New Brunswick is a Renter's Town

News Brunswick having a large number of rental units may not surprise a lot of people given Rutgers is in the area. Quick affordable living is one of the demands of a floating college town population. Data compiled by Zimlon shows how much of a rental town it is compared to New Jersey. Zimlon’s data shows that there are about 14,000 housing units in New Brunswick. 3237 (23% of total) of these Housing units are owner occupied and the rest, a whopping 77% (10,771 units), are for rental. When you compare this data to New Jersey, the ratio of owner Vs rental occupied housing units is almost reversed with 65.6% of units being owner occupied & 34.4% occupied by renters.

The other paradox is about the median cost of housing in New Brunswick versus New Jersey. The median monthly housing cost (including mortgage) of a home in New Jersey is $2453 which is about $325 more expensive than median home in New Brunswick. However, when you compare the price of a median rental, New Brunswick’s median monthly rental of $1365 is $193 more expensive than a typical New Jersey rental. Median monthly housing costs track home values as well with New Jersey’s median home value at $327,000 compared to $248,000 in New Brunswick.

Given, that the home values are less expensive & rentals are more expensive, more housing stock is expected to be allocated to rental units. At a recent conference on Economics forecasting at Rutgers university, over half of New Jersey’s new construction was going to be focused on rental units but overall housing units were expected to stabilize. Here is a brief excerpt from North Jersey.com

Patrick O’Keefe, an economist with CohnReznick in New York and Roseland, said builders are on track to start about 30,000 housing units this year, up from an annual average of 13,000 for three years during the housing crash. Well over half of the units built this year are expected to be multifamily rentals. In 2016, O’Keefe said, the housing industry is likely to start about 32,000 housing units in the state, a number that will level off in the following years, as interest rates rise and the supply of buildable land continues to shrink. That’s below the state’s historical average of about 37,000 units a year dating back to 1960.

Zimlon’s data also shows that homeowners in News Brunswick pay between $50-100 in monthly home insurance costs depending on the deductibles, home value & other factors. Most insurance agents recommend that owners renting out their property must get homeowners insurance to cover for any damages. This would appear to be prudent that student population renting out these apartments for short periods may cause unexpected damage to the property that may not be covered by their deposits.