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Aug. 7-13
Slowing Rental Market?
Anyone who has talked with a local realtor lately has heard tales of a slowing in the shore rental market. The most often-cited reasons are too aggressive pricing and the expanding options for post-pandemic travel. What one hears is the Covid “bump” in the shore rental market is over.
A quick look at data on Airbnb and Vrbo listings in the county paints a slightly different picture for short-term rentals (STR). Taking the island communities from Ocean City down through Cape May, the median occupancy rates are highest in the center, from Sea Isle City through Stone Harbor, and lowest in the Wildwoods, but generally healthy throughout. The data shows 5,700 active STR properties along that shoreline. Many of these STR properties do not go through real estate brokers.
Global leisure flight bookings have increased as pandemic fears wane. The southern New Jersey shore remains a prime destination for vacation travel, but the competition is up. The U.S. Travel Association says that air travel demand increased 12% in June year-over-year. AAA reports that international travel is up 200% over 2022.
While the conventional wisdom in press reports is that Jersey Shore towns may be pricing themselves out of a more robust market, there is strong evidence that the increasing availability of other travel options may be a significant factor in any slowdown at the shore.
The pandemic is over and so may be the Covid bump that allowed Cape May County to recover so impressively in a short time. No single factor will explain everything as the shore economy seeks a new equilibrium.
Parking
On a recent Tuesday morning trip to Avalon, parking was not available anywhere in close proximity to Borough Hall and the town’s five-star-rated library. Did I mention it was a Tuesday morning?
Parking remains one of the biggest unsolved problems of Cape May County’s ever-expanding tourism economy.
In Stone Harbor, a plan to simplify paid parking and reduce the need for intervention by borough personnel backfired so far this summer, with record numbers of parking tickets in the wake of a switch to the ParkMobile app as the sole way to pony up parking fees. In July alone, the borough issued 1,247 parking tickets. It has reached the point where the municipal court has hired part-time staff to field the calls and inquiries from those who received a ticket in Stone Harbor.
In neighboring Avalon, where drivers never have to pay to park, police are still issuing tickets as frustrated drivers try to get by in spaces that have yellow lines, making parking illegal, or by leaving a significant piece of their parked car blocking egress to and from driveways.
In Cape May, a citizen advisory committee has recommended that commercial enterprises, including real estate owners using homes as STR properties, be charged a fee for every parking space they do not provide that is otherwise required by city ordinance. The committee wants to end the routine granting of hardship waivers to businesses that say they simply cannot provide the parking the ordinance requires as they expand seating in their restaurants or increase the bedroom capacity of an STR that once was just a single-family home. The fees might make an otherwise financially impractical garage feasible.
Household Debt
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has issued its Quarter 2 report on household debt. Overall, household debt in the U.S. grew to $17.06 trillion. For comparison, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2023 to be $26.24 trillion.
The largest share of household debt remains housing itself, which stayed stable from quarter 1 to quarter 2 at roughly $12.01 trillion.
Growth occurred in other areas. Credit card debt topped $1 trillion (up $45 billion in the quarter), showing recovery from the downward pressures during the pandemic. Auto loans were up, as were other forms of household debt. What unexpectedly helped to depress debt level growth was a decline of $35 billion in student loan debt, which still stands after that decline at $1.57 trillion.
The Brookings Institution points to the potential impact on the general economy as households need to service their debt over the coming years.
One glimpse of the issue in Cape May County comes from the Federal Reserve Bank of Saint Louis. The fed’s report on burdened households by county in New Jersey shows Cape May County at just over 35%. That means that more than one in three households in the county pay 30% or more of their income on housing in rent or mortgage. Those numbers place Cape May County dead center in New Jersey, with 10 of the 21 counties more heavily burdened and 10 less heavily burdened.
Happenings
Lock that car! Three juveniles were arrested for stealing three cars out of Ocean City. Car thefts are often crimes of opportunity when owners leave the vehicles unlocked.
Sea Isle City is moving closer to a much-anticipated dog park in the south end of the island. By next summer, man’s best friend may have a place of his own when banned from the beaches during the summer season.
A new threat has increased its presence in the county’s illicit drug mix. Xylazine is a non-opioid veterinary tranquilizer intended for 1,000-pound horses, not 160-pound people.
Middle Township introduced an ordinance to increase the number of cannabis retail shops the township is willing to host from one to two.
A boater died when his vessel struck a drainage pipe off Cape May. Also, Rio Grande Fire Company personnel had to respond to a WaveRunner that was stuck in the mud in Richardson Sound.
An author recalls summers in Wildwood as a teenager in the 1970s in a recently released book, “Down the Shore.”
Stone Harbor has opted not to move forward with a proposal from the borough’s property owners association for equipment and volunteers to measure sand movements between formal engineering surveys.
Middle Township is looking to regulate food trucks, setting licensing obligations and enumerating a number of requirements the trucks must meet when in operation.
Cape May City Council wants some assurances that a developer who seeks to meet subdivision affordable housing obligations through a property outside the development will maintain the property appropriately.
Communities with massive increases in summer population depend on summer workers to make everything go smoothly. Recently, towns faced a crisis getting enough lifeguards or Public Works summer employees. That problem extends to law enforcement and a shrinking pool of special officer applicants.
Over a decade after Lower Township established rules for beekeeping in the municipality, state officials have informed the township that they don’t have the authority to regulate the activity.
Family and friends conducted a prayer service, Aug. 1, to commemorate the 50-year-old decision by Pope Paul VI that allowed the ordination of the world’s first quadriplegic priest in the Catholic Church.
Should second homeowners, many of whom have made substantial investments in their communities, be allowed to vote in municipal elections? To change the law would require help from Trenton.
Spout Off of the Week
Wildwood – When will people stop blaming Biden and/or Trump for all of YOUR shortcomings? Stop complaining about the economy and learn how to budget your spending. Get to know a person first before judging them. Let them live life how THEY see fit. Mind your own business sometimes. Learn a new hobby. And lastly, realize that NEITHER party cares for the common American. Republicans wants to keep the country separated while Democrats want to keep the country poor. Now I wonder why that is?
Read more spouts at spoutoff.capemaycountyherald.com.
