Housing values in New Jersey and the Prospects for Municipal Consolidation

Douglas Coate ()

Working Papers Rutgers University, Newark from Department of Economics, Rutgers University, Newark

Abstract: New Jersey has the highest property taxes in the US and the largest number of municipalities per square mile. Two hundred ninety seven of the 565 municipalities are smaller than 5 square miles and 172 of these are smaller than two square miles. Yet there has been only one significant merger of New Jersey municipalities in the past half century despite a number of state programs to subsidize or otherwise encourage consolidations. Either residents of smaller municipalities question the potential for cost savings and property tax reductions from consolidations and/or value close-to-home rule over any efficiencies that might be realized. In this research I have found that there is a premium in residential real estate as exemplified by three bedroom home values in smaller New Jersey municipalities as measured by population. These findings are from regression models that explain three bedroom home sales values in the spring of 2022 in New Jersey places, taken from Zillow public use data files I conclude from these results that sentiment towards consolidation among New Jersey residents of smaller municipalities is not likely to emerge anytime soon.

Keywords: municipal consolidation; New Jersey; home values (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H70 H73 R21 R50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 14 pages
Date: 2022-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-inv and nep-ure
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