July closed 16 homes in Warren at a $1,280,000 median, and the year over year comparison needs care
Sixteen closings at a $1,280,000 median against 23 closings at $915,000 a year earlier. Fewer sales at a much higher middle is a change in what sold, not proof that any house appreciated 40 percent.
Sixteen homes closed in Warren Township in July 2026 at a median price of $1,280,000, the highest closing count since January. Median days on market was 20 and the average sale came in at 101.1 percent of ask, with eight of sixteen closing at or over ask. July 2025 closed 23 homes at a $915,000 median. That comparison, 30 percent fewer sales at a median 40 percent higher, reflects a change in which homes sold rather than appreciation on any individual property. Through July 31, Warren has 89 closings in 2026 against 94 in the same period of 2025.
The month
| July 2026 | July 2025 | |
|---|---|---|
| Closings | 16 | 23 |
| Median price | $1,280,000 | $915,000 |
| Average price | $1,349,563 | $942,552 |
| Median days on market | 20 | 25 |
| Average percent of ask | 101.1 | 97.9 |
| Closed at or over ask | 8 of 16 | 11 of 23 |
| Low sale | $500,000 | |
| High sale | $2,975,000 |
Every column moved in the same direction. Fewer sales, higher prices, faster, and closer to asking price. That is an unusually clean set of year over year comparisons, and it is exactly the situation where a careless reading does the most damage.
The 40 percent problem
The July median rose from $915,000 to $1,280,000. That is a 39.9 percent increase.
Here is what that number does not mean.
It does not mean a Warren house that was worth $915,000 last July is worth $1,280,000 now. The median is the middle sale of a set. When the set changes, the median changes, whether or not any individual property changed value.
Twenty three homes sold in July 2025. Sixteen sold in July 2026. Those are almost entirely different properties in different parts of the township at different sizes and conditions. A median comparison between them measures the difference between two samples. It does not measure appreciation, which requires either the same property selling twice or a model that controls for what sold.
The clearest evidence that mix is driving this: July 2025's average price of $942,552 sat only $27,552 above its median, meaning that month skewed toward the lower half of Warren's price range across the board. July 2026's set is distributed differently.
The honest statement is that the middle of what sold in Warren in July 2026 was substantially more expensive than the middle of what sold in July 2025. Whether the township's housing values rose, and by how much, is a different question that a monthly median cannot answer.
What the percent of ask does tell you
Percent of ask is the more reliable year over year signal here, because it is self normalizing. It compares each sale to its own list price, so the mix of what sold matters much less.
July 2025 closed at 97.9 percent of ask on average. July 2026 closed at 101.1 percent. That is a 3.2 point swing toward sellers, and it is a real change in negotiating conditions rather than an artifact of which houses traded.
Days on market supports the same reading. Twenty days in July 2026 against twenty five a year earlier.
So: negotiation and speed both moved modestly toward sellers. The median moved a great deal for reasons that are mostly compositional. Those are two separate findings and they should not be merged into one headline.
Supply
Twenty three new listings were taken in July 2026, the same count as July 2025.
The asking prices were not the same. Median original ask was $1,350,000 in July 2026 against $925,605 in July 2025. That $1,350,000 is the second highest monthly median asking price of 2026, behind February's $1,395,000.
Identical listing counts at very different asking prices is another mix observation. It is also the supply side of the same story the closings are telling.
The year to date number, which is the useful one
Eighty nine against ninety four is a 5.3 percent decline over seven months. That is a much less dramatic figure than any single month in the year produced, and it is the figure I would use if someone asked whether Warren's market is busier or slower than last year.
Volume is roughly flat and slightly down. Warren remains a low turnover township. Both of those were true in January and are still true in August.
All figures come from GSMLS closed sale and listing records for Warren Township, Somerset County, pulled August 18, 2026, filtered to exclude superseded listing records. Warren Township is in Somerset County and is not Warren County. Days on market reflects the current listing only. Sales that never went through the MLS do not appear. Percent of ask compares sale price to the list price in effect at contract, not to the original asking price. These figures cover every residential property type in the MLS, including townhouses and condominiums, not detached houses alone. Attached product sells below detached in Warren, so a detached only median would run higher.
There is no price per square foot figure in this post. The assessor square footage join that supports that calculation does not cover July 2026 closings, so no reliable per foot number exists for the month. Per foot is the measure that would partly answer the mix question raised above, which is a real limitation on this analysis and worth stating plainly.
Figures are deemed reliable but are not warranted. Nothing here is a valuation of any particular property.
- GSMLS data for Warren Township, Somerset County, via the author's BigQuery warehouse, pulled August 18, 2026. https://www.gsmls.com
