New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the nation, offering suburbs that are cities in their own right in both the metropolitan areas of New York City and Philadelphia but also unique regions like the Pine Barrens, the Jersey Shore and the mythical land known as Central Jersey.
But in many places in the Garden State, whether you’re living in the shadow of cosmopolitan skyscrapers, the Atlantic City Boardwalk or a Salem County tomato stand, the combination of pastoral beauty and big city convenience is driving up rental prices.
So, where in Jersey will you find the towns, townships and cities where the average rent is increasing the most? To no surprise, mostly in North Jersey but lease prices are on the rise statewide. Here are the top 10 steepest growth rates.
10. Sewell
Source: Tanyard Oaks
- Average rent price increase: 27.48 percent
- Average 1-BR rental price: $2,054
Straddling Mantua, Washington and Deptford Townships, the unincorporated 08080 ZIP Code community of Sewell has seen the greatest increase in yearly rent of any town in South Jersey.
Sewell, just 20 minutes outside Philadelphia, is home to the main campus of Rowan College of South Jersey and the Gloucester County Institute of Technology. But perhaps the town’s most famous landmark is Main Street’s Barnsboro Inn, the oldest continuously operating bar in New Jersey, celebrating its 300th anniversary in 2020.
With a quaint main street, the westernmost Target in South Jersey, a number of parks, golf courses and the 111-acre Tall Pines State Preserve and a future stop along New Jersey Transit’s planned Glassboro-Camden Line, Sewell’s visibility is increasing. Rents here have jumped more than 27 percent in the last year to $2,054 a month for an average one-bedroom.
9. West Orange
- Average rent price increase: 27.56 percent
- Average 1-BR rental price: $2,104
Despite his more famous lab down the Parkway in the township now named in his honor, it was in West Orange where Thomas Edison founded Black Maria, the world’s first movie studio, part of what’s now the Thomas Edison National Historical Park. This led to West Orange’s place in history as the world’s first home of the film industry until the year-round warm weather of Hollywood beckoned.
Today, West Orange, the second-largest of The Oranges (behind only East Orange), is a suburban New York City bedroom community of nearly 50,000. The city features the large Essex Green Shopping Center outdoor mall with a dine-in movie theater, several country clubs and golf courses, the Turtle Back Zoo, Codey Arena (home rink for Seton Hall University’s hockey team and former training site for the New Jersey Devils) and a vibrant Main Street. The city is bookended by two nature reserve parks, South Mountain and Eagle Rock Reservations, both part of the Essex County Park System, the oldest such system in the nation.
Like many cities that overlook the Manhattan skyline, West Orange’s rent prices have shot up over the last 12 months, up more than 27.5 percent for an average one-bedroom unit to $2,104 a month.
8. Garfield
Source: River Edge at Garfield
- Average rent price increase: 29.46 percent
- Average 1-BR rental price: $1,551
Surrounded by larger, better known North Jersey communities like Paterson, Passaic and Hackensack, the growing community of Garfield is itself a key 30,000-resident suburb just 10 miles from Manhattan.
The city, named for the 20th President of the U.S., who oddly had no connection to the town, is bounded by the Garden State Parkway, U.S. Route 46 and the Passaic and Saddle Rivers. Its commercial and retail life centers on the Passaic riverfront along River Drive and near its intersections with Midland Avenue and Outwater Lane.
While much of the city remains residential and suburban, Garfield also offers convenience into the city, with Garfield and Plauderville stations on New Jersey Transit’s Bergen County Line, both within the city limits, an easy ride to Hoboken Terminal with transfers to Penn Station. Both the Meadowlands Sports Complex and Teterboro Airport are also each just a few minutes away.
This combination of quiet and accessibility has helped elevate rents in Garfield. While an average one-bedroom apartment leases for a relatively affordable $1,551 monthly, that represents a nearly 30 percent increase from this time last year.
7. Perth Amboy
- Average rent price increase: 30.43 percent
- Average 1-BR rental price: $1,656
Sitting at the western terminus of Outerbridge Crossing, the Middlesex County town of Perth Amboy lies just across the bridge from the extreme southern end of Staten Island. The city is a key community for Americans of Hispanic and Latino heritage, with nearly eight in 10 residents claiming that origin, the second-highest margin in the state. However, its most famous resident might just be the mild-mannered Walter Mitty, the fictional character which author James Thurber described as an “inconsequential fellow from Perth Amboy, N.J.”
The “City by the Bay” features a vibrant waterfront along Raritan Bay that includes the historic Perth Amboy Ferry Slip, two museums, an art gallery, a yacht club, a marina, a fishing pier, a bandshell offering summer Concerts by the Bay and the La Playita beach.
Spoking west from Arthur Kill, the Smith Street retail district stretches seven blocks filled with restaurants, shops, boutiques, a medical center and the 10-story Amboy Towers bank high-rise at the Five Corners intersection with New Brunswick Avenue and State Street.
Convenient to nearly anywhere in New York and just a 40-minute drive to the Jersey Shore, Perth Amboy is a growing city-border community, especially among those of Puerto Rican and Dominican heritage, the fifth and third highest concentrations of those origins in the U.S., respectively. Rent here has increased more than 30 percent over the last year for an average one-bedroom apartment to $1,656 monthly.
6. Matawan
- Average rent price increase: 30.94 percent
- Average 1-BR rental price: $2,165
Just 10 minutes from the recreational Raritan Bayshore coastline, the small town of Matawan is a community of lakes just off the Garden State Parkway. Matawan is a key city in the Bayshore Regional Strategic Plan, which is a multi-community effort to revitalize northern Monmouth County by focusing on livability with quaint downtowns, affordable residential neighborhoods, the region’s natural environment and its unique maritime history.
For its part, Matawan’s Main Street offers a number of commercial and retail businesses, restaurants and bars and the Burrowes Mansion Museum, sitting between Matawan Creek and Lake Matawan. It also offers a plethora of natural beauty, including Lake Lefferts, created by the damming of Matawan Creek, a recreational outdoor region offering fishing with a public dock, boat launch, canoeing and lakeside sports bar and restaurant MJ’s at Buttonwood Manor. Matawan is also the central section Northern terminus and Eastern section Western terminus of the 24-mile-long rail-reclaimed Henry Hudson Trail.
Despite its rustic environment and outdoor recreation, the borough features heavy-use Aberdeen-Matawan Station, the busiest station on New Jersey Transit’s North Jersey Coast Line south of the AMTRAK Northeast Corridor Line split. The station offers service directly into New York at Penn Station and is also the disembarking point for the PNC Bank Arts Center music venue in Holmdel just five miles away. With convenience comes price, with a nearly 31 percent increase in rents for an average one-bedroom apartment year-to-year, to $2,165 a month.
5. Highland Park
Source: Parktowne Apartments
- Average rent price increase: 32.47 percent
- Average 1-BR rental price: $1,903
Sometimes, it’s not what you have but what you’re near. While Central Jersey’s Highland Park is a largely residential town of tree-lined streets and ordered blocks of houses and apartment complexes, its location right across the Raritan River from the larger city of New Brunswick gives Highland Park its cache.
The main campus of 70,000-enrolled Rutgers University, regional Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and the world headquarters of Johnson & Johnson corporation all sit along the New Brunswick riverfront just a stone’s throw from Highland Park.
This confluence of medical, educational and industrial hubs has afforded Highland Park the honor of housing workers, doctors, professors and students for decades. While nearly entirely residential, Highland Park does offer a commercial corridor along Raritan and Woodbridge avenues featuring big box stores, diners and restaurants, national chain retail and service shops. At the south end of town is the large Donaldson Park, which offers 16 athletic courts and fields, a picnic grove, pond with boat ramp, playgrounds and an off-leash dog park.
While the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment has increased more than 32 percent from this time last year, its $1,903 a month price is still around $200 less than similar units across the river in New Brunswick.
4. Ridgefield Park
Source: Maple Court Apartments
- Average rent price increase: 33.13 percent
- Average 1-BR rental price: $1,421
The village of Ridgefield Park sits at the confluence of the Hackensack River and Overpeck Creek just west of Palisades Park. Interstate 80 forms its northern border and the New Jersey Turnpike (I-95) runs along its east side, with a major junction at Winant Avenue/U.S. Route 46. Yankee Stadium and Midtown Manhattan are both under 30 minutes away by car. It’s just 10 minutes to the Meadowlands and MetLife Stadium.
Yet, with all that convenience and even despite a more than 33 percent increase in rent over the last year, an average one-bedroom apartment is just $1,421 a month, the lowest among our top 10. An argument could be made that Ridgefield Park is the best value in North Jersey for its convenience and prices.
Ridgefield Park is overwhelmingly residential, a New York bedroom community of single-family houses and rental units. There are small pockets of commerce, primarily along Main Street with a selection of restaurants, service businesses and an animal hospital.
But there’s a significant industrial presence with heavy manufacturing along the Hackensack and the national headquarters of Samsung Electronics America in a campus along the creek that also includes two hotels and a 12-screen movie theater. Just to the north of Samsung is a region of Overpeck County Park, featuring several athletic fields including cricket grounds, boat launch and a 3,000-capacity amphitheater.
3. Atlantic Highlands
- Average rent price increase: 33.42 percent
- Average 1-BR rental price: $1,838
Nineteen miles due south of the Statue of Liberty across New York Bay, Atlantic Highlands is a maritime and recreation town from which you can both see the Manhattan skyline yet live a world away.
Situated along the Raritan Bayshore in the protective gulf separated from the ocean by Sandy Hook, the harbor village is the highest point on the Atlantic shoreline between Maine and Mexico and the largest municipal harbor on the East Coast with more than 700 moored vessels.
Atlantic Highlands is flush with accessible woodlands and green space with 10 parks, a plethora for a borough of just more than 4,300 residents. Most of the town’s recreation lies along its two-and-a-half miles of Sandy Hook Bay coastline. This region features the harbor, a marina, catamaran club and yacht club, the historic Henry Hudson Springs (where Hudson provisioned fresh water for the Half Moon) and Thomas Paine House (site of the last British Revolutionary War encampment), along with a number of inns and restaurants. It also encompasses the Bayshore section of the Henry Hudson Trail bike and hiking trail, built along the former Central Railroad of New Jersey line.
Atlantic Highlands may be a seaside respite, but for those commuting into Manhattan, the SeaStreak ferry connects the borough’s dock at First Avenue directly to Pier 11 at Wall Street, a trip of about 40 minutes. People are noticing this combination of convenience and solitude, driving rents up 33.42 percent in the last 12 months to $1,838 a month for an average one-bedroom.
2. Ewing
- Average rent price increase: 33.93 percent
- Average 1-BR rental price: $1,506
The morning after Christmas 1776, George Washington, having successfully crossed the Delaware River into New Jersey, was on the way to attack the Hessians in Trenton. At Jacob’s Creek in what is now Ewing Township, Washington’s horse lost its footing and nearly deposited the general into the water. The rest is literally history, but to this day, Ewing remains the capital of transportation in Central Jersey.
Ewing is a residential suburb for lawmakers and influencers in the neighboring state capital of Trenton, as well as a bedroom community for city workers. The township is just more than an hour by train to both Philadelphia via SEPTA’s West Trenton Line and New York along New Jersey Transit’s Northeast Corridor Line from nearby Hamilton or Trenton stations. And if that’s not enough, Ewing’s Trenton-Mercer Airport offers direct flights to locations in Florida and North Carolina, as well as Chicago’s O’Hare Airport on Frontier Airlines.
The Township runs from urban streets bordering Trenton to pure suburbs to the north. Ewing contains the New Jersey State Police headquarters and museum and the New Jersey Department of Transportation and offers a distinct retail district along North Olden Avenue off Princeton Avenue. It’s also home to the 7,300-enrolled The College of New Jersey and the century-old New Jersey School for the Deaf.
Ewing’s convenience has resulted in growing rental prices. An average one-bedroom in the Township leases for $1,506 a month, a nearly 34 percent increase from year-to-year.
1. Newark
- Average rent price increase: 34.49 percent
- Average 1-BR rental price: $2,291
Just 10 miles from Wall Street, Newark enjoys a certain proximity glow. But the largest city in New Jersey is more than a mere N.Y.C. suburb. Newark enjoys a strategic location for commuters into the City but also offers its own outstanding arts, culture and entertainment scenes — and even its own NHL hockey team for residents not tied to New York. It’s home to one of the nation’s 15 busiest airports and 10 busiest train stations, as well as corporate headquarters for companies like Prudential, Panasonic and Audible.
Newark also offers gorgeous waterfront parks along the Passaic River, like Washington, Riverbank, Riverfront and Essex County parks. The city has a number of notable interior parks, as well, including Weequahic Park, Military Park, Lincoln Park and Branch Brook Park, with what’s said to be the largest collection of cherry blossom trees in the nation.
It’s a hub for educational institutions, including the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Rutgers University Newark and Seton Hall University Law School, as well as cultural ones such as the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Newark Museum of Art and Symphony Hall.
After six decades of population decline, Newark has steadily grown since the millennium. The increase in demand has translated into an increase in rental prices, reflecting increases in New York as well. Despite the highest rise in rent in the state from this time last year at nearly 34.5 percent for an average one-bedroom, Newark still ranks as just the 23rd-most expensive city in the state for rental prices. However, that’s a rise from 76th last year.
Methodology
We looked at all cities in New Jersey with sufficient available inventory on Apartment Guide and Rent. and compared the average rolling weighted rent price from April 2019 to April 2020 to find the communities with the highest percentage increase in one-bedroom rent prices. We use a weighted average formula that more accurately represents price availability for each individual unit type and reduces the influence of seasonality on rent prices in specific markets.
The rent information included in this article is used for illustrative purposes only. The data contained herein do not constitute financial advice or a pricing guarantee for any apartment.
