Members and guests of the Northern New Jersey Mastermind Group were given the low-down on National and Local Economic & Housing Trends from guest speaker Quita Syhapanya of Metrostudy.

Nationally, third quarter 2018 GDP growth came in at 3.5%, ahead of expectations, and job growth hit 250K for October with year-over-year September stats reaching 2.5M new jobs. New home construction starts reached 7.3% year-over-year with closings up 7.1%.

In central and northern New Jersey, 1.1% more jobs topped off nine consecutive years of growth, netting 952K new jobs for the region. Seven of the 14 central and northern NJ counties saw positive year-over-year new home closing growth, with Hunterdon and Ocean counties reaching a combined 50%. Townhomes increased in volume by 51% year over year, while single family homes were up 5.4% in the region.