Realtors Team Up to Sell West Orange Homes

The current shaky stage of the housing market, as well as lack of township marketing, brought Towne Realty Group, RE/MAX House Values and Prudential together for two hours Thursday morning to sell homes on St. Cloud Avenue in West Orange.

"It's a rough market," said Beverly Meaux, a real estate broker with Towne who showed a five bedroom, two bath $388,000 house. "West Orange has always been a town you look at after you've seen other towns."

Meaux, a West Orange resident and the brainchild behind the plan to bring all three realty companies together for the showings, said it's needed in a time when selling a house is more than difficult.

"It is the result of the total amount of inventory that we have and the fact that most buyers look in more than one town and we're trying to get our houses to stand out of the pack," she said. "And to have one agent screaming, 'Come see my house,' it's better to have four agents saying it at the same time."

Jean Doyle, a Morris County-based agent with RE/MAX who also joined the team and showed a house on St. Cloud Avenue, said there are so many homes on the market and getting clients into one is a challenge.

"It made sense since we're all in the same area here," she said.

Both Meaux and Doyle said property taxes played somewhat of a factor in the teaming up, but were not the main reason for doing so.

"I wouldn't say it's the taxes," said Doyle. "I know West Orange has been hit hard, but I don't think they're any worse than any other towns in the area."

Meaux said that while taxes are important, a prime reason for the lack of home sales in the township is because of marketing and public relations in West Orange.

"The worst problem West Orange has is ... the fact we don't have good PR," she said. "We don't have that image ... that motto. And that's what we're missing."

West Orange Mayor Robert Parisi said he looks to establish a stringent marketing campaign to bring more people into the township.

"We met (Wednesday) with people in the public relations commission and we're in the process of organizing a group of people to clearly identify what are the benefits and promote the town," he said. "We plan on inviting realtors together to work on an effective campaign to change these views."

Jessica Glicker, township public information officer, said West Orange is a great place to live.

"I love everything about it. One of the most important challenges facing my office is that of marketing our community to make perspective buyers and even our own residents more aware of just how fantastic we are and why we stand out from all the other towns in our area," she said. "I'm proud to live in West Orange and I look forward to trumpeting Mayor Parisi's vision for our community."

Meaux's husband Bob, who's also a Realtor with Towne and showed another house on St. Cloud Avenue, said the entire idea was to leverage people's listings and get more people to live in West Orange.

"West Orange realtors don't patronize the open houses like they do in Maplewood or South Orange," he said.

West Orange, where the average house is about $425,000, currently has 478 single and multifamily homes for sale, compared to 148 in South Orange and 195 in Maplewood.

Beverly said, though, that West Orange numbers may seem high, but its area is the size of Maplewood and South Orange combined.

Debra Ostrowski, a real estate agent with Prudential in Livingston who also showed a house on St. Cloud Avenue Thursday, said she had only one person as of noon.

"The results are pretty much the same anywhere else," she said. "We want to encourage more people come to the block to see more than just one house in a row to make it easier for the buyer."

Ostrowski agreed that the township's taxes and public relations are hurting the real estate market.

"I think people are afraid of the taxes because right now you see what they are," she said. "I think once the re-evaluation is complete, people will be more sure."

Ostrowski said to help move marketing along, she may start blogging about the benefits of West Orange compared to Montclair.

Beverly said West Orange has been the town where people can get more house and more yard for a little lesser price than going to Maplewood or South Orange.

"Now as the economy has changed, the prices have dropped and made other towns competition even more," she said. "The issue is that people don't know what's going to happen with the tax re-evaluation ... so, you really don't know how to gauge where the taxes are going to be."

Parisi has said that property taxes are an issue in the township and the current 2 percent cap proposed in Trenton could ripple through West Orange in the form of layoffs to help shift the burden from taxpayers.

Beverly said the realtors in town may be competitors, but Thursday's effort was just one of many for the future.

"We knew it was for the better good as we're all on this strip and have houses to sell," she said. "We're all trying to increase showings across the board and, in this market, we have to think outside the box."