Summit’s most competitive price point is not its entry level. It is $1,750,000. Homes at that price sold for 113% of asking in an average of thirteen days, the fastest and most bid-up segment in town. Across all 210 residential sales in the twelve months through July 2026, the median was $1,608,000 at 108% of list. Ryan Horvath has lived in Summit since 2015, coaches youth football and baseball here, and works the market as a Prominent Properties Sotheby’s International Realty agent and former licensed New Jersey general contractor.
Data sourced from the Garden State MLS (GSMLS), August 2025 through July 2026.
The town-wide figures are accurate, but Summit does not behave the same way at every price. Broken out, the market has a clear centre of gravity:
| Typical price | Sales | Avg days | Sale-to-list | Size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $390,000 | 5 | 21 | 108% | 1 bed |
| $740,000 | 23 | 27 | 101% | 2 bed |
| $1,257,500 | 50 | 22 | 110% | 3 bed |
| $1,750,000 | 65 | 13 | 113% | 4 bed |
| $2,500,000 | 67 | 22 | 105% | 5+ bed |
| $1,608,000 | 210 | 20 | 108% | All sales |
Two things stand out. First, the $1.75 million band is the hottest part of the market. 65 sales, thirteen days, 113% of asking. That is faster than anything in Union or Essex County at any price. Second, the softest segment is the $740,000 range, at 101% of list over 27 days. In Summit the entry level is where a buyer has the most room, which is the reverse of most towns nearby.
The top of the market holds up unusually well. Homes around $2,500,000 still sold at 105% of asking in 22 days. Compare that to the Somerset Hills, where properties at similar prices are closing below asking after fifty days or more, and the difference is stark: Summit has no soft high end.
This is the hardest place to buy in Northern New Jersey right now. Thirteen days on market means a listing that appears Thursday is often under contract by the following week, and 113% of list means the winning offer is well above asking. Financing must be arranged before you tour, not after you find something. Expect to lose one or two before you win one. That is normal here and not a reflection of your offer.
You have more room than most Summit buyers realise. At 101% of list over 27 days, the condominium and smaller-home segment is close to balanced. This is the one part of the Summit market where a considered offer and a second viewing are realistic.
Still competitive, but calmer. 105% of list over 22 days. There is room to negotiate on terms and inspection items that simply does not exist at $1.75 million.
If your home sits in the $1.5M to $2M band, the pricing risk runs in one direction only: listing too high and losing the burst of attention that produces the 113% outcome. That result comes from competition in the first ten days, not from anchoring high and waiting. Homes here are bid up, not negotiated up, and a listing that misses its opening window rarely recovers the difference.
Summit is the most expensive town in Union County by a wide margin. Its $1,608,000 median sits well above Westfield at $1,352,500, New Providence at $1,109,000, Berkeley Heights at $903,757 and Cranford at $785,000. But it is not the most bid-up. Montclair closed at 121% of list and Glen Ridge at 127%, both on lower medians. Summit buyers pay more in absolute terms; Essex County buyers pay a bigger premium over asking.
Among the towns with genuinely comparable pricing, Short Hills carries a higher median at $2,100,000 but a much softer 103% ratio over 25 days, and Chatham Township sits at $1,620,000 and 105%. On the numbers, Summit is the fastest-moving town at its price level in the region.
Summit is on NJ Transit’s Morris & Essex Lines with Midtown Direct service to New York Penn Station, typically 35 to 50 minutes depending on express or local service. Summit is also the junction where Gladstone Branch riders transfer, which makes it one of the better-connected stations west of Newark. The direct one-seat ride is a large part of why the $1.5M to $2M band moves as fast as it does.
Summit operates its own district, serving the city through Summit High School. Unlike several neighbouring towns, Summit does not share a regional high school, which keeps district boundaries simple for buyers comparing towns.
Summit is a small city of roughly 22,000 with a genuine downtown. Springfield Avenue and the surrounding blocks carry restaurants, shops and services at a density most comparable towns do not have. The housing stock runs from pre-war colonials and Tudors near the centre to larger properties on the outer streets, with condominiums and townhouses concentrated closer to the station. Ryan has lived here since 2015 and coaches youth football and baseball in town.
Ryan is a former licensed New Jersey general contractor and construction project manager, not a contractor for hire, but your agent, who knows construction and the people who do it.
The value is not in spotting a problem before the inspector does. Get a proper inspection either way. It is in what happens once the report lands, which is where the money in a transaction actually moves. Ryan’s vendor network will walk a property inside the inspection window and put a real written estimate on paper.
If you are selling, that means answering a round-number credit demand with a genuine quote from a contractor prepared to do the job. Typically far below what was asked, and it holds because it is real. If you are buying, it means credit requests built on itemised figures that survive line-by-line scrutiny, rather than round numbers that invite a counter.
On his exclusive listings, Ryan identifies the work a home needs to reach the market and pays for it himself. Staging, minor repairs, deep cleaning, landscaping, junk removal, storage and a professional pre-inspection. Knowing what a buyer’s inspector will find before the house is listed is how you keep credits from being negotiated out of your sale price later.
After closing, the same vendors do the work. And something eventually pops up in every house, whatever you bought and however new it is, so his clients keep a former construction professional on call, for a read on which projects actually return money and a gut-check on the contractor’s proposal in front of them.
The median residential sale price in Summit was $1,608,000 across 210 sales recorded in GSMLS between August 2025 and July 2026.
An average of 20 days town-wide, closing at 108% of list price. Homes around $1,750,000 moved fastest, averaging just 13 days.
A seller’s market at every price point. The strongest position for sellers is around $1,750,000, where homes sold at 113% of asking in 13 days. The closest thing to balance is under $1,000,000, at 101% of list over 27 days.
Roughly $1.5 million to $2 million. That band accounted for 65 of the 210 sales and produced both the highest sale-to-list ratio and the shortest time on market of any segment in town.
Typically 35 to 50 minutes to Penn Station on NJ Transit’s Morris & Essex Lines with Midtown Direct service, depending on whether you catch an express or a local.
The median sale in Summit was $1,608,000, which sits above $1,000,000, so a typical sale here now triggers New Jersey’s Graduated Percent Fee, formerly the “mansion tax.” Since July 10, 2025 it is paid by the seller rather than the buyer, at 1% in this range, charged on the entire sale price. Because the rate steps up at fixed thresholds, a sale crossing one by a small margin can cost more than it gains. See the New Jersey mansion tax seller’s guide for the brackets and where the thresholds fall.
Market data derived from Garden State MLS (GSMLS), August 2025 through July 2026. Statistics reflect residential sales and are not a guarantee of future results.
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