Selling in Jersey City, in nine steps.

A list price is a prediction of what a buyer will pay in the next few weeks, so it is built from what buyers paid in the last few months. We pull the closed sales nearest your home in distance, size, type and condition, then adjust for what yours has that they did not: a yard, a parking space, a restored facade, a renovated bath. We also look at what is listed now, because that is your competition the day you go live.

Condition and light move price here more than square footage does. A unit with original floors, a working mantel and a south-facing yard trades differently from the same floor plan without them, and the comparable sales show it.

Joey is a certified Pricing Strategy Advisor, a designation from the National Association of Realtors for agents trained in pricing residential property. He walks you through the comparables in person, so you see the reasoning, not just the range.

Two things we will not do: quote a number before seeing the home, and set a price to win the listing that the sales do not support. Broker fees and commissions are not set by law and are fully negotiable, and we say so in writing.^1,2

Before photographs, we walk the home with you and sort every item into three lists: fix, leave, disclose. Fix is the short list that pays back, usually paint, lighting, hardware, a leaking fixture, a door that sticks. Leave is the long list that a buyer will redo anyway. Disclose is anything that stays as it is and belongs on the disclosure statement.

New Jersey now requires it. Since August 1, 2024, under the Real Estate Consumer Protection Enhancement Act, sellers of residential property complete a Seller's Property Condition Disclosure Statement, the form published by the Division of Consumer Affairs, and the brokerage must obtain it signed. A Flood Risk Addendum is part of it. You answer to the best of your knowledge; it is not an inspection, and it does not replace one.

If the home was built before 1978, federal law adds a lead-based paint disclosure: a pamphlet, a signed disclosure of what you know, any reports you have, and a ten-day window for the buyer to test if they choose. Most of our housing stock is older than that, so plan on it.

Contractors, roofers and plumbers the team has used are on the Resources page. We book them; you decide.^3,4

The listing is a set of photographs, a floor plan where we can get one, the facts in a table, and a description that says what the home is in plain sentences. The photographs are the part most buyers see first and the part most listings get wrong.

We use a professional photographer, shot in daylight, after the home has been cleared and set. Nicole spent fourteen years in home textiles before real estate and sets the rooms: what stays on a surface, which lamp is on, what the camera sees from the door. Condition and light are what sell here, so the photographs are made to show both.

Order matters. The first photograph is the one that answers why this home: the facade, the mantel, the yard, the view. Then the rooms in the order a buyer walks them. We do not lead with a bathroom.

The description follows the same rule as this site. Short declarative sentences, the facts a buyer checks, nothing a buyer will not find when they visit. The old listings on this site were written in the industry's voice; the next ones are written in ours.

Once the listing is ready, it goes into the multiple listing service, which feeds the portals where buyers search, the sites of every brokerage in the region, and our own. The MLS entry is the record of the sale: the fields it carries, price, taxes, bedrooms, baths, status, are the ones that will be read by appraisers and by the next seller on your block.

Two things changed in August 2024. Offers of compensation to a buyer's agent are no longer published on the MLS; whatever a seller chooses to offer is handled outside it, in negotiation. Sellers can still offer concessions on the MLS, such as help with a buyer's closing costs. Both are your choice, and we lay out the options before the listing goes live.

We also post the listing on the team's own site and social accounts and send it to the buyers already in our pipeline. For a home on these blocks that is often where the first showing comes from.

Status in the MLS is a stamp: active, under contract, sold. We change it the day the fact changes, which is what keeps our listings honest.^2,5

Showings are by appointment through us, with a window you set. Before each one the home is lit, cleared and aired; after each one you get a note on who came, how long they stayed and what they asked. An open house is a showing with the door propped: useful early, when the listing is new and the buyers who have been waiting all come the same weekend.

Two rules now apply in New Jersey. Since August 1, 2024, every residential showing must carry signage about brokerage relationships, and a buyer's agent must have a written agreement with their buyer before touring a home, whether in person or by live video. In practice the people walking through your home have already committed to an agent and to looking.

We do not stay in a room while a buyer is in it, and we do not narrate. The home is in the listing; the showing is for the buyer to check the listing against the rooms.

Feedback goes to you the same day. When three buyers in a row name the same thing, it is on the fix list or on the price, and we tell you which.^3,2

An offer is a price and a set of terms, and the terms often decide it. The ones we read first: the deposit and when it is paid, financing or cash, the mortgage contingency and its date, the inspection contingency, the closing date, what is included, and whether the buyer has asked for any concession toward their costs. We lay every offer out side by side so they can be compared line by line.

New Jersey brokerages are required to present all written offers and counteroffers in a timely manner and to confirm receipt in writing, whether or not the home is already under contract, unless you instruct otherwise in writing. You will see everything.

Buyer's agent compensation is negotiated, not set by law and no longer published on the MLS; if a buyer's offer asks you to cover part of it, that is a term like any other and we price it against the rest.

Joan has negotiated brownstones, condos, multi-families and development deals for more than twenty years. A counteroffer is written, not improvised. When the terms are agreed, the contract is signed, and the clock on the next step starts.^3,2

In New Jersey a residential contract prepared by a real estate licensee carries an attorney review clause, required by the state's real estate regulations. The contract itself says it in capitals at the top: it is a legally binding contract that will become final within three business days, and during that period you may consult an attorney who can review and cancel it.

How the days are counted: from delivery of the signed contract to both buyer and seller, not counting Saturdays, Sundays or legal holidays. Either side's attorney may disapprove the contract within the period by notifying the brokers and the other party, and the two sides may agree in writing to extend. If no attorney disapproves, the contract is binding as written.

In practice, attorney review is where the lawyers trade a rider: the closing date, the inspection terms, what happens to the deposit, the condition of appliances at closing. Both sides usually end up with a contract they have each edited. Your attorney is yours to choose; we can give names if you ask, and the Resources page has a title company.

This is the step most sellers from other states have not seen. It is short, it is normal, and nothing on the home moves until it ends.⁶

After attorney review the buyer inspects, within the window the contract sets. In New Jersey home inspectors are licensed by the state's Home Inspection Advisory Committee, within the Division of Consumer Affairs, and work to a published standard of practice. The inspector is the buyer's; you make the home available, with every room, the basement, the roof hatch and the mechanicals reachable.

The report comes back as a list. Most of it is maintenance. The items that come back to you are the ones the buyer's attorney puts in a letter: a repair request, a credit, or both. We read the report with you before you answer, and we separate what the disclosure statement already covered from what is new.

Older homes here raise the same questions: knob-and-tube or updated electrical, the roof's age, the boiler, water lines, and, in houses built before 1978, lead paint, which the buyer had the right to test for during their ten-day window. A 1900 brick building with a restored cornice and new windows, like 364 8th Street, inspects differently from one that has not been touched, and the price already knows it.

A reply within the contract's deadline keeps the sale on schedule. Silence does not.^7,8,4

Three things are specific to selling in New Jersey, and two of them are the seller's.

The certificate. Before a one- or two-family house changes hands, the owner must obtain a Certificate of Smoke Alarm, Carbon Monoxide Alarm and Portable Fire Extinguisher Compliance from the local fire official. In Jersey City the Fire Prevention Bureau issues it; the form calls for ten-year sealed smoke alarms, a carbon monoxide alarm and an extinguisher. The certificate is not transferable and lapses if the sale does not close within six months. Condominium units follow the building's own rules.

The fee. New Jersey's Realty Transfer Fee is paid by the seller when the deed is recorded, calculated on the sale price. Since July 10, 2025, the extra fee on sales over one million dollars is also the seller's: it is graduated, starting at one percent of the whole price on sales between one and two million, and rising in steps above that. Reduced rates exist for qualifying senior, blind or disabled sellers.

The taxes. Jersey City property taxes fall due February 1, May 1, August 1 and November 1. At closing the quarter is prorated between you and the buyer to the day of the deed.

Your attorney and the title company run the closing table. We are there, with the keys.^{9,10,11,12,13}