The Bergen County Shift, Part 2: What October Told Us

Last week I wrote that the Bergen County market was shifting. More sellers, fewer buyers, and a slowdown bigger than the usual fall dip. A lot of you wrote back with the same question: okay, so what happens next?

October is almost in, so I went back into the MLS and pulled it all again. Here is what changed, what didn't, and the one thing I got partly wrong the first time.

Buyers kept pulling back

In the first three and a half weeks of October, 331 Bergen County homes went under contract. Same dates last year: 365. That is 9% fewer buyers signing, and the fall season is in both numbers, so this is not the calendar.

It built slowly. The year started even with 2025. Summer was down 3%. September was down 6%. October is down 9%. That is a trend, not a bad week.

The reason is still the same one: the payment. The typical Bergen home costs about $890,000 today, up 4.7% from last year, and the 30-year rate is 7.40% vs. about 6.30% a year ago. Put those together and the monthly payment on the median home went from $4,209 to $4,930. That is $721 more a month, or 17% in one year. Nobody got a 17% raise.

Sellers did not flood in. They recycled.

This is the part I want to correct. In the first post I said withdrawals were up 74%. The raw count is right, but NJMLS added new "conditional" and "temporary" withdrawn categories this year that barely existed last year, so part of that jump is a coding change. The honest comparison is smaller.

So I did something better. I matched every home that was pulled off the market against every new listing, by address. Of the 562 homes that came on the market in October, 131 were homes that had been pulled and relisted. Take those out and the number of first-time listings is 431, vs. 445 last October. Down 3%.

Sellers are not flooding in. What is up is recycling: list it, miss, pull it, cut the price 4 to 5%, relist it. Of the homes pulled since August that have come back, two thirds came back at a lower price, with a median cut of 4.4%. And 374 of them have not come back at all. They are sitting on the sidelines, and every one of those sellers has just been told by the market what their house is actually worth.

Prices are still holding

The median Bergen home that closed in September sold in 18 days at 101.7% of its original asking price. The one soft spot: homes closing in the first three weeks of October came in at 100.0% of asking vs. 100.7% last October. Still at asking, but it is the first month this fall below last year. Those are mostly September contracts, so watch what November closings show.

We have been here before

This is the fourth time in my career that rates jumped like this. 1994, 2013, 2018, and 2022. Every time, buyers pulled back first. Then sellers who did not have to sell stopped listing. Inventory tightened and prices held. In 2022 and 2023, Bergen closings fell 26%, but new listings fell 27%, inventory fell by a third, and the median price went from $660,000 to $690,000.

The one time prices really fell, 2007 to 2011, was a credit crisis with forced sellers. Expired listings in Bergen are flat this year. Nobody is being forced to sell.

What it means for spring

If this plays out like the last three times, spring has fewer homes for sale, not more. The 374 sellers on the sidelines will come back, but most of the people who were thinking about listing will wait, and the buyers who are still looking will be competing for less.

If you are selling

Think like a buyer. The person walking into your house is paying 17% more than last year's buyer for the same house and has about a thousand homes to choose from. They are not shopping for a house. They are shopping for the one that is clearly worth it. Price and condition are how yours wins that comparison, and the home that is clearly the better value sells for more, not less. The one priced for last year is the one that gets pulled, cut, and relisted.

If you are buying

You are competing with 9% fewer buyers than last fall, and a quarter to half of the homes for sale in most towns have already been cut or relisted. Ask for the price history on everything you see. If you are waiting for spring, know that spring usually has fewer listings after a fall like this one. Waiting is a bet on rates, and nobody can call rates.

Want your town's numbers?

I have this by town, down to how many homes went under contract since September 1 and how many of the ones for sale have been sitting more than 60 days. Call or text me at 201.292.0011.

Source: NJMLS Matrix, Bergen County Residential, pulled October 27 and 28, 2026, compared to the same dates in 2025. Mortgage rates: Freddie Mac. Payments are principal and interest only, 20% down, 30-year fixed.