Modern stone and wood luxury home in Bergen County, New Jersey at dusk with interior lights glowing

Bergen County Real Estate 2026: The Year-to-Date Picture

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Eight months into 2026, the Bergen County housing market has told two different stories. The first quarter was the quietest start in several years: prices barely moved, sales slipped, and homes took longer to find a buyer. Then spring arrived and the market changed gears. By July, single-family prices were up high single digits from a year earlier, closed sales were running double-digit gains, and the county once again posted the highest median list price in Northern New Jersey. Here is what the year-to-date data shows, and what it means if you are listing, developing or marketing property in Bergen County this fall.

The numbers at a glance

IndicatorLatest readingChange from a year ago
Single-family median sale price (July)About $950,000+8.5%
Single-family median sale price (June)$921,000+6.7%
Single-family closed sales (June)538+10.7%
All-property median sale price (July)$847,514+6.4%
Homes sold, all types (July)858+12.6%
Homes sold above list price (July)58.9%-3.7 points
Sale-to-list price ratio (July)103.3%-0.2 points
Active listings (early August)About 1,800 to 2,100Rising month over month
Median list price (August 1)$848,000Highest in Northern NJ
30-year fixed mortgage rate (Sept. 3)6.71%6.50% a year ago
Sources: Greater Bergen Realtors and New Jersey MLS, Redfin, Realtor.com, Elevate Realty NJ, Freddie Mac. Providers use different property classifications and reporting periods, so figures are not directly comparable across rows.

A slow first quarter

Through March, the single-family median sale price in Bergen County stood at $823,900, up only 0.5 percent from the same period in 2025. Closed sales were down about 1 percent, new listings were down 10 percent, and the typical home needed 47 days to go under contract, roughly 17 percent longer than a year earlier. Sellers were still collecting about 102 percent of asking price on average, but the easy overbids of 2024 and early 2025 had thinned out.

The townhouse and condo segment was noticeably softer. The year-to-date median through March was $465,000, down almost 8 percent, with closed sales off about 10 percent and condo inventory up nearly 24 percent. For the first time in a while, buyers in that segment had choices.

Spring and summer turned it around

May was the pivot. Greater Bergen Realtors reported a single-family median of $900,000 for the month, up 10.3 percent year over year, even though closed sales were still running below 2025. Prices moved first, then volume followed. In June the single-family median reached $921,000 with 538 closings, an increase of 10.7 percent, and by July the median had climbed to roughly $950,000 on about 610 single-family closings, up around 14 percent from July 2025.

Redfin’s broader measure, which blends all property types, shows the same shape: a July median of $847,514, up 6.4 percent, with 858 homes sold, up 12.6 percent. Nearly six in ten of those homes sold above asking, and the average sale closed at 103 percent of list. That is a strong market by any national standard, and it is running well ahead of the country as a whole, where the National Association of Realtors put June’s median price gain at 1.3 percent.

Inventory is loosening, slowly

Supply remains the defining constraint. Bergen County entered the spring with about 1.7 months of single-family supply, and while active listings have grown each month since, they have not caught up with demand. Realtor.com counted roughly 1,730 active listings in June and 1,790 in July. A separate early-August count that includes more property types put the figure at 2,103, still the largest pool in Northern New Jersey but small for a county of nearly a million residents.

Days on market tell the same story from the other side. Well-priced homes went under contract in about 33 days in July. Across the entire active inventory, including the upper tier, the average listing had been sitting for 64 days as of August 1. The gap between those two numbers is the market in one sentence: correctly priced and well-presented homes move fast, and everything else waits.

The luxury tier is deliberate, not dormant

Alpine, Saddle River and Ridgewood continue to anchor the estate segment, and Alpine has produced the state’s highest recorded residential sales in recent years, including a $17.7 million closing on Rio Vista Drive. Fort Lee, Cliffside Park and Edgewater carry the luxury high-rise and river-view condominium market at more accessible price points. Buyers at the top of the market are moving carefully in 2026. Jumbo financing costs more than it did two years ago, and listings that have been active for 60 days or more are where negotiating leverage now lives.

Rates are the ceiling

Freddie Mac’s benchmark 30-year fixed rate averaged 6.71 percent in the first week of September, up from 6.66 percent the week before and 6.50 percent a year ago. Rates spent most of the summer in the mid-6 range, and Freddie Mac’s chief economist describes purchase demand as stable, with buyers adapting rather than retreating. In Bergen County, where a typical single-family purchase now requires a jumbo or near-jumbo loan, every quarter point matters more than it does in most of the country. That is the main reason price growth in the county has outpaced sales growth for much of the year.

What this means for sellers, agents and developers

For sellers, the window is open but it rewards precision. A home priced within the range buyers are searching, and presented at a level that matches the price, is still drawing multiple offers and closing above asking. A home priced on hope is sitting for two months and then negotiating from a weaker position. Pricing and presentation are doing more of the work in 2026 than in any year since 2021.

For agents, the shift in the condo segment is the opportunity. Inventory there is up, competition among listings is real, and the difference between a listing that photographs like a $560,000 home and one that photographs like a $460,000 home is now visible in the sale price. The same applies to the 60-day-plus luxury listings: the ones that relaunch with new photography, video and floor plans are the ones that find their buyer in the fall.

For builders and developers, the demand signal is clear. Bergen County buyers are paying record prices for new and renovated single-family product, two-family homes in the river towns continue to attract both end users and investors, and the supply of finished inventory is not keeping pace. Projects that document their progress and tell their story online while under construction are entering the market with an audience already waiting. The ones that stay quiet until the certificate of occupancy are starting from zero.

What to watch through December

Three things will decide how 2026 closes. First, whether the modest rise in inventory continues into the fall or stalls the way it did last year. Second, whether rates drift back toward 6.5 percent, which would bring a meaningful number of move-up buyers off the sidelines. Third, whether the condo segment’s spring correction has run its course. If all three break the right way, Bergen County finishes the year with price growth in the high single digits and full-year sales volume ahead of 2025.

LuxQue Media photographs, films and markets residential and development properties across Bergen County and Northern New Jersey. If you are preparing a listing or a project for the fall market, talk to us about presenting it at the level the market now expects.

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