How Hurricane Sandy and the pandemic changed housing at the Jersey Shore

Thousands of homes have been built, but the housing supply has barely grown. A new report raises questions about affordability, tourism, and who can still enjoy the Shore.

Living or vacationing at the Jersey Shore has become increasingly out of reach for many New Jerseyans as larger, more expensive houses have replaced smaller homes and more people have made the Shore their permanent residence.

A new report from New Jersey Future details how nearly 43,000 housing units were built in 73 Shore municipalities between 2010 and 2024, but the total number of homes increased by fewer than 17,500. In nearly half those communities, there were fewer homes in 2024 than in 2010.

The findings point to a changing Shore, where rebuilding after Hurricane Sandy, years of sluggish housing construction, and a pandemic-era shift to remote work have helped reshape communities traditionally known for their mix of vacation homeowners, year-round residents, and tourism workers.

“There are already signs that many long-time features of the Shore are being crowded out, as year-round residents and larger homes become more prominent,” New Jersey Future researchers Tim Evans and Molly Riley wrote in the report.

Shore housing construction falls behind

The Jersey Shore experienced decades of rapid population growth after World War II, as the expansion of highways and automobile-oriented suburbs made coastal communities more accessible. Housing development accompanied that growth, providing homes for year-round residents, including workers who supported the region’s tourism industry.

But population growth slowed considerably in the 2000s and 2010s before picking up again during the pandemic.

The 73 Shore municipalities accounted for just 2.4% of New Jersey’s population increase between 2010 and 2020, but their share jumped to 8.8% between 2020 and 2025. Housing construction has not kept pace.

Housing construction slowed sharply across the country after the 2008 financial crisis, and New Jersey followed the same pattern. The state’s average annual new home construction fell by nearly half in the 2010s compared with the previous decade.

Although construction has since begun to recover statewide, it has continued to decline at the Jersey Shore.

The New Jersey Future study used residential certificates of occupancy, which indicate when newly constructed homes are ready for occupancy, to track housing production. The 73 Shore municipalities accounted for about 19% of those certificates issued statewide from 2000 to 2009, compared with about 13% from 2020 to 2024.

Much of the construction at the Shore appears to have replaced existing homes rather than added to the housing supply, particularly during the rebuilding that followed Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

Between 2010 and 2024, 42,887 housing units were built in the 73 Shore municipalities, but the total number increased by only 17,464. Nearly half the municipalities, 32 of 73, had fewer housing units in 2024 than in 2010.

The researchers suggested that some duplexes and small apartment buildings damaged by Sandy may have been replaced with larger single-family homes. Such rebuilding could reduce the total number of homes even as construction continued.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought another major change. As remote work became more common, people who previously used their Shore properties as vacation homes could make them their permanent residences without adding to the housing supply.

The 73 Shore municipalities gained 22,883 year-round residents between 2020 and 2025, more than they gained during either of the previous two decades. Their population increased by 16,068 between 2000 and 2010 and by 11,830 between 2010 and 2020.

Census data also show a substantial decline in the number of vacation homes statewide. The number of housing units classified as vacant for seasonal, recreational, or occasional use fell from 138,738 in 2020 to 120,857 in 2024, a decrease of 12.9%.

The report noted that the 73 Shore municipalities accounted for 85% of New Jersey’s seasonally vacant homes in 2020, suggesting that much of the statewide decline reflects changes along the coast.

Researchers identified remote work as a likely explanation for the shift. Remote work allowed more people to make homes once used for vacations their permanent residences, either by moving into properties they already owned or purchasing former vacation homes.

Bigger homes and wealthier residents

Homes at the Shore have also been getting bigger, and at a faster rate than elsewhere in New Jersey.

In 2000, 18.1% of Shore homes had eight or more rooms. By 2024, that figure climbed to 24.5%, an increase of about 6.4 percentage points, compared with a statewide increase of 3.6 percentage points.

Home prices have also climbed sharply in Shore communities. In Ocean Grove, for example, the average sale price of a single-family home rose from $607,213 in 2020 to more than $1 million in 2025, an increase of nearly 72%, according to sales figures compiled by the Connolly Agency.

Farther south, the average residential sale price in Cape May rose from $741,125 in 2020 to $1.37 million in 2025, an increase of 85%, according to New Jersey Division of Taxation data.

The Shore has long attracted wealthy vacation homeowners, but its year-round population traditionally included many lower-income residents. Among them were service workers who supported the tourism industry and retirees who had savings or investments but relatively little annual income.

That economic makeup has changed significantly.

In 2000, 14.8% of Shore households earned at least $100,000 a year, compared with 21.3% statewide. By 2024, that share had climbed to 47.5% at the Shore, nearing the statewide rate of 51.5%.

Although inflation accounts for some of the increase in households earning at least $100,000 over that period, the Shore has also narrowed what was once a substantial gap with the rest of the state.

The shift toward year-round living could also change the Shore’s tourism industry by reducing the number of places available for vacationers to stay. As more seasonal homes become permanent residences, fewer may be available for short-term rentals. Motels and other short-term lodging could also become more scarce if developers purchase the properties, demolish the buildings, and replace them with expensive homes for year-round residents.

The researchers warned that these changes could make the Shore increasingly difficult to visit for families and other vacationers who cannot afford to own a second home. They raised concerns about whether enough affordable accommodations will remain to serve visitors across a range of income levels, particularly as more coastal communities attract wealthy permanent residents.

“How can public access to the beach be maintained for people of all income levels?” Evans and Riley wrote. “If Shore towns are increasingly occupied by year-round residents with higher incomes who can afford to outbid other land uses—including rental houses and motels—how do we ensure that beaches, boardwalks, and the Shore’s natural amenities remain accessible to everyone? Should formal steps be taken to ensure that seasonal and weekly rental housing, and hotels and motels, remain a part of the Shore landscape?”

The report suggested that communities may need to encourage the development of smaller homes, apartments, condominiums, and motels to preserve opportunities for people who want to vacation at the Shore without owning property there. The researchers did not measure changes in vacation rental prices or determine how much the available supply of short-term lodging has declined.

“If the trend toward a larger and wealthier year-round Shore population continues, this may create a need for new short-term rental stock, including smaller homes, apartment/condo buildings, and new motels, so people across the income spectrum can continue to enjoy the Shore, and not just those who are wealthy enough to make it their year-round home,” Evans and Riley wrote.

Growing population brings climate risks

The Shore’s growing year-round population also presents another challenge: More people are living permanently in communities increasingly vulnerable to flooding, rising sea levels, and severe storms.

Those risks are especially important for older residents. Nearly 23% of Shore residents were 65 or older in 2024, compared with 16.6% in the rest of New Jersey, according to the report.

Older residents may need additional assistance during and after storms, particularly when flooding damages roads, knocks out utilities, or interrupts essential services.

A separate 2025 New Jersey Future report estimated that nearly 1 million New Jersey residents live in areas at risk of coastal flooding, either now or within the next century, including more than 150,000 people age 65 or older.

The growing permanent population at the Shore also puts more pressure on public infrastructure. Roads, water and sewer systems, power lines, and emergency services that once served large seasonal populations must increasingly meet residents’ needs throughout the year.

Existing state and local planning policies may not adequately account for that change, according to the researchers. When vacation homes become permanent residences without new construction, communities can experience population growth without the development activity that typically signals a need for additional infrastructure and services.

New Jersey Future researchers have urged state and local officials to account for these changes as they plan for rising seas and coastal storms.

The researchers point to New Jersey’s climate resilience regulations and municipal planning requirements as tools that could help communities prepare. State law requires municipalities to assess climate-related risks when adopting or amending the land use portions of their master plans, creating opportunities to consider whether infrastructure and emergency services can meet changing population needs.

Officials also face difficult decisions about which coastal areas can be protected through measures such as improved drainage, restored wetlands, floodwalls, and levees, and where the risks may eventually make further development impractical.

For residents with substantial financial resources, adapting to those risks may be easier. Wealthier homeowners are better positioned to elevate their houses, pay for repairs after storms, or relocate if their properties become too vulnerable.

Lower-income residents may face growing pressure to leave as property values, insurance costs, and the expense of protecting homes from flooding increase.

But protecting increasingly wealthy coastal communities also raises questions about who should pay. Even if homeowners can afford to repair or rebuild their properties after a major storm, taxpayers may still face enormous costs to restore roads, utilities, public buildings, and other infrastructure in vulnerable areas.

“Should Shore residents be subsidized with public dollars?” Evans and Riley wrote. “If New Jersey is going to continue accommodating growth in places exposed to sea-level rise and destructive coastal storms, should public policy ensure that the people who benefit from that development bear a greater share of the costs and risks, rather than allowing those costs to be shifted onto the broader public?”