Parsing MLS Data

I had heard that the new construction along Ocean Avenue in Long Branch, which is called The Bluffs and Grand Resort, was bought up by a lot of "investors." Since most of these new condos and townhouses were completed in 2004 and 2005 its hard not to imagine that many buyers of these places would be looking to make a quick buck and try to sell ASAP. I don't know what the motivations of the buyers of these places were, or are, however, it looks to me that many more people are trying to sell than would be expected.

In order to figure out what a normal sales rate is on a per town basis, I looked up the number of houses that are for sale on the MLS for Little Silver (64 houses for sale), Rumson (115) and Fair Haven (66). I also looked at the 2000 census figures to see how many houses were in each town and came up with 2288 for Little Silver, 2610 for Rumson and 2037 for Fair Haven. Given this data, 2.8% of the houses in Little Silver are for sale, 4.4% for Rumson, and 3.2% for Fair Haven.

According to the Grand Resorts and Bluffs website, there are 179 and 104 units in each development, respectively. I counted all the units listed for sale in the MLS for Grand Resorts and came up with 20 and for the Bluffs I counted 12. The percent of units for sale out of all units was 11.2% for the Grand Resorts and 11.5% for the Bluffs. I believe that the higher percentage of units for sale at the Resorts and Bluffs compared to the other towns is indicative of greater investor activity compared to other places. This is not necessarily bad. However, as many others have pointed out, investors might be inclined to sell a property faster than someone who buys a place to actually live in because the investor is only concerned with maximizing profits or minimizing losses.