz explained in her post that a “mass exodus” from New York City and Hoboken is flooding suburban markets like Monmouth County, making it nearly impossible for the “average person” to secure a home.
“There is definitely [a] mass exodus from New York, people that are worried in Hoboken for that spillover, they’re jumping over to Monmouth County with the ease of transportation to the city,” Cruz said.
“So if you don’t live in this area already, I don’t think the average person is going to be able to move into Monmouth County, the eastern Monmouth area, very soon.”
Cotality’s latest findings also linked the New Jersey boom to workers getting priced out of the city who are choosing its stately neighbor to avoid sacrificing their full paychecks while maintaining transit access. Many of these new commuters are in the finance, pharmaceutical or biotechnology sectors.
“These diverse trends indicate an ongoing process of price discovery — one where sales and comparisons remain limited — and underscore a market that is rebalancing locally rather than correcting nationally,” Cotality Chief Economist Selma Hepp said.
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