Is it still a seller’s market? It’s the question I get more than any other, and the honest answer is that it depends which county you’re standing in.
National coverage treats this as one question with one answer. Around here it has at least two, and the numbers from this spring make the split obvious.
What actually defines a seller’s market
The measure that matters is months of supply: how long it would take to sell every listed home at the current pace, with no new listings added.
Under 4 months is generally considered a seller’s market. Five to six is balanced. Above six favors buyers.
That one number does more work than any headline, because it captures supply and demand in the same figure. So let’s apply it locally rather than nationally.
Monmouth County is still a seller’s market
Monmouth single-family this May ran about 2.7 months of supply, with a median around $837,000 and roughly 1,100 homes listed countywide.
Homes sold in about 30 days. Sellers received roughly 102% of asking.
Read that last figure again. The typical seller is closing above the number they advertised. Whatever you want to call that, it is not a market where buyers set the terms.
So in Monmouth the answer is straightforward: yes, and not marginally.
Ocean County gives a different answer
Cross the county line and the picture softens noticeably.
Ocean single-family homes took about 37 days to sell this May, and sellers received roughly 99% of asking. Inventory was up about 5% year over year while closed sales were down about 6%.
More homes, fewer buyers, longer timelines, and sellers coming in slightly under their number rather than above it.
That’s not a buyer’s market either. But it is meaningfully closer to even than Monmouth, and a seller who prices as though they’re in Rumson while sitting in Toms River will find that out slowly and expensively.
It splits again inside each county
Property type matters nearly as much as geography. The same gap shows up when you weigh selling inland against selling at the Shore this fall.
In Monmouth this May, townhouses and condos ran about 2.4 months of supply and sold in 28 days. Adult communities, by contrast, took around 43 days and sellers averaged just under 100% of list.
Same county. Same month. One segment clearing in four weeks over asking, another taking six weeks and conceding a little.
Which is why “is it a seller’s market” is nearly unanswerable at the county level, let alone the national one. The useful version of the question is narrower: is it a seller’s market for a four-bedroom colonial in Middletown, or for a two-bedroom unit in an adult community in Manchester? Those have different answers.
What this means if you’re selling
In Monmouth, you have genuine leverage, but it’s conditional. The 102% figure describes homes that were priced correctly at launch. It does not describe homes that tested a high number and sat. Those still sit, and overpricing remains the most expensive mistake available to you.
In Ocean, price to the data rather than to the neighbor’s asking price. With inventory rising and sales slowing, the cost of starting too high is higher than it was a year ago. You’ll get fewer early showings and the correction takes longer.
In either county, the first three weeks decide most of it. That’s when your listing has the attention of everyone already searching. Spend it at the wrong price and you spend the rest of the listing recovering.
What this means if you’re buying
In Monmouth, expect to compete on well-priced homes. Thirty days and over-asking outcomes mean the good ones go quickly. Your leverage is concentrated in listings that have been sitting, not in the market generally.
In Ocean, you have more room than most buyers realize. Rising inventory and slower sales mean more negotiating latitude, particularly outside the peak beach blocks.
Watch days on market rather than list price. It’s the most honest number on any listing, and it tells you where a seller’s head is better than anything they’ll say out loud.
So, is it still a seller’s market?
In Monmouth County, clearly. In Ocean County, less so, and trending toward even.
Neither is close to the 2021 version, where anything listed drew six offers in a weekend. What we have now is a market that rewards accurate pricing and punishes optimistic pricing, which is a healthier arrangement for everyone than the alternative.
The number that matters for your decision isn’t the county average anyway. It’s what comparable homes in your town, in your price band, have actually closed at in the last 90 days.
If you’d like that figure for your specific house or the one you’re considering, get in touch and I’ll pull it.
Which side of that line you are on matters less than your own number. Here is how to find out what your house would bring.
Figures reflect Monmouth and Ocean County MLS data for spring 2026 and vary considerably by town, price band, and property type. Conditions change month to month; ask for current comparable sales before pricing or offering.
Shea Merritt is a licensed New Jersey real estate agent with eXp Realty, working with buyers and sellers across Middlesex, Monmouth, and Ocean counties. He grew up in Old Bridge. He writes here about the arithmetic behind a move: what a house would actually bring today, what the tax line does to a monthly payment, and how to compare offers on their terms rather than on the top number. If you are weighing a sale or a purchase, send him the address and he will run the numbers on it.