The township completed a full-blown revaluation in 2007, raising the total value of all properties from $1.5 billion to $4.73 billion.  While the new figure was more in line with reality, it came at the time when the real estate market was in a deadfall.  Property values were dropping about a half percent per month.

A petition signed by 1,500 property owners against the new valuations put the township on notice to expect plenty of costly tax appeals.  It would also cause an imbalance in values, since those folks out of a total of 15,930 property owners in the town that didn’t bother to appeal would unfairly be picking up the new burden.

Township Tax Assessor Art Amonette undertook an in-house reval in 2009, which cost just $25,000 instead of the $1 million price tag associated with a full reval.  Smart thinking, big savings!

The completed revaluation shows that the value of the township did indeed decline, from the previous $4.73 billion down to $4.1 billion, a drop of about 15%.  About 15,500 properties had their values reduced, while another 400 saw increases.

The range of change had some properties dropping 30%, as opposed to a high of a 10% increase.  Anyone who’s value dropped more than 15% will see a lower tax bill.  A reduction less than 15% will see the owner’s tax bill increase accordingly.

So once again, the playing field appears to be leveled for Lower Township property owners.  Town officials being proactive was a wise decision all around.

- Mountain Man and City Girl    http://www.MountainManandCityGirl.com

The blogsite of Jewell Real Estate Agency, Wildwood Crest, NJ    http://www.JewellRealEstateAgency.com

In a county that has hundreds of multi-million dollar vacation homes overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and Delaware Bay, there is a flip side to the coin.  Of 42,000 yearround families, nearly 4,000 households live under the poverty line ($22,050 for 4) and another 9,500 have social security as their sole source of income.  The unemployment rate is around 13%, and when you add in those who have basically given up ever finding gainful employment the jobless rate approaches 30%. 

As realtors, we get the opportunity to go into a lot of people’s homes every year.  In one home we had listed last year, we noticed that the five kids had different colored lips.  We soon discovered why.  The only food in the house was those frozen sugar-water ice pops that come in tear-away plastic tubes.  The refrigerator was empty except for condiments and the freezer was full of different flavored ice pops.  It’s sad.  In the homes of the elderly, we have seen them subsist on Saltine crackers the last days of the month.  They are proud and they don’t complain.

While so many have so much, these others have so little.

This month, we organized “The Free Meal Center” with a volunteer Board of Directors and incorporated as a New Jersey secular, non-profit, charitable organization.  By the way, the politically correct term nowadays is “meal center” and no longer is “soup kitchen”.  We found a 4,000 square foot former restaurant centrally located in the middle of the county on the main highway, Route 9, and negotiated a purchase price.  It has four dining rooms, four restrooms, a large kitchen area, and parking for 40 cars on the 2.2 acre property.  We will be able to seat 100 or more at a time.

We take possession of the building March 15 and hope to be up and running by Memorial Day.  We will serve lunch Monday through Saturday, plus breakfast on Saturday.  Meals will be free and open to anyone who walks through our doors.  We won’t even ask their names.  Our volunteers will treat everyone with respect and dignity.

The building does need a bit of work.  Part of the roof needs repairs, the interior needs painting, the bare kitchen needs equipment, and we need tables and chairs.  A few other repairs may become evident once we’re in the building, but its all no big deal.  We can do it.

We’ve undertaken becoming a 501(c)(3) tax deductible entity and expect to be approved in the spring.  Our website, http://www.TheFreeMealCenter.com should up on-line by next Tuesday, February 16, 2010.

If you’d like to help us help these less-fortunate folks, you can donate through our website next week, or mail a check to The Free Meal Center, PO Box 863, Cape May Court House, New Jersey  08210.  We’ll mail you back a tax deductible receipt.

Thanks for caring.

- Mountain Man and City Girl    http://www.MountainManandCityGirl.com

The blogsite of Jewell Real Estate Agency, Wildwood Crest, NJ  08260    http://www.JewellRealEstateAgency.com

In 2005, there were 3,628 properties sold.  The asking price total was $2.01 billion and they got $1.92 billion, meaning sellers got 95.5% of asking price on average.  The average property was listed at $555,000 and it sold for $530,000.  (All prices are rounded off).

In 2006, there were 2,386 properties sold, a volume drop of 34% from 2005.  The total asking price was $1.43 billion and sellers received $1.34 billion, or about 94% of asking price.  The average asking price was $601,000 and the selling price averaged $563,000.  Did you just notice that the 2006 price average was up 6% over 2005?

In 2007, there were 2,279 properties sold, a slight drop of 4% from 2006.  The asking price total was $1.33 billion and sellers received $1.28 billion.  The average asking price was $583,000 and sellers averaged $539,000.  So even in 2007, prices were still higher than in the benchmark year of 2005.  Of course, sales were off 37% in volume in 2007 from 2005.

In 2008, there were 1,901 properties sold, a drop of 16.5% from the previous year.  The total asking price was $1.07 billion and they got $978 million, or about 91% of asking price.  The average property listed at $564,000 and sold for $514,000, which is still in the ballpark of 2005.

In 2009, there were 1,879 properties sold, a 48% drop from the gold rush era of 2005, but still close to 2008 totals.  But here’s where the numbers dive.  The total asking price was $889 million and sellers received $813 million.  The average listing price of $473,000 went for $432,000.  Selling prices dropped 16% from 2008.  That’s substantial.  Hopefully the market found the bottom and will now level off.  Short sales were a big part of 2009, driving down price averages.

Here at Jewell Real Estate Agency, our figures for sales and commissions from 2001 to 2009 tell our story.  Our most sales, in order, were 2002, 2004, 2005 and 2003.  Those four years had double – and sometimes triple – the sales volume of 2001, and 2006 through 2009.  Our best year of gross commissions was 2005 (no surprise there), followed by 2004, 2002, and 2003.  Again, 2001 (our first year in business, so it might not be a fair comparison) and 2006 through 2009 were the dog years. 

We do expect 2010 to be our best year since 2005.  In January, we’ve already had 25% as many transactions closing as in all of 2009.  And the phones are ringing and the offers are coming in.  Yeee-haaa!

- Mountain Man and City Girl    http://www.MountainManandCityGirl.com

The blogsite of Jewell Real Estate Agency, Wildwood Crest, NJ    http://www.JewellRealEstateAgency.com

Until the past year or so, a family could rescue themselves by taking an equity line on their house, or even write a credit card check to bolster their checking  account and get them through the tough times.  But too many Americans have now found themselves cut off from being extended credit through these means.  Banks are taking the hard line, even if one’s credit score is still hovering around 800 and payments are always on time.

In 2009, there were over 2.8 million foreclosures filed in the United States.  It’s a sad statistic that puts a damper on many families’ American dream of home ownership.  Is owning a home and then losing it worse than never having owned one?

But there is one facet of these foreclosures that is particularly upsetting.  About one-fourth of last year’s foreclosures were not  because the mortgage payments couldn’t be afforded, but instead because families decided the mortgage payment simply wasn’t worth paying.  It’s called a strategic default.

Suppose a family owns a home they bought in 2004 for $450,000 with no money down.  Their mortgage payment is nearly $3,000 a month, plus PMI and real estate taxes ($500 a month average here in New Jersey).  Add in minimal upkeep and necessary repairs and it’s costing about $4,500 a month.

If a family can handle that $4,500 but has nothing left at the end of the month, they begin to wonder if it’s worth the hassle.  Especially because the house is now only worth $315,000, using the typical decline of 30% in value in the US.  When that family crunches the numbers and compares paying $1,200 to $1,500 a month to rent a similar home, many opt to take that route.

So, despite the fact that their credit will be ruined and the pleasures and comforts of home ownership will disappear, they decide to walk away from their home.  They stop making the mortgage payments – which gives them six months or so with no $4,500 payment (saving $27,000) - and prepare for life as a renter.

It’s a sad scenario.  But for many, a reality.

Mountain Man and City Girl    http://www.MountainManandCityGirl.com

The blogsite of Jewell Real Estate Agency, Wildwood Crest, NJ    http://www.JewellRealEstateAgency.com

The war has taken the form of employee suspensions, court ordered re-instatements, lawsuits, and even an upcoming mayoral recall election.  It’s Peyton Place by-the-Bay.

There have been undercurrents of one side versus the other for a long time, but the war intensified in May, 2008 with the election of a new set of three city commissioners – Mayor Herb Frederick, Gerard McNamara, and Scott Golden.  The power had been transferred from the Hatfields to the McCoys.  The muskets and long rifles are loaded and ready.

The new mayor is a political rival of former mayor Chris Fox, who chose to retire from public life and not run in the election.  Along with his personable brother Alan Fox, the longtime police chief, the two Fox’s were visible leaders of the little borough of 400-something yearround residents for over a decade.

Amongst the goings-on recently have been the firing of the city clerk – an ally of Fox – by Frederick.  A judge ordered her back on the job.  Frederick then suspended police lieutenant Jackie Ferentz, another Fox ally, in March, 2009.  He accused her of a number of violations, amongst those performing duties only allowed by the chief.  But documentation alleges that Chief Alan Fox, who has suffered with illness for over a decade, appointed Ferentz as acting police chief before he retired.

Ferentz countered by suing Frederick for interfering with her ability to do her duties as chief.  She also joined with two other West Wildwood residents to successfully get enough petition signatures to force a recall election of Frederick.  You guessed it.  Frederick has filed a lawsuit to stop the February 23rd election.

And so life goes on in the sleepy little fishing town on the backbay.  Stay tuned.  We’ll have more stories of strife from the frontlines in the future.

- Mountain Man and City Girl

http://www.MountainManandCityGirl.com

Woodbine shouldn’t be underestimated.  It’s the hidden gem of the county.  And continually preparing itself for future prosperity.

The rural, wooded town of 2,700 folks boasts an airport, a museum, the largest employer in the county, plenty of industry, an elementary school, recreation commission, volunteer fire department, and Belleplain State Park.

The 700-acre airport – one of only three in the county – is part of the 1,216-acre Woodbine Municipal Airport Economic Area.  It employs 27 workers with an annual payroll of two-thirds of a million dollars.  The 50-acre business park has a public sewer system in place in anticipation of future businesses locating there.  An existing rail line opens more possibilities.  A new golf course proposed by a private developer on the remaining land was scuttled when a glut of new golf courses in the county made it financially impractical.

Being one of only five towns in the 1.1 million acre Pinelands to receive the coveted Town designation, Woodbine is able to offer sewers for residences, plus commercial and industrial businesses.  That makes it attractive to businesses throughout Cape May County looking to relocated to more spacious and less pricey properties.  And the general purpose tax rate hasn’t increased in 19 years.

The little town is experiencing continual improvements.  The Sam Azeez Museum of Woodbine Heritage recently completed a $2 million renovation and voters recently approved a $3.8 million project to upgrade the school, which includes solar panel installation.  At the former landfill, Garden State Ethanol is in the permit process which will lead to building a 25-million gallon a year plant that will convert algae to ethanol.

The town owes much of its success and progress to Mayor William Pikolycky, who’s been in office for a couple decades.  Last year alone he garnered $4.2 million in grants for Woodbine.  In the past he has gotten bike trails and walking trails funded and built, and made many infrastructure improvements to the vibrant, multi-ethnic community.

So while many local communities march on as well-to-do seashore tourist locales, little Woodbine chugs along with an eye to the future.  It truly is the Little Engine That Could.

- Mountain Man and City Girl

http://www.MountainManandCityGirl.com

Case in point.  Along the Delaware Bay in the Villas section of Lower Township, Cape May County, three homes and two utility poles are being threatened by beach erosion.  A combination of last year’s uncommonly excessive rainfall – 62 inches compared to the normal 44 - and windy, stormy conditions during some of those rain events has caused the Delaware River to eat away nearly 20 feet of 6-foot high dunes.

The homeowners submitted an emergency application to the NJDEP to build a seawall at their own expense.  That’s right, they’d pay for the thing themselves.

“No way”, was NJDEP’s reply.  You see, NJDEP is still hung up on beach replenishment.  So despite the fact that the murky, churning Delaware Bay is within five feet of the corner of one home, NJDEP wouldn’t budge.  They want sand put back to rebuild the dune.  Or else leave it alone and presumably some high tide will take out the homes.

Then a new problem arose.  The beach is owned by Lower Township, not the property owners.  Lower wasn’t about to foot the bill, so they turned to good old FEMA – the Federal Emergency Management Agency – to fund the beach replenishment.  Who knows how long that bureaucracy of red tape will take?  Plus, they fund beaches on the Atlantic Ocean side of the county, where tourists flock.  The only flock on this beach are red knots, laughing gulls, sandpipers, and such.

But the issue, in reality, is that NJDEP dropped the ball in the beginning.  Their mission – since they became the country’s third DEP back on the original Earth Day on April 22, 1970 –  is to “manage natural resources and solve pollution problems”.  What better way to manage this resource than to let the property owners install a bulkhead, then storms and natural sediment movement will put a beach back, gratis.  Everybody gets what they want.

But that’s common sense, a term that usually can’t be used in the same sentence as NJDEP.

- Mountain Man and City Girl

http://www.MountainManandCityGirl.com

Pennsylvania will now permit up to 250 table games in larger casinos and up to 50 in smaller resort casinos.  Table games are poker, baccarat, blackjack, roulette, craps, and similar games of chance.  The cost of licensing is $16.5 million for the large casinos and $7.5 million for resort casinos, which is a drop in the bucket in the scope of the big picture.  The 14 casinos in the state should add an additional $250 million per year to state coffers.

Atlantic City, the No.2 casino city in the United States after Las Vegas, has seen reduced revenues for over a year, putting an added strain on New Jersey’s already bloated budget deficit.  The monopoly Atlantic City once enjoyed on gambling on the East Coast is ancient history.

Connecticut has three Indian casinos that allow slots and table games, making them the first to cut into Atlantic City’s lucrative market.  West Virginia was next, first having slots at two dog tracks and two horse tracks, then adding table games in 2007.  They recently granted a full gambling license to the infamous Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs.

Delaware has one poker venue in Wilmington, plus video poker and slots at the three “racinos”, as they call their race tracks with legal gambling.  It won’t be long before table games are installed in each of the sites.

So what is Atlantic City to do?  They will lose much of their Philadelphia area gamblers once the table games open next November or so.  Delaware’s table games will debut around the same time.  No doubt entrepreneurs will add restaurants and resort hotels near the casinos, further damaging Atlantic City’s bottom line.

Atlantic City will need to take advantage of what it’s already got for the dozen casinos, employing 36,000 workers, to be profitable.  That means marketing non-gaming venues.  Upscale, fashionable restaurants with trendy surroundings are already a big draw, as are the 200 retail, brand name, and outlet stores.

Atlantic City also has big name entertainers going for it.  Not a night goes by that the city doesn’t feature a dozen acts targeting every age group.  Glitzy, nouveau nightclubs, with a regular parade of celebrity sightings, is turning AC into a mecca for the 21-40 year old crowd.  And they have bucks to spend.

AC also offers championship boxing matches, plus those new martial art/kick boxing/in-a-cage fights.  There’s also college basketball, including the Atlantic 10 tournament each March.

Last but not least, there’s the beach.  Geez, no other casino in neighboring states has the sparkling white sands and bikini babes.  And the beach is a great place to watch an air show or fireworks or lifeguard competitions or throw a frisbee or ….

Well, maybe Atlantic City should be saying, “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”  Time will tell.

- Mountain Man and City Girl

http://www.MountainManandCityGirl.com

In 2007, St. Raymond’s elementary/junior high school in the Villas section of Lower Township was closed by the Diocese of Camden, which oversees the Catholic goings-on in southern New Jersey.  Students, parents, and teachers were saddened, outraged, and in shock.  Students were offered the chance to transfer to Star of the Sea in Cape May or St. Ann’s in Wildwood.

Then in 2008 the Diocese announced the closing of Star of the Sea elementary/junior high school, merging it with St. Ann’s elementary/junior high school.  That didn’t sit well with Star of the Sea parents, who didn’t like the prospect of their kids be bussed to lowly Wildwood, a decidedly less affluent community.  The parents are still fighting the closing, recently taking out ads on the radio to drum up support for keeping Star of the Sea open.  Tuition at the school is around $3,500 for Catholic kids and a thousand dollars more for non-Catholics.

The diocese also previously announced the closing of the Assumption church in upscale Wildwood Crest, offering just summer services when tourists are in town.  Parishioners picketed and instituted a letter writing campaign to keep their church, which is self-supporting and not losing money, from merging with St. Ann’s.  The move by the Diocese was part of a plan to merge 14 Cape may County parishes into eight.

With all these closings happening, the biggest shock is the demise of Wildwood Catholic High School, an institution on the island since 1948.  The North Wildwood school boasts state titles in soccer and basketball, and their rivalries with Wildwood High School and other county high schools are legendary.  In the 1990’s, the school’s enrollment increased from 250 to 374 students.  A $1.5 million addition was built onto the school to handle the increase. 

But in these tough economic times, with tuition at the Catholic high school running about $6,000 per student, many parents balked at sending their kids there.  And yes, religion is less common in families than in previous times.  Enrollment is now down to 194 at Wildwood Catholic High.  The school will lose a half million dollars this year, with expected red ink of $900,000 next year if they stayed open.

Catholic parents of high schoolers will now have several options of where to send their kids next year.  To stay parochial, the options are Holy Spirit High School in Absecon (35 miles), St. Augustine in Richland (45 miles), or St. Joseph in Hammonton (52 miles).  Locally, the students can attend their home public high schools which are Wildwood HS, Lower Cape May Regional HS, Middle Township HS, Ocean City HS, or Cape May Technical HS. 

Unlike St. Raymond’s, which now sits unused and gathering dust, Wildwood Catholic will not be mothballed.  The school will become the new home of the St. Ann and Star of the Sea merger and used for church activities, offices, and ministry.  It presumably will be called Cape Trinity Catholic School.

- Mountain Man and City Girl

http://www.MountainManandCityGirl.com

But solar power is the exception.  New Jersey is mandated by the state’s Energy Master Plan to provide 20 percent of its energy through renewable sources by 2020.  To reach that lofty goal just 10 years away, the state is offering monetary incentives to get it done.  And alternative energy providers are lining up to cash in.

The state set up a system whereby solar systems – whether at a private residence or a commercial site – can earn Solar Renewable Energy Certificates.  Each 1,000 kilowatt hours of energy produced earns the provider one credit.  These credits are currently selling for just under $700 apiece.

The buyers of these energy credits are the utility companies, which are the ones under the gun to supply 20 percent renewable energy.  If a utility doesn’t meet the 2020 goal, they will be penalized with a Solar Alternative Compliance Payment.  So if they’re going to shell out the bucks anyway, why not go solar?  It’s good public relations and reduces dependency on coal, oil, etc and their associated price fluctuations.

There are currently over 50 renewable energy projects on the drawing board in New Jersey.  As more farmers and large landholders become aware of this new income source, more and more projects will be planned in the Garden State.  The key is for the solar farm to be located near high transmission lines, which makes getting the electricity they produce easier and less costly to get on the grid.  And besides getting paid via the credit system, the providers also get the current rate per kilowatt.  It’s win-win.

There is one caution to anyone thinking about having solar panels installed at their property.  Since this is a fairly new and lucrative business, a lot of inexperienced and unqualified companies are looking to install your solar system.  Like anything, get quotes from at least three companies and ask for references and about projects they have already completed.  Be careful and choose wisely.  After all, this is New Jersey!

- Mountain Man and City Girl

http://www.MountainManandCityGirl.com