Avon By The Sea's single-family market, read in the numbers.
A supply-constrained coastal market where scarcity and liquidity — not affordability — are setting price.
Scores are public, human-reviewed town signals on a 0–100 scale. For where a specific home sits against them, send us the address.
A supply-constrained coastal market where scarcity and liquidity — not affordability — are setting price.
- 01The median sale price is down ~38.3% year-over-year (median $/sqft +21.2%); the decline is a size/mix shift — smaller homes made up more of what sold, while price-per-foot rose.
- 02The top decile of sales (above ~$3,499,999) accounts for about 25% of dollar volume — a meaningful luxury tail behind the median.
- Whether active inventory begins to expand, which would be the first sign of a supply-constrained market loosening.
- Whether price reductions accelerate from today's 0% of active listings — a rising share would signal the asking-vs-sold gap closing through softer asks rather than higher sales.
- Whether days-on-market lengthen from the current fast pace, which typically precedes any change in pricing power.
Based on 43 trailing-12-month single-family sales (42 with recorded size for $/sqft), recent data vintage. Town-level aggregate, so conviction is capped below 'High'.
Avon By The Sea remains a scarcity-driven, fast-clearing market with resilient single-family pricing; the principal near-term question is whether scarcity holds and demand stays intact as financing costs persist.
What our research found this period.
Briarwood Research's current read is that Avon By The Sea is a market in transition whose pricing drivers we are still resolving. The findings below are the evidence-backed conclusions behind that view; the risks and watch-items that would change it follow later in the report.
- Avon By The Sea's median sale price looks lower, but the town may not actually be cheaper — the median fell because smaller homes made up more of this year's sales, while the price per square foot rose.
- 01Moderate confidenceSurprise
Avon By The Sea's median sale price looks lower, but the town may not actually be cheaper — the median fell because smaller homes made up more of this year's sales, while the price per square foot rose.
Evidence- The trailing-12-month median sale price is -38.3% year-over-year, to $1,550,000.
- But median home size is -25.8% while median $/sqft is +21.2% — smaller homes sold, at a higher price per foot.
- Computed over 42 trailing-12-month single-family sales with recorded size.
Alternative readings- A genuine softening in demand, not only a smaller mix of homes selling; price-per-foot controls for size but not for block or condition.
Median price -38.3% with median size -25.8% and median $/sqft +21.2%: a smaller typical home accounts for the median decline while per-foot values rose, so this reads as a composition shift rather than broad price deflation. Revisit if $/sqft turns negative.
Why it matters. A headline like “median down” reads as falling values, but here it mostly reflects a smaller mix of homes trading. On a size-adjusted, per-square-foot basis, values held up — so it is the number most likely to be misread.
Avon By The Sea continues to behave like a supply-constrained coastal market. Scarcity and liquidity — not affordability — are the forces setting price here.
The headline median looks softer — $1,550,000 across 43 sales, down about 38.3% on the prior year — but that mostly reflects a smaller mix of homes selling this year, while price per square foot is +21.2%. On a like-for-like, per-square-foot basis the town has not cheapened. Our Affordability Stress reading is only 74/100 — roughly 79% of median household income to principal and interest on the assumed rate — which says demand for desirable locations is continuing to outweigh affordability pressure rather than break against it.
- The trailing-12-month median sale price fell 38.3% to $1,550,000 (n=43), indicating softening against the prior year.
- Sold $/sqft centers near $1005/sqft across 42 eligible comps, but the spread is wide — the town median is a weak guide to any single block or condition tier.
At 76/100 supply reads constrained: active listings are very low relative to the town's housing base, which keeps structural pressure under prices even when demand cools. That is essentially unchanged from the single prior published release.
At 74/100 financing stress reads elevated: on the assumed mortgage rate the median home absorbs roughly 79% of median household income in principal and interest. That is a genuine stretch and it limits how far buyers can push — though scarcity, not financing cost, is what sets price here. (Mortgage rate is an explicit assumption — see limitations.)
Market structure
Avon By The Sea's recorded transaction base is 80% single-family and 11% condominium (206 sales on file). This is a detached-house market with a smaller attached segment; the report covers the single-family cohort.
The setting is a supply-constrained coastal town — our Scarcity Index reads 76/100, consistent with a limited, largely built-out housing base where new supply is hard to add.
We do not yet have enough evidence to characterise seasonality with confidence.
Where build year is recorded (n=108), 31% of the stock dates to 2000 or later — an older, established housing base with limited recent construction.
Direct buyer-profile and primary- vs second-home characterisation are not asserted: the transaction record does not carry occupancy or buyer-intent fields, so any such claim would be inference rather than evidence.
What happened: the median fell, but mostly on a size shift
Avon By The Sea's single-family median has moved lower across the cycle, from $999,999 in 2023 Q2 to $650,000 in 2025 Q4. The line is uneven quarter to quarter, and the volume bars beneath it show the reads rest on real transaction counts, not a handful of sales.
Over the trailing twelve months the median was $1,550,000 across 43 sales — down about 38.3% on the prior year. On its own that looks like falling values, but the decomposition below shows most of the move is a change in what sold, not a broad markdown of the town.
Decomposing the move: median price is -38.3% year-over-year while median $/sqft is +21.2% and median size -25.8%. The two moved in opposite directions — the median fell while price-per-foot rose, so the decline reflects smaller homes making up more of the mix rather than a broad drop in value.
The shape beneath the median
A single town median hides a wide range. Across 42 eligibility-screened sales, sold $/sqft centers near $1005/sqft, but the distribution runs from modest blocks into a substantial luxury tail. The shape — not just the midpoint — is the read: the town median is a weak anchor for any individual home.
On price, the middle 50% of trailing-12-month single-family sales runs $960,000 to $2,200,000 (median $1,550,000), with the 90th percentile at $3,499,999. The top decile alone accounts for about 25% of dollar volume — a luxury segment that moves the average well above the typical sale.
Liquidity & supply
As of 2026-07-14, Avon By The Sea carries 6 active single-family listings — too few to quote a reliable on-market days-on-market. Homes that closed recently sold in a median of about 53 days (9 recent closings), so the market is still clearing quickly even with the shelf this thin.
Price reductions are running at 0% of active listings; a low share is consistent with sellers holding firm rather than chasing the market down.
Months-of-supply and absorption cannot be computed from the current feed: the active snapshot carries no recent closed-sale pace, so we report it as not available rather than derive it from an incomplete denominator.
New-listing flow and expired/withdrawn counts are not captured in the current active feed; those liquidity signals are flagged as not yet available.
| Active-market metric | Reading |
|---|---|
| Active listings | 6 |
| Median days on market | not available |
| Median days to sell (recent closings) | 53 days |
| Median asking price | not available |
| Median asking $/sqft | not available |
| Price-cut share | 0% |
| Stale (90+ day) share | 6% |
| Months of supply | not available |
Redevelopment & builder demand
New-construction turnover is minimal: among single-family sales with a recorded build year (n=108), 6 were built within three years of sale.
Lot-level teardown and redevelopment signals are not asserted: lot-size is sparsely and unreliably recorded in the current comp set, so a redevelopment-intensity read would be fabricated. This is a priority data gap — redevelopment economics are where Briarwood intends to differentiate, and the signal is defined but not yet evidenced for this town.
Builder Demand and Renovation Spread are tracked as proprietary indices but are not yet scored for this town (they require inputs the current evidence base does not carry); they are monitored, not reported as values.
Property typology
Where bedroom count is recorded (79% of single-family sales), the market tiers cleanly by size. The table reads the price and $/sqft of each tier; note that larger homes carry a higher absolute price but the $/sqft gradient is what isolates location and quality from sheer size.
Segmentation by architectural style (ranch / cape / colonial) and by renovated-vs-dated condition is not available — those fields are essentially unpopulated in the current record, so we do not assert a style- or condition-based breakdown.
| By bedrooms | Sales | Median price | Median $/sqft |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 bed or fewer | 20 | $732,500 | $721/sqft |
| 3 bed | 38 | $1,403,500 | $947/sqft |
| 4 bed | 41 | $1,999,000 | $888/sqft |
| 5+ bed | 31 | $3,263,000 | $875/sqft |
Neighbourhood & micro-market
Insufficient evidenceNamed micro-markets (beach blocks, east/west of key roads, waterfront vs non-waterfront, larger-lot redevelopment pockets) are not segmented in this edition: the subtown, location-tag, and micro-location fields are essentially unpopulated in the current comp record, so any neighbourhood-level claim would be invented. Geographic coordinates are present on 100% of sales, which gives a future path to a defensible coordinate-based cut (distance-to-beach, sub-area) once a reviewed boundary definition is in place — it is deliberately not estimated here.
Renovation economics
Insufficient evidenceA renovated-vs-dated premium cannot be measured: the comp record does not carry a reliable condition or renovation field, and Renovation Spread is not yet scored for this town. Rather than infer a premium from price alone — which would confound size, location, and condition — we report this as insufficient evidence.
The history behind the read.
Scarcity Index · index_score · 2 observed points
Scarcity Index moved 0
From 2026-06-12 to 2026-07-11, observed value changed from 76.11 to 76.11.
Active listings · count · 11 observed points
Active listings moved +2
From 2026-06-22 to 2026-07-14, observed value changed from 4 to 6.
| Metric | Prior | Current | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Affordability Stress Index | 73.9 | 74.8 | ↑1 |
| Scarcity Index | 76.1 | 76.1 | →0 |
Affordability Stress Index moved +0.95
Affordability Stress Index had the largest current-vs-prior move.
What the read means.
- For buyers: the binding constraint is availability, not headline affordability. Competition concentrates on well-priced, move-in-ready homes in desirable blocks; patience tends to be rewarded mainly where an ask has run ahead of comparable sales.
- For owners: scarcity and quick absorption continue to support values, but this is a town-level baseline — condition, block, and flood exposure still decide where a specific home sits against it.
The signals we'll keep monitoring.
- Whether active inventory begins to expand, which would be the first sign of a supply-constrained market loosening.
- Whether price reductions accelerate from today's 0% of active listings — a rising share would signal the asking-vs-sold gap closing through softer asks rather than higher sales.
- Whether days-on-market lengthen from the current fast pace, which typically precedes any change in pricing power.
- Whether the high-end (the $800+/sqft tail) holds its share of transactions, since the luxury segment carries a meaningful part of dollar volume.
- Redevelopment and new-construction activity — tracked via Builder Demand, which Briarwood monitors but does not yet score for this town.
- Whether buyer demand softens if financing costs stay elevated; that would surface first in absorption and days-on-market, not in the headline median.
Where our read could be wrong.
- Rates: the affordability read rests on a mortgage-rate assumption. A sustained move higher would pressure demand first through absorption and days-on-market, then price.
- Inventory expansion: the thesis depends on supply staying scarce. A durable rise in active listings would loosen the structural pressure that is currently holding prices firm.
- Flood & insurance exposure: coastal location carries flood-zone and insurance-cost risk that can re-rate desirability block-by-block; this report does not yet incorporate parcel-level flood data, so it is a known uncovered risk.
- Luxury slowdown: with a meaningful share of dollar volume in the high-end tail, a pullback in luxury demand would weigh on the median more than transaction counts alone would suggest.
- Local affordability ceiling: at the current price level, demand depends on out-of-area and second-home buyers; a broad demand cooling would surface here before it shows in the median.
- Thin samples: single-family $/sqft and the active-listing count rest on modest samples, so short-run readings can move on composition; we weight trend over any single release.
Availability, not headline affordability, is the binding constraint in Avon By The Sea. Use the town baseline to frame the ask, then test the specific home — condition, block, and comp fit decide where a given listing should land against it.
Want a read on a specific Avon By The Sea property?
Send the address and we'll tell you how it compares with the rest of the town — a direct analysis from our research team, not an automated score.
- Observed facts — closed-sale prices, dates, and property attributes from Briarwood's proprietary Avon By The Sea transaction record (165 single-family sales), and the curated active-market aggregate as of 2026-07-14.
- Derived statistics — medians, distributions, and $/sqft, computed deterministically from those facts (no estimation, no smoothing).
- Proprietary signals — the Liquidity, Scarcity, and Affordability Stress indices, Briarwood computations over the same evidence rather than third-party scores.
- Research interpretation — the Briarwood Research findings, market thesis, competing hypotheses, and conviction; labelled throughout as our reading of the evidence, not fact.
- Forward-looking monitoring — the watch-items and risks, framed as what Briarwood Research will track as data accumulates, not as predictions.
- No external institutional research is cited as proof of any local fact; external macro/framework context, where used, is confined to framing and never to town-specific claims.
Evidence Notes
- Briarwood SOLD comp record for Avon By The Sea: 165 sales through 2026-06-22.
- Trailing-12-month window 2025-06-22 → 2026-06-22: 43 sales (prior year 36).
- $/sqft computed over 42 eligibility-screened comps (nominal-deed and outlier rows excluded).
- Active-market read from the approved curated aggregate, as of 2026-07-14.
Limitations
- This public report is a town and segment baseline, not a property-specific recommendation.
- The current (partial) quarter is excluded from the price trend; medians cover complete quarters only.
- Aggregate medians blend block, condition, and size; a specific home can sit far from the town median.
- Active inventory is thin (6 listings as of 2026-07-14); on-market reads carry wide error.
- The Affordability Stress reading rests on an explicit mortgage-rate assumption and town median household income; it frames financing stretch, not a forecast.
- Index movements are measured against the prior published release; the public baseline is still building (few observed points), so treat the deltas as directional, not trend.
Research disclaimer. Briarwood Research is independent market analysis prepared for informational purposes. It draws on public records (NJ SR1A deed transfers and MOD-IV assessments), third-party data (ATTOM), and Briarwood's own valuation models; figures are estimates, not a licensed appraisal, and nothing here is an offer, a solicitation, or investment advice. Confirm property-level facts before acting on any decision.