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12 months to Sep 30, 2026
12 months to Sep 30, 2026
29 under contract, 2 in attorney review
In two minutes
Montclair is a six-station commuter township of roughly 9,600 residential parcels. Across the twelve months of closings from October 2025 through September 2026, the median single-family sale price was $1,524,000. Separately, the median ratio of sale price to first asking price was 123.8%. These are two different medians taken across the same set of sales, not two facts about one house.
- Where the market actually is. What the closed-sale record supports about direction, and what it does not.
- Taxes and the cost of owning. Montclair's assessments sit far below market value, which makes the headline tax rate misleading in both directions. Here is the mechanism, with the state's own certified figures.
- Schools, and how placement actually works. Montclair does not work like most New Jersey districts. It runs a magnet system built on family choice, which means a house does not come with a school attached.
Where the market is
What the closed-sale record supports about direction, and what it does not.
The headline period is 12 months of closings, October 2025 through September 2026: 247 closed single-family sales, median $1,524,000, with the middle half of sales falling between $1,150,000 and $1,999,999. Every month in that window is whole, which is why it is the headline rather than the pipeline's mid-month window.
The median ratio of sale price to first asking price was 123.8%, and 87% of sales finished strictly above it. Time was short at both ends: a median of 14 days from listing to the MLS pending date, then 40 more to the closing table.
| Measure | Nov 2025 – Sep 2026 | Nov 2024 – Sep 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Closings | 232 | 236 |
| Median sale | $1,500,500 | $1,462,500 |
| Sale ÷ first ask | 124.3% | 121.7% |
| Above first ask | 88% | 86% |
| Days to contract | 14 | 14 |
Eleven months each, the same calendar months a year apart, both entirely inside the recorded GSMLS search. This is the longest whole-calendar-month comparison the recorded search covers on both sides; other fully covered windows exist, and a rolling window that does not start on the first of a month would also work. This one was chosen so each side is a run of whole months.
On an equal-length, fully covered basis the median moved +2.6% and the number of sales changed by -4. That is a modest move, and it is eleven months against eleven months rather than a calendar year.
A change in the median is not the same as a change in what a given house is worth. The median moves when the mix of houses that happened to sell changes — more large houses in one window, more entry-level ones in the next — as well as when values move. Treat it as a description of what sold, not as an appreciation rate for your own home.
| Month | Closings | Median sale | Coverage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 2024part month | 4 | — | the recorded search covers only 2024-10-25 to 2024-10-31 of this month, so the count is an artifact of the search window |
| Nov 2024 | 20 | $1,252,000 | whole month |
| Dec 2024 | 23 | $1,350,000 | whole month |
| Jan 2025 | 13 | $1,450,000 | whole month |
| Feb 2025 | 4 | — | whole month |
| Mar 2025 | 13 | $1,177,000 | whole month |
| Apr 2025 | 17 | $1,400,000 | whole month |
| May 2025 | 33 | $1,800,000 | whole month |
| Jun 2025 | 39 | $1,570,000 | whole month |
| Jul 2025 | 39 | $1,525,000 | whole month |
| Aug 2025 | 27 | $1,550,000 | whole month |
| Sep 2025 | 8 | — | whole month |
| Oct 2025 | 15 | $1,700,000 | whole month |
| Nov 2025 | 21 | $1,651,000 | whole month |
| Dec 2025 | 17 | $1,600,000 | whole month |
| Jan 2026 | 13 | $840,000 | whole month |
| Feb 2026 | 6 | — | whole month |
| Mar 2026 | 14 | $1,487,500 | whole month |
| Apr 2026 | 17 | $1,660,000 | whole month |
| May 2026 | 27 | $1,525,000 | whole month |
| Jun 2026 | 33 | $1,700,000 | whole month |
| Jul 2026 | 36 | $1,605,375 | whole month |
| Aug 2026 | 31 | $1,425,000 | whole month |
| Sep 2026 | 17 | $1,300,000 | whole month |
| Oct 2026part month | 7 | — | the recorded search covers only 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-24 of this month, so the count is an artifact of the search window |
Each month carries its own coverage state. A month marked partial is only partly inside the recorded GSMLS search (2024-10-25 to 2026-10-24), so its count reflects the search window rather than the market and is not comparable with the whole months around it. Counts are always shown; a monthly median is suppressed below the sample floor.
An em dash means that row's own sample is below the publication floor of 10, so the median is withheld rather than published from a handful of sales. The count is always shown.
| Available | 29 | status A (active) without an attorney-review flag — immediately available |
|---|---|---|
| In attorney review | 2 | accepted offer in attorney review (GSMLS ARIP) — still formally active under GSMLS rules; reported separately, never counted as under contract or as available |
| Under contract | 29 | status UC/UCBP — attorney review concluded |
| Coming soon | 1 | status CS — pre-market, not showable; never supply |
| Months of supply | 1.420 | available ÷ (closings in the period ÷ months in the period), identical town and property-type scope on both sides |
Snapshot date: October 25, 2026
These are counts available AT THE SNAPSHOT DATE. They are not a live feed and not a list of what is for sale today.
GSMLS inventory export, single-family, pulled 2026-10-25, file essex6_inventory_2026-10-25.txt, sha256 434dce8a60fa141fa10e9dc10cf3a42c81ff84378d3f6a5a1877549a75260dd3 (recorded count 220 rows, verified). Carried from the town-market manifest (Documents/town-market/out/focus8/montclair/montclair-2025-10-25_2026-10-24-sf.json); not recomputed here because the inventory export covers several towns and is a different file from the closed-sale export.
Those supply counts are a single dated snapshot, not a feed. They describe October 25, 2026 and nothing since. The months-of-supply figure is carried as published: it divides that day's 29 available listings by a pace of 245 closings over October 25, 2025 to October 24, 2026 — a few days different at each end from this guide's headline period of 247 closings over October 2025 to September 2026. The two are close but they are not the same window, and the ratio has not been recomputed against a period its source did not use.
What your budget buys
| Price band | Closings | Median | Days to contract | Sale vsfirst ask | Abovefirst ask |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under $1.0M | $845K | 20 | 112.1% | 82% | |
| $1.0M – $1.5M | $1.30M | 14 | 129.9% | 93% | |
| $1.5M – $2.0M | $1.72M | 12 | 133.4% | 93% | |
| $2.0M and up | $2.40M | 14 | 116.7% | 79% |
Closed sales, grouped by what the buyer actually paid. Bands are cut on sale price, not asking price, so each row answers "what did this budget get" rather than "what was advertised".
| Price paid | Sales | Share | Median sale | Median beds | Median built | Sale ÷ first ask | Above first ask | Days to contract |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under $1.0M | 49 | 19.8% | $845,000 | 3 | 1922 | 112.1% | 82% | 20 |
| $1.0M – $1.5M | 67 | 27.1% | $1,300,000 | 4 | 1923 | 129.9% | 93% | 14 |
| $1.5M – $2.0M | 73 | 29.5% | $1,720,000 | 5 | 1922 | 133.4% | 93% | 12 |
| $2.0M and up | 58 | 23.5% | $2,400,000 | 6 | 1916 | 116.7% | 79% | 14 |
Reporting period: October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2026
Basis: closed sale price.
Read the last three columns together and the bands stop looking alike. Under $1.0M the median sale-to-first-ask ratio was 112.1% and the median time to contract 20 days. Between $1.5M and $2.0M the median ratio was 133.4% in 12 days, with 93% of that band closing above the first ask.
Above $2.0M the pattern loosens again: 116.7% of first ask and 79% above it. The gap between the first asking price and the closing price is therefore narrower in this band than in the middle of the market. The record shows the narrower gap; it does not show why, and pricing intent is not something a closings file records.
What this means in practice: the band you are shopping decides how much of a gap to plan for, and the $1.0M-$2.0M middle is where the gap is widest. It does not mean every house follows the band. A median is the middle of a distribution, not a rule.
| Bedrooms | Sales | Share | Median sale | Days to contract |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 bedrooms or fewer | 46 | 18.7% | $955,000 | 17 |
| 4 bedrooms | 70 | 28.5% | $1,437,500 | 14 |
| 5 bedrooms | 70 | 28.5% | $1,702,500 | 13 |
| 6 bedrooms or more | 60 | 24.4% | $2,125,000 | 14 |
Reporting period: October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2026
Basis: bedroom count as reported on the closed listing.
1 closed sale(s) did not report this field and are excluded from the shares above.
The closed-sale sample includes many large homes: houses with five or more bedrooms were 53% of closed sales in the period, which is why a town-wide median says less here than a median inside the size and band you are actually shopping.
| Style | Sales | Share | Median sale | Median built |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Colonial | 161 | 65.2% | $1,525,000 | 1922 |
| Victorian | 30 | 12.2% | $1,645,250 | 1897 |
| Tudor | 11 | 4.5% | $2,150,000 | 1925 |
| All other recorded styles | 45 | 18.2% | $1,340,000 | 1955 |
Reporting period: October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2026
Basis: primary style as recorded on the closed listing.
Categories with fewer than 10 sales are combined into one row rather than shown as a median of a handful of sales.
Living and owning here
Montclair does not work like most New Jersey districts. It runs a magnet system built on family choice, which means a house does not come with a school attached.
Montclair Public Schools has operated a choice-based magnet system since 1977, adopted as a voluntary desegregation plan. The district states two goals for it: maintaining racial balance across its schools, and giving families a choice of school theme. Families apply through the district rather than being assigned by street address.
For a buyer, that is the thing to understand before choosing a street: unlike a town with fixed attendance zones, buying on a particular block does not secure a particular elementary or middle school. Placement depends on the application, available seats and the district's balance rules. Montclair High School is the exception — it is the township's only public high school, so it is not a school of choice.
The elementary magnet themes
The district's magnet elementary schools are organized around themes, which is what families choose between: science and technology, university studies, environmental studies, the arts, and global studies. Which school carries which theme, and which have seats in a given grade, should be confirmed with the district for the year you are enrolling.
verified fact — theme list; this guide does not map themes to schoolschecked November 11, 2026 Montclair Public Schools, magnet system FAQ (theme list)
The seven elementary schools
- Bradford https://bradford.montclairps.org/
- Charles H. Bullock https://chb.montclairps.org/
- Edgemont Montessori https://edgemont.montclairps.org/
- Hillside https://hillside.montclairps.org/
- Nishuane https://nishuane.montclairps.org/
- Northeast https://northeast.montclairps.org/
- Watchung https://watchung.montclairps.org/
Those are the seven elementary schools the district currently lists, checked November 11, 2026. Grade spans and which theme each one carries should come from the school's own page or the district office rather than from this guide — and remember that a nearby school is not an assigned school here.
One dated performance snapshot
Spring 2025 NJSLA mathematics, share of students meeting or exceeding expectations — grade 3: district 73.0% against the state's 49.7%; grade 4: district 66.4% against 46.7%; grade 5: district 64.6% against 44.2%.
official district record — Spring 2025 testing, published February 2026checked November 11, 2026 Montclair Public Schools, Board of Education workshop packet of February 9, 2026, slide "Spring 2025 Math NJSLA Data Recap"
Read those three rows for exactly what they are. They are district-wide mathematics results for three grades from Spring 2025 testing, presented in a February 2026 board packet. The slide does not give the number of students tested or the participation rate, so those denominators are not known from this source. They are not an individual school's results, not a ranking, not the 2026 assessment, and not a prediction for any particular child.
limitationchecked November 11, 2026 Limitations of the cited slide, as published
For results by individual school, by subject and by grade, including participation and subgroup detail, use the state's own School Performance Reports rather than a summary slide.
where to go nextchecked November 11, 2026 NJ Department of Education, School Performance Reports
District structure, as currently published
The district's current school navigation lists Buzz Aldrin and Glenfield as its middle schools, plus Montclair Early Learning Academy for early grades.
verified factchecked November 11, 2026 Montclair Public Schools, district site school list
Montclair High School is the township's only public high school, and for that reason is not a school of choice.
verified factchecked November 11, 2026 Montclair Public Schools, magnet system FAQ
Montclair Early Learning Academy operates as its own school with its own site and calendar; its published calendar shows a back-to-school night on September 10, 2026.
verified factchecked November 11, 2026 Montclair Early Learning Academy
A transfer between schools after placement runs through a separate Freedom of Choice Application. The district's magnet FAQ describes filing it with the Central Office by May 1, and says transfers are granted only where space exists and balance can be maintained. That FAQ page carries no date, so treat the deadline as the shape of the process rather than as this year's calendar — confirm the applicable year's transfer window with the district.
process, from an undated page — confirm the current windowchecked November 11, 2026 Montclair Public Schools, magnet system FAQ (undated page)
Verifying enrollment for a specific address and child
The district's registration page sets out the process. These are the steps it describes, in order.
- Complete the district's online registration application.
- Prepare the documents the district requires: proof of the child's age, proof of residency, and the required medical records.
- Expect a follow-up phone appointment with the district as part of registration.
- Ask the district directly which school the child would attend for the specific grade and the specific school year. Do not infer it from a feeder chart, a nearby school, or a listing's description.
- If a particular school matters to the decision, ask the district about current seat availability in that grade before the house decision is final, and ask how the Freedom of Choice transfer process would apply.
The district's 2026-27 tour and registration link resolves to a downloadable document rather than a web page, and its contents are not verified here.
Six stations inside the township, a rail trip that currently ends in Hoboken, and a bus that runs straight to Port Authority.
The stations
Six Montclair-Boonton Line stations sit inside Montclair Township, in timetable order toward Hoboken: Montclair Heights, Mountain Avenue, Upper Montclair, Watchung Avenue, Walnut Street and Bay Street. Montclair State University station is the next stop up the line and carries the university's name, but it is in Little Falls — a useful nearby option, not a township station. In the other direction, Glen Ridge and Bloomfield are in their own municipalities.
verified fact — the timetable establishes the stop order, the municipal sources establish which town each stop is inchecked November 11, 2026 Township of Montclair, Getting to Montclair by Train or Bus; NJ Transit station page for Montclair State University
Which station a house is near changes the ride length materially. On the timetable effective November 15, train 6206 is scheduled to leave Upper Montclair at 6:47 a.m. and Bay Street at 6:57 a.m., reaching New York Penn Station at 7:32 a.m. — a scheduled 45 minutes from Upper Montclair and 35 from Bay Street on that train.
verified fact — one train, not a rangechecked November 11, 2026 Montclair-Boonton weekday timetable effective November 15, 2026, train 6206; cells independently verified against the rendered timetable page
Later peak trains run longer. On the same timetable, train 6210 leaves Upper Montclair at 7:25 a.m. and Bay Street at 7:35 a.m., reaching New York Penn Station at 8:18 a.m. — a scheduled 53 minutes from Upper Montclair and 43 from Bay Street.
verified fact — one train, not a rangechecked November 11, 2026 Montclair-Boonton weekday timetable effective November 15, 2026, train 6210; cells independently verified against the rendered timetable page
Under the temporary cutover schedule the trip is a transfer, not a direct ride. Train 6206 on the 10/11–11/14 timetable leaves Bay Street at 7:09 a.m. and reaches Hoboken at 7:41 a.m.; the timetable's connecting PATH service departs 7:48 a.m. and reaches 33rd Street at 8:03 a.m. — 54 scheduled minutes from Bay Street to 33rd Street, including the transfer.
verified fact — one train, not a rangechecked November 11, 2026 Montclair-Boonton weekday timetable effective 10/11/26 to 11/14/26, train 6206 with the timetable's PATH connection; cells independently verified against the rendered timetable page
The bus, and the backup
NJ Transit's own alternate-service plan for the Montclair-Boonton Line names bus route 101 from Montclair to Port Authority Bus Terminal. That makes 101 the practical backup when rail service is disrupted, and a direct option to Midtown that does not involve a transfer at Hoboken.
verified factchecked November 11, 2026 NJ Transit, Montclair-Boonton Line alternate service plan
Route 101 runs weekdays only — the timetable states no Saturday or Sunday service. Its Montclair stops include Park Street at Bloomfield Avenue and, at Upper Montclair railroad station, Bellevue Plaza on Bellevue Avenue, so for parts of the township the bus stop is closer than the train station. As one scheduled example, a 6:42 a.m. departure from Upper Montclair is timetabled into Port Authority at 7:27 a.m. — 45 scheduled minutes, not a measured or door-to-door time.
verified fact — issue date read from the timetable itselfchecked November 11, 2026 NJ Transit, route 101 timetable and map, issue marked T0101 - 7/26
Weekends are a different railroad
On weekends, regular Montclair-Boonton service stops at Bay Street only within Montclair. The five other township stations are not served by the regular weekend trains, so a weekend trip from Upper Montclair or Watchung Avenue means getting to Bay Street first. This is the single most useful weekend fact for choosing a street.
verified factchecked November 11, 2026 NJ Transit, Montclair-Boonton weekend timetables (10/11–11/14 and effective November 15, 2026)
Weekend trains run to Hoboken. New York Penn Station is reached by changing at Newark Broad Street, not by a direct train. On the current weekend timetable a Bay Street 8:31 a.m. departure reaches Newark Broad Street at 8:44, where the connecting train leaves at 8:50 and arrives Penn at 9:13. On the timetable effective November 15 the same pattern holds — for example Bay Street 7:00 to Broad Street 7:13, connecting 7:16 and arriving Penn 7:39.
verified fact — scheduled connections, not door-to-door or reliabilitychecked November 11, 2026 NJ Transit, Montclair-Boonton weekend timetables, current and effective November 15, 2026
One reading trap on the timetable effective November 15: the columns printed in brown are extra holiday service for November 27, 2026, January 18, 2027 and February 15, 2027 only, and those do include the upper Montclair stations. They are not normal weekend service and should not be read as such.
verified factchecked November 11, 2026 NJ Transit, Montclair-Boonton weekend timetable effective November 15, 2026
Checking a commute properly
What to do rather than trusting a town-level average.
- Name the actual Manhattan destination and the arrival time that matters, then read the timetable backwards from it.
- Check the timetable that will be in effect when the move happens, not the one in effect today — on this edition's date those are two different documents.
- Check the return trip as well as the morning. Evening frequency and the last usable train often decide whether a commute is livable.
- Check weekend and off-peak service separately, on the weekend timetable rather than the weekday one — and remember that regular weekend trains serve Bay Street only.
- Walk or drive from the specific house to the specific station at the specific hour. Station access, parking availability and the local street pattern vary block by block.
- Have a backup in mind: bus 101 to Port Authority, a different Montclair station, the PATH route via Hoboken, or driving to a Morris & Essex Line station. A single-point commute is fragile.
Station parking and permits
Montclair's Mayor and Council adopted parking ordinance changes published May 28, 2026, with meter changes effective July 6, 2026 and permit changes starting with July billing. The Bay Street 24-hour monthly permit rose from $100 to $125; surface commuter permits from $60 to $70; noncommuter permits from $50 to $60. An early-bird daily rate of $8 applies with entry and exit time restrictions.
verified fact — municipal source, datedchecked November 11, 2026 Township of Montclair, Parking Update: Ordinances Adopted by Mayor & Council
NJ Transit's own station pages appear to carry older Montclair parking prices than the township's adopted ordinance. Where the two disagree, the township's dated update is the better source for a fee.
observationchecked November 11, 2026 Comparison of the township parking update against NJ Transit station pages
A published permit price is not evidence that a permit is obtainable. Availability, waiting lists and eligibility are separate questions for the Township Parking Utility, and they should be asked before a commute plan depends on parking at a particular station.
caveatchecked November 11, 2026 Township of Montclair, Parking Utility
Montclair's assessments sit far below market value, which makes the headline tax rate misleading in both directions. Here is the mechanism, with the state's own certified figures.
A New Jersey tax bill is the assessed value multiplied by the general tax rate. In Montclair the assessed value is well below market value, and that is the source of most of the confusion buyers arrive with.
In the Table of Equalized Valuations published October 1, 2026, the Director of the Division of Taxation put Montclair's average ratio of assessed to true value at 52.38% — assessments across the township average a little over half of market value. That is why a general rate that looks high is not the whole story: for 2025 Montclair's general rate was $3.516 per $100 of assessed value while the state-calculated effective rate, which expresses the burden against true market value, was 2.160%.
Those two figures come from different tables and different years, so they do not multiply together into one year's bill. Read the ratio as a statement about the assessment base and the effective rate as a town-to-town comparison.
The certified figures
Average ratio of assessed to true value, 52.38%. Aggregate assessed valuation $7,217,719,800; aggregate true value $13,779,533,792. Published October 1, 2026.
official recordchecked November 11, 2026 NJ Division of Taxation, Table of Equalized Valuations 2026 (Prior to Tax Court Appeals), Essex County, district 0713 Montclair Twp, page 9
2025 general tax rate: $3.516 per $100 of assessed value. 2025 effective tax rate: 2.160% of true value. These are the 2025 figures; we did not locate and verify a 2026 certified general rate for this edition, which is a limit on our checking rather than evidence that none exists.
official record — 2025 rate yearchecked November 11, 2026 NJ Division of Taxation, 2025 General Tax Rates, Essex County, page 8
2026 average residential statistics for Montclair Township: 9,607 residential line items, average assessed value $641,707, 278 recorded sales, average sale price $1,353,109.54. The table's average tax bill column is blank for Montclair, so that figure is unknown from this source. Note too that this counts all residential line items and sales, which is a different and wider cohort than the single-family closed sales analyzed earlier in this guide.
official recordchecked November 11, 2026 NJ Division of Taxation, 2026 Average Residential Statistics, page 5
Chapter 123, applicable to tax appeals for tax year 2027: Montclair's average ratio is 52.38% and the common level range runs from 44.52% to 60.24%. The table's own header states the 2027 appeal year — these are not the 2026 appeal-year limits, and the range describes the township, not any individual property's eligibility.
official record — 2027 appeal yearchecked November 11, 2026 NJ Division of Taxation, Chapter 123 Laws of 1973, Average Ratios and Common Level Ranges applicable to tax appeals for tax year 2027, page 9
| Tax year | Sales | Median assessment | Median tax recorded | Median rate /$100 | Assessment ÷ sale | Tax ÷ sale |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 97 | $665,100 | $22,633 | 3.403 | 45.3% | 1.54% |
| 2025 | 150 | $701,300 | $24,658 | 3.516 | 46.3% | 1.63% |
Reporting period: October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2026
Basis: assessment, tax amount and tax rate as recorded on each closed listing, grouped by that listing's own reported tax year.
Each row describes its own tax year only. These are not a forecast of any individual bill and not an official ratio.
Those are figures from the listings themselves, and they are a different kind of thing from the certified records above. Each closed listing carries the assessment and tax amount in force for its own tax year, so the rows are grouped by year rather than blended into one number that would belong to no year at all.
The assessment-to-sale column is a statistic about this sample of homes that actually sold — not the state's official ratio, and not the Chapter 123 figure that decides appeal eligibility. Recently sold houses sold above their assessments more than the township average did, which is exactly why the sample's ratio sits below the certified 52.38%. Use the certified figure for anything to do with an appeal.
The scheduled revaluation, and the 2026 budget
Montclair has a town-wide revaluation scheduled: municipal material describes the work being completed in 2027, with the new values effective for tax year 2028. This is a scheduled municipal program applying across the township — not a consequence of any individual sale, and not a prediction of what any one bill will become.
verified fact — scheduled, dates subject to municipal actionchecked November 11, 2026 Township of Montclair, Tax and Property Assessment Q&A; 2026 budget and finance presentation
For 2026 the township published the components of the change for its stated average home, assessed at $641,700: Township +$160.42, Essex County −$25.67, Montclair Public Schools annual budget +$847.04, and a voter-approved school referendum +$558.27 split between the third- and fourth-quarter bills, with a comparable referendum amount billed again in 2027.
official record — applies to the township's stated average home, not to any specific propertychecked November 11, 2026 Township of Montclair, 2026 Property Tax Bill Information
The 2026 levy is divided as follows: Montclair Public Schools 54.25%, Township 23.72%, Essex County 14.53%, Type I School District 2.90%, School Referendum 2.32%, Library 1.57%, County Open Space 0.71%.
official recordchecked November 11, 2026 Township of Montclair, 2026 Property Tax Bill Information
The township's Finance Committee announced a public meeting on budget and taxes for November 12, 2026 — the day after this edition was written. No outcome from it is reflected here.
known gapchecked November 11, 2026 Township of Montclair, Finance Committee to Host Public Meeting on Budget and Taxes
How the arithmetic works — a historical illustration
This shows the mechanism using the most recent rate we verified. It is an illustration of how a bill is computed, not a forward budget: it applies a 2025 rate, and the township's own published 2026 components increased the average bill, so this understates a 2026 figure.
Assumptions
- A house assessed at Montclair's 2026 average residential assessment of $641,707 (NJ Division of Taxation, 2026 Average Residential Statistics).
- The 2025 certified general tax rate of $3.516 per $100 of assessed value — the most recent rate we verified for this edition (NJ Division of Taxation, 2025 General Tax Rates).
- No change in assessment, no appeal, no exemption, deduction or abatement, and no added assessment.
| Assessed value (2026 township average) | $641,707 |
|---|---|
| General tax rate applied (2025) | $3.516 per $100 |
| Annual tax at those two figures | $22,562 |
| Monthly equivalent | $1,880 |
What this is not
- This describes a hypothetical house at the township average. An individual property's assessment is almost never the average, and the only figure that matters is the one on that parcel's record.
- It pairs a 2026 assessment with a 2025 rate, which is a mismatch of years. Treat it as a worked example of the formula, not as a bill and not as a 2026 estimate.
- Because the township's published 2026 changes added to the average bill, applying the 2025 rate produces a low number rather than a cautious one. For budgeting, use the specific property's current assessment and the current rate from the township.
- The scheduled revaluation is expected to change assessed values effective for 2028. A revaluation redistributes the levy; it does not mechanically raise every bill, and its effect on a specific parcel is not knowable in advance.
Official lookups for a specific property
- Township of Montclair — Finance and Taxes, Tax and Property Assessment Q&A https://www.montclairnjusa.org/Government/Departments/Finance-and-Taxes/Tax-and-Property-Assessment-QA
- Township of Montclair — 2026 Property Tax Bill Information https://www.montclairnjusa.org/News-articles/2026-Property-Tax-Bill-Information
- NJ Division of Taxation — Local Property Tax statistical tables https://www.nj.gov/treasury/taxation/lpt/statdata.shtml
- NJ Division of Taxation — Chapter 123 definitions and equations (how an appeal ratio is applied) https://www.nj.gov/treasury/taxation/pdf/lpt/chap123/ch123definitions.pdf
- NJ Division of Taxation — Table of Equalized Valuations 2026 https://www.nj.gov/treasury/taxation/pdf/lptval/2026/2026TEV.pdf
Beyond the tax bill
Montclair's housing stock has a median year built of 1922 among the homes that sold in the period, and the ownership costs that follow from that age are not optional. Slate and tile roofs, original windows, knob-and-tube or early wiring, galvanised or lead supply lines, oil tanks, plaster, asbestos-containing materials, and stone foundations all appear in houses of this vintage, and each has a maintenance and insurance consequence.
Budget for them as a program rather than a surprise: a roof and a heating system have known service lives, and a hundred-year-old house will present one of them sooner or later. The diligence section below lists where to establish what a specific house actually has.
What this town's houses are, and the specific records to pull before committing to one of them.
Among the single-family homes that sold in the period, Colonials were 65% of sales with a median year built of 1922, and Victorians were 12% with a median year built of 1897. Those are the style labels listing agents recorded on the homes that sold — they describe the sales sample, not an inventory of every house in the township.
What the sample does establish is that a typical Montclair single-family transaction involves a house built well before modern codes. That is what the checks below are built around. Whether a particular house sits in a designated historic district, has open permits, or has an older oil tank are all parcel-level questions — this guide cannot tell you how common any of them is, and the records that answer them for a specific address are listed next.
Records to pull for a specific property
In rough order of how often they change a decision.
- The property's own assessment record and tax history from the township, including any pending added assessment. This is the only assessment figure that matters for the house in question.
- The permit history from the Montclair building department. Open permits, missing certificates of approval, and additions that do not appear in the record become the buyer's problem, and this is where they surface.
- Whether the property sits in a designated historic district or is an individually designated landmark, and what that means for windows, siding, roofing and any exterior alteration. A restriction on replacement materials is a real cost and a real timeline, and the township publishes a historic inventory and zoning maps through its online services.
- Flood zone for the specific parcel, from FEMA's official map service. The FEMA map is one input rather than the whole answer: a parcel outside a mapped high-risk zone can still flood, and local drainage, stream proximity and basement history are worth asking about separately. The insurance consequence follows the designation.
- Environmental history: any record of an underground storage tank, a prior oil-to-gas conversion, or a known contaminated site nearby. In houses of this age a buried tank is worth asking about specifically, and remediation is not a small cost.
- Insurance availability and pricing for the actual house before the inspection period ends — roof age, electrical type, plumbing material and prior claims all drive it, and in older stock a policy can be declined or surcharged on any one of them.
- A full inspection scoped to the age of the house: structure and foundation, roof, electrical service and branch wiring, heating and its fuel source, supply and waste plumbing, drainage and grading, and a sewer lateral scope. On a hundred-year-old house the lateral is worth the extra appointment.
Where those records come from
- Township of Montclair — Government departments (building, planning, historic preservation, parking, finance) https://www.montclairnjusa.org/Government/Departments
- Township of Montclair — Tax and Property Assessment Q&A https://www.montclairnjusa.org/Government/Departments/Finance-and-Taxes/Tax-and-Property-Assessment-QA
- FEMA Flood Map Service Center — official flood zone for a specific address https://msc.fema.gov/portal/home
- NJ Department of Environmental Protection — DataMiner (site and contamination records) https://www13.state.nj.us/DataMiner
- NJ Division of Taxation — Local Property Tax https://www.nj.gov/treasury/taxation/lpt/localtax.shtml
Where things actually are, and where to look for the hours. Addresses and locations are stable; hours and seasons are not, so those stay as links.
The six commercial districts
Montclair has six business and shopping districts rather than one downtown, which is why "how far to the shops" depends entirely on which part of the township a house is in. Montclair Center is the central business district and holds the parking decks and lots. Upper Montclair sits at Valley Road and Bellevue Avenue. Watchung Plaza is beside Watchung Avenue station. Frog Hollow is on Valley Road near Edgemont Park. Walnut-Grove runs along Walnut Street and extends to Grove Street. The South End has its shops and the Martin Luther King Jr. Peace Garden. Walk the ones nearest a house you are considering, at the hour you would actually use them.
verified fact — districts and locations; individual businesses and hours changechecked November 11, 2026 Township of Montclair, Business and Shopping Districts
Libraries
The Montclair Public Library main building is at 50 South Fullerton Avenue, and the Bellevue Avenue branch is at 185 Bellevue Avenue — the latter in Upper Montclair, close to the Bellevue Plaza bus stop and Upper Montclair station.
verified fact — addresses; check the library for current hourschecked November 11, 2026 Township of Montclair (cooling-center notice listing both library addresses); Library Link NJ directory
Parks and recreation
Anderson Park, at Bellevue Avenue and North Mountain Avenue, is an Essex County park — open meadow with paved paths, beside Upper Montclair station.
verified factchecked November 11, 2026 Essex County Parks, Anderson Park
Edgemont Memorial Park on Valley Road has a pond, a playground and walking paths. Essex Park, at Chestnut Street and Essex Avenue, has an indoor arena, a pool and a playground. Both are township facilities.
verified fact — facilities; access, seasons and registration varychecked November 11, 2026 Township of Montclair, Parks and Park Facilities
Pool membership, field permits and program registration run through Recreation and Cultural Affairs and have their own seasons and deadlines. Confirm what is open to a new resident, and when registration happens, before counting on any of it.
check before relying on itchecked November 11, 2026 Township of Montclair, Recreation and Cultural Affairs
The first week after moving
Nearly all of this runs through the township's online services page, which is the single most useful bookmark for a new Montclair resident.
- Set up Recycle Coach for refuse and recycling pickup days at your address, including holiday delays.
- Look up the property portal entry for your parcel — assessment, tax history and the record the township holds on the house.
- Set up payment for taxes, water and sewer.
- If you will park at a station or in a center, start the parking permit question with the Parking Utility early; a published price is not evidence a permit is available.
- Register for recreation programs or pool membership in the relevant season.
- Check the historic inventory and zoning maps if you are planning any exterior work.
- Use the township's issue reporting for streetlights, potholes, trees and similar.
Township of Montclair, Online Services
The pages worth bookmarking
- Township of Montclair — Online Services (Recycle Coach, property portal, payments, permits, reporting) https://www.montclairnjusa.org/Online-Services
- Business and shopping districts https://www.montclairnjusa.org/Visitors/About-Montclair/Business-and-Shopping-Districts
- Parks and park facilities https://www.montclairnjusa.org/Government/Departments/Recreation-Cultural-Affairs/Parks-and-Park-Facilities
- Montclair Public Library (current hours and branches) https://www.montclairlibrary.org/
- Parking Utility — permits, meters, decks and lots https://www.montclairnjusa.org/Government/Departments/Parking-Utility
- Getting to Montclair by train or bus https://www.montclairnjusa.org/Visitors/Getting-to-Montclair/By-Train-or-Bus
- All township departments https://www.montclairnjusa.org/Government/Departments
Apply it to your move
If your move involves selling one home and buying another, it is two transactions bolted together. That is the part that goes wrong, and the part worth a personal review.
The arithmetic that matters is not the sale price of the current house or the asking price of the next one. It is the proceeds from the sale, the purchase budget those proceeds support, and whether the two can be made to happen in an order a lender and two sellers will accept.
Montclair's own closed-sale record sharpens the problem. With a median sale-to-first-ask ratio of 123.8% and a median 14 days to contract, the sequence deserves attention before either transaction starts. These figures do not establish whether an offer with a home-sale contingency will be accepted. That depends on the specific property, competing offers and seller. A seller also needs a plan for where to move if the home goes under contract quickly.
The decision checklist
Work through these in order. Each one is a number or a decision, not a feeling.
Proceeds from the sale
- A defensible price range for the current house, from closed comparable sales rather than an automated estimate or a neighbour's asking price.
- Mortgage payoff, including any second lien or line of credit.
- Transaction costs: brokerage, NJ realty transfer fee, attorney, and the seller-side items that appear at closing.
- Anything required to get the house to market — repairs, clearing, staging — and whether it earns back more than it costs.
- The resulting net proceeds figure, and how much of it is genuinely available as a down payment rather than needed elsewhere.
Purchase budget
- A written lender pre-approval, with the rate and product assumptions it is based on stated.
- The payment quoted at an expected sale price, not at a list price — in this market those are frequently different numbers.
- Taxes estimated from the specific target property's current assessment and the current rate, with the scheduled revaluation noted as a planning factor rather than a forecast.
- Insurance quoted for the actual house, which in pre-war stock can move the monthly figure meaningfully.
- A monthly maintenance reserve appropriate to a house of this age, not a token figure.
Sequence and risk
- Which happens first: sell then buy, buy then sell, or simultaneous — and what each one costs in money and in risk.
- If buying first: how the purchase is financed before the sale closes, and what happens if the sale takes longer than expected.
- If selling first: where you live in the gap, and whether a rent-back or an extended closing is realistic with the specific buyer.
- Which contingencies are actually available to you given how competitive your band is, and which ones would make the offer uncompetitive.
- The attorney review period and inspection timeline on both transactions, and where they collide.
- A written fallback for the case where one of the two transactions fails.
What needs a person rather than a worksheet
- A price range for your actual house, which needs the house seen and the comparable sales chosen deliberately.
- Whether to list before buying, given your band, your financing and your tolerance for moving twice.
- How to structure an offer that competes in a band where most sales close above the first asking price, without waiving protection you need.
- Whether a specific target property's taxes, condition or historic-district status changes the budget.
- The order of operations, with dates, for two transactions that have to work together.
That is the conversation this guide is meant to make shorter. Bring the numbers you were able to fill in and the ones you could not.
There is no overall Montclair score here — a composite number hides the trade-off it claims to resolve. State your own priorities instead, and read the underlying facts against them.
Fill in the middle column. The right column is what this guide can tell you, and where it cannot, it says so.
| Factor | Your priority | What this guide establishes |
|---|---|---|
| Budget | The price you can actually pay, from a written pre-approval | Closed-sale bands with sales counts, median sale, days to contract and the gap to first ask, in the first section. Price per square foot is not available. |
| Commute | Your Manhattan destination and the arrival time that matters | Six township stations, with verified scheduled station-to-terminal examples on both the temporary and the November 15 timetables. Door-to-door time and reliability are not established here. |
| Housing type | Size, age and condition you are willing to take on | Bedroom and style mix with medians, and a median year built, from the closed-sale record. Condition is property-specific. |
| Schools | What you need from a school, and for which grades | District structure and the choice-based placement process, plus district-wide Spring 2025 mathematics results for grades 3 to 5. Tested-student counts and participation rates are unknown from the cited slide. No composite quality score. Placement for a specific grade and year must come from the district. gap |
| Taxes and carrying cost | The monthly figure you can sustain, not just the purchase price | Certified ratio, general and effective rates, the township's published 2026 components, and a historical illustration using the verified 2025 rate. The illustration is not a forecast or a 2026 budget. A specific parcel's bill comes from its own record. |
| Property risk | How much diligence and deferred maintenance you can absorb | The records to pull are listed. Whether any specific house has them is not knowable from this guide. gap |
| Everyday logistics | What you need within walking distance | Official township and library sources. Deliberately not a list of venues and hours, which would be stale on arrival. gap |
Where the right column says something is not established, that is the honest state of the evidence rather than an omission. Those are the questions worth asking a person.
Apply this to your own address
Considering Montclair? Tell us the decision.
We will bring the numbers — which band your budget lands in, what it bought this year, the tax bill on the specific house, and the commute from that driveway. No pressure, just a clear answer.
hello@thedesilvateam.com · 973-542-9302
The DeSilva Team · eXp Realty
28 Valley Rd Ste 1, Montclair, NJ 07042
Start with the question you actually have
GSMLS notice. NOTE: This representation is based in whole or in part on data supplied by the Garden State Multiple Listing Service, L.L.C. ("GSMLS"). GSMLS does not guarantee nor is in any way responsible for its accuracy. Data maintained by GSMLS may not reflect all real estate activity in the market.
Evidence. GSMLS closed single-family export, Montclair Township, closings 2024-10-25 through 2026-10-24, pulled 2026-10-25. Inventory is a snapshot taken October 25, 2026; a listing under an accepted offer in attorney review is counted as pending, not as available supply. Every figure carries its own source and date where it appears. Market figures come from a GSMLS closed-sale export; tax figures from the NJ Division of Taxation's certified tables; transit figures from NJ Transit timetables; school and municipal facts from the district's and township's own pages. Where two official sources disagree, this guide says so rather than choosing silently.
Not an appraisal. Medians describe a group of sales, never one house. Where we interpret the record we say so, and an association in one year of closings is not a proof. Property tax: the effective rate lines towns up; it does not compute any one house’s bill, a sale does not by itself trigger a reassessment, and no future bill is projected here. © 2026 The DeSilva Team · eXp Realty, LLC. Each office independently owned and operated.
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