Hoboken has reached a new benchmark: the sale of a house for $6.5 million. 

The 1854 limestone house at 504 Hudson St. shattered the record price for a home sold in the city, which was $4.35 million. That earlier sale was in 2015 for a Queen Anne style house with a turret a few blocks away. 

The latest sale showed that Hoboken prices, buoyed by a tide of gentrification, were beginning to catch up with many New York City neighborhoods, especially areas with a much longer commute times to Manhattan, said Peter Cossio, a broker with Halstead Property. 

“Historically, Hoboken has been undervalued considering the commute,” he said. Mr. Cossio listed the house along with Matt Brown, and they also represented the buyer.
The sale followed years of rising prices in the so-called Gold Coast of New Jersey, places like Hoboken and Jersey City that are closely linked to New York’s economy. 

Jeffrey G. Otteau, an appraiser and analyst, said the sale showed that affluent buyers were increasingly turning to these areas as part of a backlash to high condominium prices in Manhattan. “New York City has now annexed Hoboken and Jersey City,” he said.

 Wow: tides of gentrification, annexes of New York City, floods of affluent buyers. Wish I could afford to  live in Hoboken or Jersey City.

Oh, wait: Hoboken and Jersey City are Abbott districts, designated by the State Supreme Court (twenty years ago) as so economically-disadvantaged that children are eligible for free full-day preschools and wrap-around services. Hoboken’s annual cost per pupil is projected to be $23,250 next year and the State will send a check for $12,131,312 to cover the costs of free full-day preschool for all children, regardless of family income.

Yet N.J. maintains its support of these “Gold Coast” school districts because Education Law Center, which originally litigated the Abbott v. Burke cases, remains steadfast in its support for obsolete school funding formulas and the Legislature has only just now begun to consider whether current state school aid allocations are overly generous to some districts while depriving others that are far more needy.

For more on this, see Jeff Bennett at New Jersey Education Aid. A snippet:

According to Hoboken’s User Friendly Budget, there are 615 Hoboken kids in privately-run Abbott Pre-K… The sheer size of Hoboken’s Pre-K grades is telling.  By Hoboken Jr/Sr High School the grades have only a few more than 100 kids each.  On the Pre-K level the grades have more than 300 kids each.  It’s very plausible that many Hoboken families just move to the suburbs after they take advantage of Abbott Pre-K.