Published October 12, 2026 in Market Update

Millburn/Short Hills Homes Under $1,600,000 Kept Winning at Asking

By Lena Pesso

Real estate, Default Sales 10 11

You are probably watching this market from one of two places. Either you own a home in the $1.5M to $2M range and you are wondering whether buyers are still showing up the way they were. Or you own something larger, and you have a feeling the air is a little thinner up there. I pulled every listing that sold in this market from July through September 2026, and the numbers tell a clear story about where buyer energy went and where it faded.

Below $1,600,000, nearly every seller got what they asked. Above $2,750,000, fewer than half did.

The measure I looked at is simple: what share of homes sold at or above their last asking price. That tells you where buyers were competing and where they were negotiating. Under $1,600,000, 93.3% of homes sold at or over asking. At $2,750,000 and up, that number dropped to 53.3%. Those are the same number of homes, 15 in each range, so it is not a sample size problem. It is a real split in how buyers behaved.

The $1,600,000 to $2,200,000 range stayed close to the bottom tier, with 92.9% of homes selling at or over asking. Then the market shifted. In the $2,200,000 to $2,750,000 range, that share fell to 69.2%. Cross $2,750,000 and you are in a different conversation entirely.

The whole market averaged out to 106.5% of the last asking price across 73 homes. That number sounds strong, and it is. But averages blend two very different experiences, and the blend hides the line where buyer behavior changed.

This matters differently depending on where your home sits.

If your home is priced under $1,600,000, this is good news. Nearly every seller in that range got their full price or more. The 16 homes that first asked between $1.5M and $2M closed at a middle price of $1,897,500 and averaged 110.4% of their last asking price. Not one gave up and came off the market without a sale. That is a real signal of where buyer demand is concentrated right now.

If your home is priced above $2,750,000, the picture is more honest. Just over half of those sellers got their asking price. The rest sold for less. That does not mean the market is broken at that level. It means pricing precision matters more. A home that is priced well still sold. A home that was not had to give ground.

Four-bedroom homes are worth a separate look. Their typical sale price was $1,949,944 and they averaged 115.6% of asking, the strongest ratio of any bedroom count in the data. That is not a coincidence. Four-bedroom homes in this market sit right in the range where buyer competition was highest, and the numbers show it.

Use the number that matches your situation.

If you are selling, the most important thing this data shows is that the right price range for your home changes how buyers behave toward it. A home priced to land under $1,600,000 drew near-universal offers at or above asking. A home priced above $2,750,000 faced a negotiation about half the time. That is not a reason to underprice a larger home. It is a reason to be precise. The homes that asked between $2.5M and $3M and priced correctly closed at exactly 100% of asking, with a middle sold price of $2,765,250. They did not leave money behind. They just did not have a cushion for error.

If you are buying, the market rate right now is working against you a little. The 30-year fixed mortgage averaged 7.40% as of October 8, 2026, up from 6.30% a year ago, according to Freddie Mac's weekly rate survey. That affects how far your budget stretches. In the ranges where competition is highest, under $1,600,000, you are likely bidding against other buyers. Going in at asking or below is probably not enough. In the ranges above $2,200,000, there is more room to negotiate, and the data backs that up.