Bergen County, NJ Cap Rates by Neighborhood

Why the County-Wide Gross Yield Understates the Real Range

Bergen County's aggregate gross yield sits at 4.42%, computed from a $791,116 median home price and $2,916 monthly rent. That number is not wrong, but it describes the midpoint of a market where the entry price varies by more than $480,000 depending on which municipality you buy in. A Hackensack duplex acquired at $370,000 and a Fort Lee luxury condo acquired at $800,000 operate under entirely different yield economics, yet both land inside the same county average.

The 4.42% county gross yield already sits well below the 8–10% threshold associated with cash-flow-positive markets. Net yields are lower still, once Bergen's median $13,329 annual property tax bill enters the calculation. For most sub-$1M acquisitions in the county, the net operating income after taxes alone compresses the effective yield by 150–200 basis points before a single vacancy, maintenance dollar, or insurance premium is counted.

Use the county figure as a floor, not a target. The neighborhoods covered below show how far above that floor a disciplined buyer can get.

Neighborhood and Segment Breakdown

Hackensack: The County's Highest-Yield Entry Point

Hackensack, the county seat, carries a median home price of about $370,300, which is less than half the county median. At that price with $2,916 in monthly rent (using the county median rent as a starting proxy), the gross yield approaches 9.4%. Even discounting actual rents for the Hackensack submarket below the county median, a well-underwritten small multifamily acquisition here gets closer to cash-flow viability than anywhere else in Bergen.

The property tax calculation at this price point is still brutal by national standards. Using Bergen's county-median tax bill of $13,329, the net yield math on a $370,000 acquisition looks like this:

• Annual gross rent (conservative estimate): $30,000–$33,600
• Property taxes: $13,329
• Net before vacancy, maintenance, insurance: $16,671–$20,271
• Net yield on $370,000: 4.5%–5.5%

That range brackets Bergen's mid-5% multifamily cap rate benchmark, meaning Hackensack is the one submarket where a buyer without significant distressed pricing can approach market cap rates on a standard acquisition. The municipality-specific general tax rate matters here; Bergen's per-municipality rates run from 0.83 to 3.97, and Hackensack's specific rate will shift that net yield band.

Access to the same employment and transit infrastructure as the rest of the county is the additional argument: 448,853 county workers, anchored by Hackensack University Medical Center directly in the submarket, support durable rental demand at lower price points.

Teaneck and Fort Lee: Mid-Tier Yield with Strong Demand

Teaneck and Fort Lee sit in the county's active rental core alongside Edgewater. These submarkets attract Manhattan commuters and professionals employed at the county's major tenants: Cognizant IT operates in Teaneck, and Fort Lee's density and ferry/bus access pull NYC-facing renters willing to pay above-market rents.

At prices above the Hackensack range but below the county median, gross yields in these submarkets track close to the county aggregate of 4.42%–5.5%, depending on asset type and specific acquisition price. After taxes, the net yield compresses further. On a $650,000 two-family in Teaneck with $3,400/month in gross rents:

• Annual gross rent: $40,800
• Property taxes (using county median): $13,329
• Net before other expenses: $27,471
• Net yield: 4.2%

That is below the mid-5% small multifamily cap rate benchmark for Northern New Jersey, meaning a buyer at market price absorbs negative debt coverage against a 6%+ mortgage rate from day one. These markets make sense for equity appreciation plays where the $851,000 single-family median and 5.8% year-over-year price appreciation do the work over time.

Rental demand in these submarkets is real. County rents rose 4.1% year-over-year to $2,830/month in February 2026. In high-demand nodes like Fort Lee and Teaneck, rent growth at or above that pace is plausible, which slowly closes the yield gap without requiring price compression.

Luxury Segment (Edgewater and High-End Single-Family)

The luxury end of the market, where listings averaged 98 days on market at a $2.99M median as of October 2025, has a mechanically lower gross yield than anything else in the county. At $2.99M with monthly rents that could reach $6,000–$8,000 for premium rentals, gross yield falls to 2.4%–3.2%. Net yield after taxes on a property at this price level, with a tax bill proportionally higher than the county median, approaches 1.5%–2.0% in many scenarios.

Luxury Bergen holdings are appreciation vehicles, period. Any investor underwriting them for income is misreading the asset class.

Neighborhood Comparison Table

Property Tax as a Yield Killer

Bergen County's $13,329 median annual tax bill is the largest single variable between gross and net yield in this market. On a $791,116 median-priced property, that tax bill alone represents 1.68% of purchase price annually. Across 70 municipalities with general tax rates ranging from 0.83 in Rockleigh to 3.97 in River Edge, two otherwise identical properties can carry tax burdens that differ by $15,000 or more per year.

Underwriting the county median rate is insufficient. Investors must pull the specific municipal general tax rate for every property modeled. At River Edge's 3.97 rate applied to a $500,000 assessed value, the annual tax bill exceeds $19,000 and eliminates any possibility of positive debt coverage at current acquisition prices and mortgage rates.

Flood Insurance: A Non-Trivial Line Item

Bergen County carries high inland flood risk by FEMA's National Risk Index, with mandatory NFIP coverage requirements for properties in Special Flood Hazard Areas near the Hackensack River and its tributaries. The average New Jersey NFIP policy runs $933 annually, but properties with prior flood claims or updated FIRM map exposure can carry premiums well above that figure. Add $933–$2,000 in flood insurance to the net yield calculation for any low-lying or waterway-adjacent acquisition, and the net yield on a Hackensack multifamily can drop another 25–50 basis points.

New Jersey has paid out $6.3 billion in NFIP claims since 1978. Future FIRM map amendments could reclassify additional Bergen properties into mandatory coverage zones, creating a retroactive operating cost that buyers cannot model today but should stress-test against.

Cap Rate Compression vs. Decompression

Cap rates in Bergen County are compressing at the single-family level and holding or softening in the condo/townhouse segment. The data makes this clear:

• Single-family median hit $851,000 in March 2026, up 3.5% year-over-year, with only 1.7 months of supply and 102.8% of list price received. Price is outrunning rent growth (4.1% YoY) in this segment, compressing gross yields further.
• The townhouse and condo segment showed a 4.8% price decline to $475,000 median in March 2026, with inventory up 24%. In this segment, cap rates are decompressing: prices are falling while rents hold. This is where the near-term entry opportunity sits.

The condo/townhouse correction creates a window where acquisition at $450,000–$475,000 with stable or rising rents produces a better yield than the same purchase 12 months ago. Investors who dismissed the segment when it was running with single-family should re-underwrite it now.

Cap Rate Outlook

Three forces will determine where Bergen County cap rates move over the next 12–24 months.

Supply constraint holds. Bergen's 70-municipality fragmentation, 20–30% lot coverage limits, and 30–35 foot height caps have no near-term resolution. The Northern Branch Corridor light rail project faces at least two additional years of delay after the federal environmental review restart ordered in September 2023. No transit uplift, no new density, no supply relief.

NJ S1106 is the variable to watch. If the pending state ADU bill passes, it overrides local codes across all 70 municipalities and allows one ADU as-of-right on any single- or two-family lot. That creates a value-add opportunity in Hackensack and Teaneck specifically, where land-to-building ratios and lot sizes make ADU additions feasible. A successful ADU addition on a $370,000 Hackensack property that generates $1,400–$1,600/month in additional rent would push gross yield toward 13–14% on original cost.

The SALT cap change at $40,000 beginning in tax year 2025 could shift the buyer/renter balance. If high-income Bergen households re-enter the for-sale market because the after-tax cost of ownership falls, rental demand softens at the margin and puts a ceiling on rent growth. That would arrest any cap rate improvement from the rent side.

Net of these forces, Bergen County remains a 4%–5.5% net cap rate market for most investors, with Hackensack the only submarket where disciplined acquisitions approach the mid-5% small-multifamily benchmark. The condo segment is the tactical trade. Model your specific deal with our investment property calculator before committing to any acquisition in this market.