Scott Selleck explains why Bergen County home prices range from $717,500 to $946,000 depending on the source. Each number is technically correct but uses different data sources, property types, and time windows. He walks through a four-question framework to validate any housing statistic and shows that single-family homes are tight while condos have more inventory.
Chapters
We have never had more access to housing data than we do right now. Anyone with a smartphone can instantly pull up median prices, neighborhood trends, and inventory counts. But having endless data at your fingertips creates a completely different problem: figuring out what any of it actually means. Sorting the signal from the noise requires an independent perspective. Scott Selleck has closed more than 500 real estate transactions since 1993, He does not work for Zillow, Redfin, or the federal government. He audits the data they produce and applies it to the actual streets where homes are bought and sold. This bar chart displays a strange reality about Bergen County, New Jersey. If you look online right now, you can find 5 different published figures for the median home price. They range from a low of $717,500 all the way up to $946,000.
At first glance, someone is wrong.
But if we trace every single one of these numbers back to its original source, we find that they are all entirely accurate. They all describe the exact same county during the exact same season. The difference comes down to the variables buried underneath the headlines. These 5 figures are drawing from different data sources. They are measuring completely different property types, and they are pulling from different time windows. Some look at a single month while others measure a rolling average. Look at the gap between the lowest estimate and the highest. That is a spread of $228,500. If you own a house and you are trying to decide whether it makes financial sense to list it this fall, a quarter of a million dollar gap leaves you completely paralyzed. Making a smart move requires knowing which of these numbers actually applies to you. This comparison layout isolates our first major contradiction. On the left, we have a $946,000 median price from New Jersey Realtors.
On the right, Redfin reports a median of roughly $788,000. That leaves us with a $158,000 difference. It is incredibly common for people to put these two numbers side by side and assume the market is crashing, but comparing them directly is an analytical error. The $946,000 figure measures detached single-family homes over a single month. The $788,000 figure is a rolling 3-month average that blends all property types together. Condominiums, and townhouses in Bergen County have a median price of $575,000. When you mix them into the data pool, they act as a heavyweight, pulling the overall market average down. To find an actual trend, we have to compare apples to apples. If we take that June single-family median and measure it strictly against the overall year-to-date single-family median of $860,000, the data clearly shows that June single-family closings actually outperformed the rest of the year by 10%. Blending property types masks what is actually happening in the market. In this case, it hid a genuine localized seasonal peak behind a wall of cheaper condos. We run into a different kind of distortion when we look at highly specialized housing segments.
Recently, one report showed the median price for 55 and older communities in Bergen County spiking by 31.3% to $730,000. This visual breaks down the raw data behind that headline. That massive 31% jump was calculated on exactly 8 closed sales, compared to 6 the year before. When a sample size is that small, just 2 larger homes closing in the same month will send the median soaring. We get a much clearer picture when we zoom out to the year-to-date data for those same adult communities. That larger pool of sales establishes a median of $544,450. Percentages derived from microsamples heavily distort market reality. If you are weighing a move into a downsizing community, those monthly fluctuations are too erratic to base a financial decision on. The next variable we have to audit is the difference between what a seller hopes to get and what a buyer is actually willing to pay.
In July, one market aggregator reported a median Bergen County listing price of nearly $940,000. At the exact same time, the federal FRED database recorded a median listing price of $796,500. $1,200,000. They draw from different listing pools, resulting in a $143,000 discrepancy. But even if they matched perfectly, asking prices only tell us how optimistic sellers are feeling. This gauge chart tracks the ultimate reality metric, the actual clearing rate. For Bergen County single-family homes in June, the list price received ratio was 105.5%. On average, sellers walked away with more than they asked for. Getting to this metric requires a manual cross-check. You have to trace the number to its source, verify the property type, check the timeframe, and confirm whether you are looking at a closed sale or an active listing. A buyer who budgets based on the median list price and assumes they can negotiate down is planning for a market that does not exist. Only verified sale prices reflect the actual clearing rate.
We can boil this entire audit down to a repeatable framework. Before a real estate statistic influences your decision, ask these 4 questions: What property types are included? What exact time window does it cover? Is it a sold price or a listing price? And what is the sample size? That last question has a specific threshold. Any percentage metric based on fewer than 20 transactions should be viewed as directional at best. When we apply this verified framework to Bergen County right now, a clear picture emerges. The detached single-family market is tight. There is only 2.5 months of supply, and homes are selling in about 28 days. At the exact same time, the townhouse and condo market is noticeably softer. Inventory in that segment is up 35.6%, pushing the supply up to 3.7 months. One generalized median price could never tell you that. But by applying rigorous context, a wall of contradictory numbers transforms into a highly localized roadmap, showing exactly where the market stands on your street.
