Feasibility Study Company Independent Feasibility Analysis

New Jersey · Market Intelligence

New Jersey Feasibility Studies

An independent, lender-grade feasibility practice for New Jersey across SBA 7(a) and 504, USDA Rural Development, EB-5, and conventional capital. This page is our standing, sourced read on where New Jersey markets are oversupplied, how deals actually get funded by region and program, and where New Jersey feasibility studies fail review.

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$10,095
2025 average property-tax bill — first ever above $10,000, highest in the nation23
8.2%
Statewide industrial vacancy, Nov. 2025 — up from 5.8% a year earlier10
94.1%
All-time-high statewide apartment occupancy, year-end 20253
8
2026 FIFA World Cup matches at MetLife, incl. the Final on July 1916
The New Jersey Thesis

A statewide New Jersey number is indefensible.

New Jersey rewards feasibility work and punishes shortcuts, because it has no dominant in-state metro to average against. The state is split between two out-of-state orbits: the north — Newark, the Jersey City and Hoboken Gold Coast, and the Bergen, Essex, Passaic, and Union suburbs — functions as part of the New York City metro, while the south, from Camden through Burlington and Gloucester, behaves entirely with the Philadelphia metro. The seasonal Jersey Shore and the rural Pinelands are distinct again. The decisive fact for underwriting is that the same asset class routinely reads oversupplied in one region and undersupplied in another.6

Self-storage is the clearest proof: dense Jersey City carries just 1.2 square feet per capita against a national benchmark near 7.0, while Ocean County's Lakewood traded at $324 per square foot on roughly 2 square feet per capita — both structurally undersupplied, but for opposite demographic reasons.78 The state reached an estimated 9,548,215 residents as of July 1, 2025, is the most densely populated state in the country, and was the fastest-growing state in the Northeast in 2023–2024, yet its growth and its supply pressure are both intensely local.1 A study built on a statewide average misprices nearly every deal, so we underwrite New Jersey region-by-region, against the current pipeline, the regional funding channel, and the New Jersey-specific factors most studies miss.

What follows is organized as a working desk: a live oversupply monitor, a funding-routing map, the review failures that sink New Jersey studies, the regulatory edges that decide outcomes — the nation's highest property taxes, the full-but-narrowed Certificate of Need, coastal flood repricing, and the highest corporate rate in the country — and a per-region demand fingerprint. Every figure is dated and attributed in the sources below.

The Oversupply & Pipeline Monitor

Where New Jersey markets stand, region by region.

A supply-pressure read for each region and asset class, refreshed each quarter from named primary sources. A dash means we hold no current tracked reading, not that the market is balanced. Reads are Q1 2026 unless noted; data current to Q2 2026.

Supply pressure: Oversupplied Balanced Undersupplied Digesting / softening
Region Multifamily Self-Storage Industrial Office Hotel Pipeline
Gold Coast / Hudson DigestingJC rent −10% YoY; 4,000+ units 2026 UndersuppliedJC 1.2 sf/capita Balancedinfill tight Digestingwaterfront 24.6% vac. Balanced80% occ.; WC26 spike
Northern NJ suburbs Undersuppliedpipeline shrinking UndersuppliedNewark <1 sf/capita DigestingMeadowlands infill tight Oversupplied~27% vac., suburban glut Balanced
Central NJ (Rt. 1 / Exit 8A) Balancedlife-science anchored Undersupplied DigestingExit 8A bulk Oversuppliedcommodity; Premier balanced Balanced
Southern NJ (Philadelphia-orbit) Balanced Balanced Balancedexits 4–7 logistics Balanced Balanced
Jersey Shore Balancedseasonal UndersuppliedOcean Co. growth — — SeasonalAC margins challenged

Readings compiled from sources 2–20 below. Vendor vacancy estimates for the same region can differ; each figure is attributed at its point of use.

Industrial: the signature asset class, mid-digestion

Port-driven industrial is New Jersey's signature asset class, and it has flipped from record-tight to digestion. Anchored by the Port of New York and New Jersey — the busiest port on the East Coast — the Turnpike and I-78 corridors, the Meadowlands, and the Exit 8A big-box cluster, the market's structural advantage is proximity to roughly 19.5 million residents in the New York consolidated metro.9 After a large 2023–2024 speculative wave delivered into cautious demand, statewide vacancy climbed to 8.2 percent by November 2025, up from 5.8 percent a year earlier, with New Jersey asking rents averaging $12.06 per square foot against $8.87 nationally and only about 5.6 million square feet under construction, below the national rate.10 Underwriting 2021-era, last-mile rent growth into this market is the classic New Jersey failure mode: Northeast industrial rents fell 3.8 percent in 2025 after roughly doubling from 2019 to peak, and CoStar projects a 2026 vacancy peak with Trenton flagged as oversupply-challenged.11

Vendor reads diverge sharply and must be presented as a range. Cornovus put northern New Jersey vacancy at 8 to 9 percent in Q1 2026, with Meadowlands asking rents near $16.01 per square foot triple-net, Port Newark-Elizabeth near $15.98, and port-centric asking rents down more than 16 percent from peak.9 Newmark reported a tighter 6.3 percent vacancy with 3.49 million square feet of positive net absorption — its third straight positive quarter — while Avison Young counted 56 projects and 10.7 million square feet delivered in 2025 and 39 projects under construction, with new deals near the port pricing at $21 to $23 triple-net.1213 The premier infill Meadowlands and the Exit 8A bulk market behave differently: the Meadowlands signed 13 leases totaling roughly 750,000 square feet in Q1 2026, while Southern New Jersey logistics along exits 4 to 7 tracks the Philadelphia market and reads balanced.

Multifamily: a directional-opposite north-south split

Northern New Jersey enters 2026 among the strongest Northeast rent-growth markets: net absorption reached 4,329 units in 2025, vacancy fell to 3.0 percent, and rent growth hit 6.2 percent, with vacancy tightening 150 basis points in Newark, 190 in Jersey City, and 90 in Hoboken.2 Statewide occupancy hit an all-time-high 94.1 percent, up 300 basis points year over year, and New Jersey multifamily sales reached $2.3 billion in 2025, up 136.2 percent, with the Gold Coast alone accounting for $896.6 million at an effective rent near $3.07 rising to $3.11 per square foot.3 But the Gold Coast is digesting a luxury wave: Class A vacancy in construction-saturated northern submarkets climbed to 10.7 percent, Jersey City median rent fell about 10 percent year over year to $2,745 on two-month concessions as the 1,723-unit Journal leased up, and 4,000-plus more Jersey City units deliver in 2026.245 Even so, Jersey City's overall vacancy was just 2.8 percent in Q2 2025 despite a 20 percent inventory gain over five years — a digestion story, not a collapse.6

Self-storage: structurally undersupplied per capita

New Jersey, especially the dense north, is structurally undersupplied against the roughly 7.0-square-foot-per-capita national benchmark. Jersey City carries just 1.2 square feet per capita, yet its street rate eased about 4 to 6 percent year over year to roughly $189 to $196 per month as a dense, high-cost market recalibrated; Newark sits under 1 square foot per capita with rates up 6.1 percent in May 2025.7 On the Shore, fast-growing Ocean County's Lakewood traded at $324 per square foot on about 2 square feet per capita, and Clifton, at 1.3 square feet per capita, saw SmartStop acquire a facility near $246 per square foot — New Jersey drew significant REIT acquisition interest across 2025.8 The read is undersupplied statewide, most acute in the dense north and in high-growth Ocean County, but demand-side softening in the priciest submarkets means lease-up curves cannot simply assume the per-capita gap closes on schedule.

Office: a severe suburban glut, reshaped by conversions

The classic New Jersey suburban office glut is severe: office vacancy averages roughly 27 percent across northern and central New Jersey, and Newmark reported a 22.7 percent northern New Jersey availability rate in Q1 2026 with Class A capturing 72.3 percent of leasing.1412 The Hudson waterfront, "Wall Street West," ran 24.6 percent office vacancy at an asking rent of $44.51 per square foot — 42 percent below Manhattan — and is digesting rather than collapsing.6 Conversions are now a defining trend: 141 identified office-conversion projects statewide as of August 2025 would remove about 22.1 million square feet, 9.6 percent of inventory, and Cushman & Wakefield counts more than 24 million square feet of planned conversions, with displacement equal to roughly 25 percent of current vacancy.1315 Flight-to-quality is stark, and the Parsippany premier-versus-Class A vacancy delta of 25.8 percent is the largest in the state.14 The read is oversupplied for commodity suburban product and balanced for premier Class A and the digesting Hudson waterfront.

Hotels, gaming, and the life-science corridor

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is a once-in-a-generation, dated demand event for northern New Jersey hospitality. MetLife Stadium, operating as "New York New Jersey Stadium," hosts eight matches — more than any other venue — including five group-stage games, a Round of 32, a Round of 16, and the Final on July 19, 2026, at a tournament capacity near 82,000 after 1,750 seats were removed for FIFA's larger pitch.16 Hotel occupancy across Newark and Jersey City is expected to reach near-capacity levels during the final period, with strong upward pressure on pricing; Jersey City hotels already reached 80 percent occupancy and a $260 average daily rate in 2025, with a Hyatt Regency renovation and a 154-key Fairfield Inn under construction in Journal Square.1718 Atlantic City tells the opposite structural story: 2025 land-based casino revenue rose 2.7 percent to about $2.89 billion, but for the first time internet-gaming win of $2.91 billion exceeded in-person casino win, total gaming revenue hit a record $6.98 billion, and Q1 2026 casino gross operating profit fell 22.9 percent to $104.7 million on the highest first-quarter costs in nine years — revenue balanced, margins challenged.1920 The state's economic signature, the pharma and life-science corridor, is landlord-competitive at the top end: New Jersey holds about 22 million square feet of lab space, eight of the world's top 10 pharma companies, and roughly 40 percent of U.S. cell-and-gene therapies in development, and lab vacancy ticked up only to 14.9 percent at year-end 2025 — far below the national 23.0 percent CBRE and 27.4 percent JLL reads.2122

The Funding-Routing Map

How a New Jersey deal actually gets funded.

Feasibility work exists to satisfy a specific reviewer. Knowing which office, CDC, and channel funds your asset is half the battle. This is the routing most feasibility pages never publish.

SBA 504 Certified Development Companies in New Jersey
A single U.S. SBA New Jersey District Office at 2 Gateway Center in Newark serves all 21 counties; 504 credits route through statewide and regional CDCs. Coverage areas are self-reported and "largest/#1" claims should be verified, not asserted.32
CDCCoverage & programs
UCEDC (Union County EDC)Statewide nonprofit CDC / CDFI; SBA 504, Community Advantage 7(a), microloans
RBAC (Regional Business Assistance Corp.)Trenton-based CDC / CDFI; SBA 504, microloans, 7(a) Community Advantage
CBAC (Cooperative Business Assistance Corp.)Camden; SBA 504 and microloans across the seven southern counties plus Philadelphia
Pursuit / The 504 CompanyMultistate; Fort Lee and Farmingdale offices; national SBA 504 and Community Advantage
EAEDC & GNECEastern American EDC (Fort Lee) 504 CDC; Greater Newark Enterprises Corp. CDFI small-business lender

On the 7(a) side, TD Bank has been New Jersey's number-one SBA lender for multiple consecutive years; in FY2025 year-to-date data through July 22, 2025, the state recorded 2,340 approvals for $956.28 million at an average of $408,667, led by TD Bank at 536 approvals and $85.22 million, followed by Live Oak, Newtek, Ready Capital of Florham Park, and Northeast Bank, with M&T historically second by loan count.33 For rural credits, USDA Business and Industry guaranteed loans route through the New Jersey Rural Development state office in Columbus, with business programs in Mt. Laurel under State Director Rick Stern and Business Programs Director Maryann Tancredi; the "Garden State" agricultural south and the Pinelands contain USDA-eligible areas despite New Jersey being the most densely populated state.34 The decisive new tool is the July 4, 2026 decoupling of the 7(a) and 504 caps to $10 million combined, the highest in agency history, though only about 6.8 percent of 7(a) borrowers take loans above $2 million.35

  • Owner-occupied industrial or warehouse in the port-centric north or Exit 8AConventional or CMBS for large bulk; for owner-users under the cap, SBA 504 via a statewide CDC such as UCEDC paired with a 7(a)-active bank like TD Bank, routed through the Newark district office.
  • A business acquisition plus real estate on one dealAfter July 4, 2026, stack a 7(a) up to $5M and a 504 up to $5M for $10M combined; sequence the 7(a) first, since 504 balances still count against 7(a) capacity.
  • Life-science, lab, or data-center owner-userTypically exceeds SBA caps; conventional or CMBS paired with NJEDA Aspire, Emerge, or Next New Jersey credits.
  • Small business or working capital statewideSBA 7(a) via TD Bank, Newtek, or Ready Capital, through the Newark district office.
  • A rural south or Pinelands agricultural or small-town projectUSDA Business & Industry, REAP, or Community Facilities via the Columbus and Mt. Laurel RD office, or CBAC for the seven southern counties.
Common Review Failures

How New Jersey feasibility studies fail review.

Each failure below is tied to a real New Jersey number. These are the recurring reasons a New Jersey study loses credibility with a lender or agency, engineered out of our deliverables before they ship.

  1. Statewide-average error

    Applying one New Jersey assumption ignores the New York City orbit north, the Philadelphia orbit south, the Shore, and the rural Pinelands. Self-storage alone ranges from 1.2 square feet per capita in Jersey City to fast-growing Ocean County markets — opposite demand drivers — and Jersey City multifamily vacancy sat at 2.8 percent in Q2 2025 against a very different southern picture.76

  2. Oversupply blindness — port-driven industrial digestion

    Underwriting 2021-era last-mile rent growth is the classic failure: New Jersey industrial went from roughly 2 percent vacancy and record rents in 2022 to 8.2 percent statewide by November 2025 and 8 to 9 percent in the north, with port-centric asking rents down more than 16 percent from peak. Add the Gold Coast luxury wave, with Class A vacancy at 10.7 percent, and the suburban office glut near 27 percent.109

  3. Property-tax underpricing — the signature New Jersey variable

    New Jersey has the nation's highest property taxes: a 2025 statewide average bill of $10,095, effective rates around 2.2 percent statewide and up to 3.27 percent in Camden County, and average bills of $14,443 in Bergen and $14,337 in Essex. Against a U.S. average effective rate near 0.9 percent, that can cut NOI materially, and it must be modeled at the municipal level.232425

  4. Coastal, flood, and insurance mispricing

    Superstorm Sandy drove 74,000 New Jersey NFIP claims and, with New York, more than $8 billion in payouts, and the state's policy count later fell about 15 percent, including roughly 12,000 who dropped coverage after Risk Rating 2.0. Under Risk Rating 2.0, fully implemented in April 2023, non-primary, business, and severe-repetitive-loss premiums escalate up to 25 percent a year toward full-risk rates, so Shore deals must underwrite full-risk flood premiums, not legacy subsidized ones.2728

  5. High-cost-of-doing-business misread

    New Jersey's Corporate Business Tax top rate is 9 percent, and the 2.5 percent Corporate Transit Fee lifts the effective top rate to 11.5 percent — the highest state corporate rate in the nation — on income over $10 million, while the Gross Income Tax tops out at 10.75 percent. High construction costs, prevailing wage, and dense-state entitlement difficulty compound the drag; ANCHOR and Stay NJ relief do not offset commercial underwriting.29

  6. Sub-market growth misread and out-migration

    New Jersey grew overall and led the Northeast at plus 1.3 percent in 2023–2024, and Hudson County and Jersey City boomed, with Jersey City up 7.5 percent from 2020 to 2024, alongside fast-growing Ocean County. But high cost drives out-migration, and some older urban and industrial areas are flat or declining, so feasibility must lead with the sub-market fingerprint rather than a statewide growth rate.16

  7. Energy and offshore-wind assumptions

    Offshore wind is effectively at zero: Ørsted cancelled Ocean Wind 1 and 2 in late 2023 on a $4 billion impairment, Atlantic Shores terminated in 2025, and the NJ BPU moved to end its PJM State Agreement Approach in April 2026, leaving ratepayers roughly $400 million in stranded costs amid about 20 percent 2025 electricity-bill increases. Energy cost and reliability are now material inputs, especially for power-intensive uses.3031

Regulatory Edges

The New Jersey rules that decide feasibility outcomes.

Five regulatory realities separate a New Jersey study that survives review from one that does not. The first is the one competitors most often state wrong — in both directions.

Certificate of Need: a full program with a narrowed list

New Jersey is a full Certificate of Need state operating a narrowed reviewable-services list, administered by the NJ Department of Health's Office of Certificate of Need and Healthcare Facility Licensure under the Health Care Facilities Planning Act, N.J.S.A. 26:2H-1 et seq., with rules at N.J.A.C. 8:33.26 A health care facility may not be instituted, constructed, expanded, licensed, or closed except upon a certificate of need. What still requires CON — and is therefore supply-gated, with low oversupply risk — includes long-term-care and nursing-home beds and specified specialized services such as certain cardiac catheterization and angioplasty, comprehensive rehabilitation, and transplant programs. What is exempt and market-driven, under N.J.S.A. 26:2H-7a, includes ambulatory care, community-based primary care, most outpatient services, additions of medical-surgical, adult ICU, and adult critical-care beds, and continuing-care retirement communities. The feasibility consequence is decisive: skilled-nursing supply is gated and its feasibility de-risked, aligning New Jersey with New York and Illinois for those beds, while assisted living and ambulatory surgery must carry the full demand burden. Competitors who say New Jersey has no CON are wrong; those who assume broad CON for everything overstate it.

The nation's highest property taxes

Property tax is the signature New Jersey underwriting variable. The 2025 statewide average bill exceeded $10,000 for the first time, at $10,095, and effective rates run about 2.2 percent statewide, reaching 3.27 percent in Camden County.2325 Ten of the 26 U.S. counties with average bills over $10,000 are in New Jersey, with Bergen at $14,443 and Essex at $14,337, against a U.S. average effective rate near 0.9 percent.24 Because municipal rates range from under 1 percent in places like Cape May Point to over 3.5 percent, a defensible pro forma models property tax at the municipal level, not the state average — the difference can swing NOI by hundreds of basis points against a lower-tax state.

Coastal flood insurance after Risk Rating 2.0

The Jersey Shore carries first-order flood exposure. Superstorm Sandy generated 74,000 New Jersey NFIP claims and, with New York, more than $8 billion in payouts, and the state remains one of the highest repetitive-loss states, drawing Swift Current mitigation funds after Ida.27 Under Risk Rating 2.0, fully implemented in April 2023, non-primary residences and business, non-residential, and severe-repetitive-loss properties escalate up to 25 percent per year toward full-risk rates, so a study that prices coastal or Shore deals on legacy subsidized premiums — rather than current full-risk quotes — is not defensible.28

The nation's highest corporate rate and an energy squeeze

New Jersey layers the highest corporate rate in the country onto an already high-cost operating environment. The 9 percent Corporate Business Tax plus the 2.5 percent Corporate Transit Fee, effective January 1, 2024 through December 31, 2028 under P.L. 2024, c.20, brings the effective top rate to 11.5 percent on allocated income over $10 million, applied to the entire income; the Gross Income Tax tops out at 10.75 percent.29 Energy is now a material underwriting input as well: New Jersey sits in PJM, faced roughly 20 percent electricity-bill increases in 2025, imported more than a third of its power in 2024, and saw its offshore-wind program collapse, leaving power cost and reliability squarely in the pro forma.3031

Supporting authority: the July 2026 SBA cap increase

The clearest tailwind is federal. SBA Policy Notice 5000-879058, dated May 18, 2026 and effective July 4, 2026, decouples the 7(a) and 504 programs and allows eligible borrowers up to $10 million combined — $5 million 7(a) plus $5 million 504, or $5.5 million 504 for manufacturers and energy projects — the highest in agency history, alongside FY2026 manufacturing guarantee-fee waivers and 90 percent guarantees for NAICS 31 through 33.35 Because 504 balances still count against 7(a) capacity, sequencing matters, and the change materially enlarges bankable deal size for capital-intensive New Jersey owner-users.

Metro Divergence

New Jersey regions, distinct demand fingerprints.

Each region carries its own economic base and its own supply position. These are the units of analysis for a New Jersey study, and each anchors a dedicated market page.

Finance, tech & NYC spillover

Jersey City & the Gold Coast

Hudson County, the state's fastest-growing, commands rents $1,200 to $1,500 above Newark on superior Manhattan transit. Multifamily is digesting a luxury wave — Jersey City rents down about 10 percent year over year with 4,000-plus units due in 2026 — while self-storage is structurally undersupplied at 1.2 square feet per capita.47

Government, health & port

Newark & Essex County

Essex County, near 857,000 residents, anchors government, health, and port-adjacent employment around Newark. Multifamily vacancy tightened 150 basis points in 2025 even as Greater Newark digests new Class A supply, and the region sits at the center of the port-driven industrial market.2

Corporate, retail & suburban

Bergen County

The state's most populous county, near 957,000, is corporate, retail, and suburban, with average property-tax bills of $14,443 — among the nation's highest. Multifamily reads undersupplied to balanced as the pipeline shrinks, while commodity suburban office remains oversupplied.245

Office parks & the I-287 corridor

Morris, Passaic & Union

The northern suburban corridor carries the state's deepest office glut, with vacancy near 27 percent and Parsippany's premier-versus-Class A delta at 25.8 percent, but leads the state in office-to-residential conversions. Union adds port, pharma, and logistics demand.1413

Logistics & life science

Central Jersey: Middlesex & Exit 8A

The Route 1 corridor and Exit 8A form the largest single industrial submarket in the Northeast, anchored by life science and transit demand, with New Brunswick's $731 million HELIX innovation district at roughly 1.5 million square feet at buildout. Bulk industrial is digesting; multifamily reads balanced.21

Shore, retiree & corporate

Monmouth & Ocean / the Shore

Seasonal and second-home coastal demand supported by NYC out-migration, with Netflix's Fort Monmouth studio adding 1,500 jobs on a $387 million Aspire credit and Lakewood growing roughly a third per decade. Self-storage is undersupplied; coastal deals carry full-risk flood exposure.48

Philadelphia-orbit eds & meds

Camden & South Jersey

Camden, Burlington, and Gloucester behave with the Philadelphia metro, not New York — lower rents, fewer conversions, and less supply pressure across multifamily, industrial, and office. South Jersey logistics along exits 4 to 7 is balanced, and deals route to CBAC and USDA Rural Development.6

Gaming & tourism

Atlantic City & Cape May

A unique, challenged gaming market: 2025 land-based revenue rose to about $2.89 billion, but Q1 2026 gross operating profit fell 22.9 percent on record costs as internet gaming overtook in-person win. Underwrite revenue as balanced and margins as challenged, with looming downstate-New York competition.1920

By Asset Class

New Jersey feasibility studies by asset class.

Each asset class carries its own New Jersey demand drivers, from port-driven last-mile logistics to municipal property-tax burden to coastal flood insurance. Explore the analytical approach by property type.

New Jersey Questions

New Jersey feasibility study questions.

Does New Jersey require a feasibility study for an SBA loan?

Under SBA SOP 50 10 8, a feasibility study is discretionary rather than universally mandated, and lenders commonly require one for special-purpose properties and startup or ground-up projects that lack operating history. New Jersey carries a heavy concentration of special-purpose and port-logistics collateral, so feasibility analysis is frequently expected on New Jersey SBA credits.

Does New Jersey have a Certificate of Need law?

Yes. New Jersey is a full Certificate of Need state operating a narrowed reviewable-services list, administered by the NJ Department of Health under the Health Care Facilities Planning Act, N.J.S.A. 26:2H-1 et seq., with rules at N.J.A.C. 8:33. It retains CON for long-term-care and nursing-home beds and specified specialized services such as certain cardiac, transplant, and comprehensive rehabilitation programs, while ambulatory care, most outpatient services, and additions of medical-surgical, adult ICU, and adult critical-care beds are exempt under N.J.S.A. 26:2H-7a. Claims that New Jersey has no CON, and claims that it requires CON for everything, are both wrong.

Which New Jersey real estate markets are oversupplied right now?

As of Q1 2026, commodity suburban office is the clearest oversupply, averaging about 27 percent vacancy across northern and central New Jersey. Port-driven industrial has flipped to digestion, with statewide vacancy at 8.2 percent in November 2025 and northern New Jersey reported between 6.3 percent by Newmark and 8 to 9 percent by Cornovus in Q1 2026. Gold Coast luxury multifamily is digesting, with Class A vacancy at 10.7 percent and Jersey City rents down about 10 percent year over year, while self-storage is structurally undersupplied statewide.

How do New Jersey property taxes affect feasibility?

New Jersey carries the nation's highest property-tax burden, a first-order feasibility variable. The 2025 statewide average bill exceeded $10,000 for the first time at $10,095, effective rates run about 2.2 percent statewide against a U.S. average near 0.9 percent, and Camden County reaches 3.27 percent. Ten of the 26 U.S. counties with average bills over $10,000 are in New Jersey, with Bergen at $14,443 and Essex at $14,337. Because municipal rates range from under 1 percent to over 3.5 percent, taxes must be modeled at the municipal level, not the state average.

Who funds SBA and USDA loans in New Jersey?

A single U.S. SBA New Jersey District Office at 2 Gateway Center in Newark serves all 21 counties. On the 7(a) side, TD Bank has been the state's number-one SBA lender for several consecutive years, followed by Live Oak, Newtek, Ready Capital, and Northeast Bank. On the 504 side, statewide and regional CDCs such as UCEDC, RBAC, and the Camden-based CBAC route credits, and USDA Business and Industry loans route through the New Jersey Rural Development state office in Columbus, with business programs in Mt. Laurel.

How is a New Jersey feasibility study different from a national one?

New Jersey has no dominant in-state metro; it is split between the New York City orbit in the north, the Philadelphia orbit in the south, the seasonal Jersey Shore, and the rural Pinelands, so the same asset class routinely reads oversupplied in one region and undersupplied in another. A defensible New Jersey study is built region-by-region against the current supply pipeline, the SBA district and CDC channel, and New Jersey-specific factors most studies miss: the nation's highest property taxes, the full-but-narrowed Certificate-of-Need line, the port-driven industrial digestion, and coastal flood-insurance repricing under Risk Rating 2.0.

Underwriting a New Jersey project? Start with the market read.

A methodology briefing walks through the analytical framework, the deliverable composition, and the current New Jersey market data for your region and asset class — including the property-tax, flood-insurance, and port-industrial factors that decide New Jersey outcomes.

Request a methodology briefing
Sources

Data sources and dates.

Every figure on this page traces to a named authority. Real-estate readings are point-in-time and vendor-dependent; where vendors disagree, the range is shown and each is attributed at its point of use.

  1. U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 Population Estimates (New Jersey 9,548,215 as of July 1, 2025) and Vintage 2024 release (fastest-growing Northeast state, +1.3%, December 2024); Population Estimates Program 2024 (Newark 317,303; Jersey City 302,824; Hudson County 736,185).
  2. Matthews Real Estate Investment Services / CoStar, "Top 10 Multifamily Markets in 2026" (Northern NJ absorption 4,329 units, vacancy 3.0%, rent growth 6.2%; Newark −150 bps, Jersey City −190 bps, Hoboken −90 bps; Class A vacancy 10.7%, Q3 2025).
  3. Cushman & Wakefield, New Jersey Multifamily MarketBeat, Year-End 2025 (statewide occupancy 94.1%, +300 bps; sales $2.3 billion, +136.2%; Gold Coast $896.6 million; effective rent $3.07 rising to $3.11/sq ft).
  4. Prodigy Realty market tracking (2026) (Jersey City median rent $2,745, down ~10% year over year on two-month concessions; The Journal, 1,723 units; Netflix Fort Monmouth studio, 1,500 jobs, $387 million Aspire credit).
  5. Marcus & Millichap, 2026 Multifamily Forecast (4,000-plus Jersey City units delivering in 2026; shrinking Union, Essex, and Bergen pipeline).
  6. PwC and Urban Land Institute, Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2026 (Jersey City vacancy 2.8%, Q2 2025; +20% inventory over five years; Jersey City +7.5%, 2020–2024; Hudson waterfront office vacancy 24.6%, asking $44.51/sq ft, 42% below Manhattan).
  7. RentCafe / StorageCafe analysis of Yardi Matrix data (Jersey City 1.2 sq ft per capita against a ~7 sq ft national benchmark, November 2025, street rate ~$189–196; Newark under 1 sq ft per capita, rates +6.1%, June 2025).
  8. StorageCafe / Yardi Matrix, 2025 transaction data (Lakewood, Ocean County, $324/sq ft on ~2 sq ft per capita, Q3 2025; Clifton 1.3 sq ft per capita; SmartStop acquisition ~$246/sq ft).
  9. Cornovus Capital, Northeast Industrial Report (Q1 2026) (Northern NJ vacancy 8–9%; Meadowlands asking ~$16.01/sq ft NNN; Port Newark-Elizabeth ~$15.98; port-centric asking rents down 16%+ from peak; Class A more than 44% of leasing; ~19.5 million NYC-consolidated-metro residents).
  10. CoStar, via Commercial Property Executive (statewide NJ industrial vacancy 8.2%, November 2025, up from 5.8% a year earlier; NJ asking rent $12.06/sq ft vs. $8.87 national; ~5.6M sq ft under construction, 0.9% of stock).
  11. Wiss / CoStar (2025) (Northeast industrial rents down 3.8% in 2025 after roughly doubling 2019-to-peak; CoStar projection of a 2026 NJ vacancy peak; Trenton flagged oversupply-challenged).
  12. Newmark, North New Jersey Industrial and Office (Q1 2026) (industrial vacancy 6.3%, 3.49 MSF positive net absorption, sublease availability 10.9M sq ft; office availability 22.7%, Class A 72.3% of leasing).
  13. Avison Young, New Jersey Industrial and office-conversion reports, via Real Estate NJ (2025–Q1 2026) (39 projects / 8.7 MSF under construction; 56 projects / 10.7 MSF delivered in 2025; new deals $21–23/sq ft NNN; Meadowlands 13 leases / ~750,000 sq ft; Central Turnpike 1.7 MSF; 141 office-conversion projects removing ~22.1M sq ft, 9.6% of inventory).
  14. JLL, via New Jersey Monthly (January 2025) (northern and central NJ office vacancy averaging ~27%; Parsippany premier-vs-Class A vacancy delta of 25.8%).
  15. Cushman & Wakefield, via ROI-NJ and NJB (March 2026) (24M-plus sq ft of planned office conversions; tenant displacement equal to ~25% of current vacancy).
  16. worldcup.nyc, FIFA, and MetLife Stadium (2026) (eight 2026 FIFA World Cup matches — the most of any venue — including the Final on July 19, 2026; ~82,000 tournament capacity after 1,750 seats removed).
  17. Travel And Tour World (2026) (near-capacity hotel occupancy across Newark and Jersey City, with upward pricing pressure, during the final period).
  18. HVS, New Jersey lodging commentary (2026) (Jersey City hotels at 80% occupancy and $260 ADR in 2025; Hyatt Regency renovation, August 2025; 154-key Fairfield Inn under construction in Journal Square).
  19. NJ Division of Gaming Enforcement and Casino Control Commission, via GGB Magazine and Elite Sports NY (January 2026) (2025 land-based casino revenue $2.89 billion, +2.7%; internet-gaming win $2.91 billion, +22%; total gaming revenue $6.98 billion, +10.8%; iGaming tax raised to 19.75%).
  20. NJ Division of Gaming Enforcement, via Casino.org (May 2026) and PlayNJ (Q1 2026 casino gross operating profit down 22.9% to $104.7 million; Q4 2025 down 5.8%; Borgata ~$800.8 million GGR).
  21. Choose New Jersey life-sciences profile (2025) and Savills / CommercialSearch (2025) (~22M sq ft of lab space, projected +27%; eight of the world's top 10 pharma companies; ~40% of U.S. cell-and-gene therapies; New Brunswick HELIX district, $731 million, ~1.5M sq ft at buildout; NEST/Kenilworth former-Merck campus, 2M-plus sq ft repurposed).
  22. Colliers, via NJBIZ and BioSpace (2026), with CBRE and JLL national benchmarks (NJ lab vacancy 14.9% at year-end 2025, from 14.4%; U.S. lab vacancy 23.0% end-2025 per CBRE and 27.4% Q1 2026 per JLL; NJ #12 of 18 life-science VC markets, H2-2024 funding +38% to $122 million).
  23. New Jersey Department of Community Affairs, via NJ Spotlight and the America First Policy Institute (2025) (2025 statewide average property-tax bill $10,095, first above $10,000; effective ~2.2% statewide).
  24. ATTOM Data Solutions, 2025 property-tax analysis, via ROI-NJ (April 2026) (10 of 26 U.S. counties with $10,000-plus average bills located in NJ; Bergen $14,443; Essex $14,337; Westchester $18,386; Marin $16,745; U.S. single-family effective rate 0.9%).
  25. Defalco Realty and New Jersey municipal data (2025) (statewide effective property-tax rate ~2.2%, up to 3.27% in Camden County; municipal rates range from under 1% to over 3.5%).
  26. New Jersey Department of Health, Office of Certificate of Need and Healthcare Facility Licensure — Health Care Facilities Planning Act, N.J.S.A. 26:2H-1 et seq.; N.J.A.C. 8:33; N.J.A.C. 8:36-2.1; N.J.S.A. 26:2H-7a; P.L. 2021, c.18 (via Justia and Cornell LII, 2025).
  27. Moody's / RMS (2022) (Superstorm Sandy: 74,000 NJ NFIP claims and over $8 billion in NJ–NY payouts; NJ NFIP policy count down ~15% post-Sandy; ~12,000 policyholders dropped coverage after Risk Rating 2.0; NJ a high repetitive-loss state drawing Swift Current funds after Ida).
  28. FEMA and the Congressional Research Service, National Flood Insurance Program and Risk Rating 2.0 (fully implemented April 2023; non-primary, business, non-residential, and severe-repetitive-loss premiums escalate up to 25% per year toward full-risk rates).
  29. New Jersey Division of Taxation, via Grant Thornton and BDO (2024) (Corporate Business Tax top rate 9% plus the 2.5% Corporate Transit Fee, P.L. 2024, c.20, effective January 1, 2024 through December 31, 2028, for an 11.5% effective top rate on income over $10 million; Gross Income Tax top rate 10.75%; ANCHOR and Stay NJ relief programs active).
  30. Utility Dive, Offshore Wind, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Heatmap (2023–2026) (Ørsted Ocean Wind 1 & 2 cancelled, ~2,248 MW, $4 billion impairment, late 2023; Atlantic Shores terminated August 2025; NJ BPU–PJM State Agreement Approach terminated April 2026, ~$400 million stranded costs); Yale E360 and GovTech (2025–26) (~20% 2025 electricity-bill increases; NJ imported over 35% of its power in 2024; PJM capacity tightening).
  31. NJEDA, via Real Estate NJ (2025), and Baxtel (CoreWeave $1.8 billion, 392,600 sq ft, 250 MW at NEST/Kenilworth; $250 million Next New Jersey AI credit; ~83 NJ data centers; power the binding constraint via large-load tariff legislation).
  32. U.S. Small Business Administration — New Jersey District Office, 2 Gateway Center, Suite 1002, Newark, serving all 21 counties (SBA.gov, 2026).
  33. SBABroker.ai analysis of SBA 7(a)/504 Lender Report data, FY2025 year-to-date as of July 22, 2025 (2,340 approvals / $956.28 million / average $408,667; TD Bank first at 536 approvals / $85.22 million; Live Oak, Newtek, Ready Capital of Florham Park, and Northeast Bank following); NJBIZ (TD Bank the NJ #1 lender for multiple years; M&T #2 by loan count).
  34. USDA Rural Development, New Jersey State Office, Columbus, with business programs in Mt. Laurel (2026) (State Director Rick Stern; Business Programs Director Maryann Tancredi; active B&I, REAP, Rural Business Development Grant, and REDLG programs).
  35. SBA Policy Notice 5000-879058 (dated May 18, 2026; effective July 4, 2026), decoupling the 7(a) and 504 caps to $10 million combined ($5.5 million 504 for manufacturers and energy); NAGGL summary (2026); FY2026 manufacturing guarantee-fee waivers and 90% guarantees for NAICS 31–33; only ~6.8% of 7(a) borrowers take loans above $2 million (SBA Segment Report via NerdWallet, 2026).