New Jersey has been a comparatively high-income state for a long time, filled with extremely wealthy areas unevenly distributed across the state. Even before the Atlantic City Boardwalk became the iconic scene of the Roaring ‘20s New Jersey bourgeoisie, the Jersey Shore was already increasingly a vacation spot for the wealthy. And this still stands today.
Much has changed since then, however. Parts of New Jersey that had once been centers of manufacturing, shipyards and shipping, among other industries, have since be redeveloped into upper middle-class residential units, catering to white-collar tertiary sector jobs. Meanwhile, Jersey Shore real estate went from already high prices to astronomical levels over the last two decades.
Here, we wanted to breakdown which places — specifically, which ZIP codes — are the most expensive in New Jersey. Read on to find out the most expensive ZIP codes in New Jersey in 2024.
The Most Expensive ZIP Codes in New Jersey
A great source for housing data on the ZIP code level is Zillow’s home value index. From this index, we analyzed thousands of ZIP codes across the U.S. in order to compile our list of the top 50 most expensive ZIP codes in New Jersey. Zillow’s index has complete data on 547 ZIP codes in the Garden State. As part of our analysis, we took into consideration the latest monthly home values Zillow has — September 2024 — as well as the average of 12 months of median home values from October 2023 to September 2024.
Below are the 50 most expensive ZIP codes in New Jersey.
Some very clear patterns emerge from this analysis. ZIP codes along the Jersey Shore and in northeastern New Jersey, namely the New York City spillover — dominate the top of our list. Many ZIP codes are located in parts of northeastern New Jersey that used to be deindustrialized remnants of a bygone era; now, much of this region has been gentrified, with home values soaring over, say, the last 20 years.
The Top 5 Most Expensive ZIP Codes in New Jersey
The No. 1 most expensive ZIP code in New Jersey is 07723. It covers the borough of Deal, a beautiful Jersey Shore town in Monmouth County. Deal is just north of Asbury Park, and represents just one ZIP code in a streak of expensive ZIP codes stretching south from Deal down to Seaside Park. As of September 2024, the median home value in ZIP code 07723 is $3.71 million, which is up by almost 9% year-over-year. The 12-month average is a little less at roughly $3.57 million.
When one examines some of the other financial characteristics about Deal, you get an interesting picture. Specifically, it is the very noticeable wealth inequality. For example, the median household income in Deal is $73,380, which is fine but not particularly high. The mean (average) household income, however, is more than double that: $159,280. The inequality is also revealed in the Gini index value for Deal. The Gini index measures income inequality using values ranging from zero to one, with one representing total inequality and zero representing total income equality. For the U.S. overall, the 2023 Gini index is 0.4828. But for the borough of Deal, it is 0.6152.
The No. 2 most expensive ZIP code in New Jersey — 07620 — which is deep in the northeast of New Jersey. This ZIP code lies directly across the Hudson River from Yonkers, New York. ZIP code 07620 covers a substantial portion of Alpine, a borough in Bergen County. This is an incredibly wealthy New York City suburb, with a median home value of over $3 million in September 2024, up 7.3% from September 2023’s $2.81 million. The median household income in Alpine is $228,194, while the mean household income is $352,198.
The No. 3 most expensive ZIP code is 08202, which brings us down to the South Jersey Shore. ZIP code 08202 covers Avalon, which occupies the northern half of the island that contains Stone Harbor to its south. Home values are high, but have held fairly steady year-over-year. The median home value in September 2024 was over $2.58 million, compared to a just under $2.52 million in September 2023. But like countless American housing markets, home values in 08202 skyrocketed in the years after the pandemic struck.
The Bottom Line on the Most Expensive ZIP Codes in New Jersey
There is something rather startling about the most expensive ZIP codes in New Jersey (especially for the author, who’s from South Jersey); and it’s something that conveys just how overwhelming the spillover from Manhattan has been in recent years: Out of the top 100 most expensive ZIP codes, there is not a single one in the Philadelphia metro area; no ZIP codes covering South Jersey suburbs across the Delaware River from Philly. This is startling because there are plenty of high-income, high-home value towns on the Jersey side of the Delaware, and yet the first entry in our ranking is ZIP code 08033, covering the borough of Haddonfield — at No. 129.
Commuting from North Jersey to New York City is an age-old commute. But over the last two decades, commuter cities expanded well beyond their original confines. What’s more, an increasing number of companies decided to establish offices in or relocate them to North Jersey, instead of the traditional Manhattan. These trends have fueled a surge in home values across North Jersey, including many ZIP codes that are not exactly a quick drive to the Big Apple. Along with the seemingly limitless home value appreciation going on at the Jersey Shore, these multi-decade developments have completely reshaped real estate in the Garden State.
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