A condo sale sets a record price for the Wildwoods: $2.25 million

Oh those Wildwood days — cha ching!

A Wildwood Crest condominium has sold for $2.25 million, setting the record for the highest purchase price of a condo in the Wildwoods, a less and less working class family area of the Jersey Shore , according to the real estate agents involved in the sale.

And the sale price was a relative steal compared to the unit’s original asking price of $2.39 million.

What does that kind of money get you in the Wildwoods in today’s market?

The fifth-floor condo comes in at over 3,400 square feet at the Coastal Colors complex at 7701 Atlantic Ave. One of six units on the complex’s top floor, the condo has four bedrooms, four-and-a-half bathrooms, and a wraparound deck with ocean views. That gives the unit 1,200 square feet of outdoor balcony space.

The complex’s amenities include a common pool, a gym, a game room, and library. The penthouse owners have a private lounge.

In May 2022, another top-floor penthouse condo — five bedrooms and five bathrooms — in the 54-unit development sold for $1.48 million, according to Zillow.

The condo which just sold had been purchased by its seller under a limited liability company in 2007 for about $1.73 million, plus another $150,000 for furniture, according to Joe Vallese of Chris Henderson Realty. Vallese, who represented the seller in the recent sale, said the unit was used mostly as a vacation property.

“It was one of our best rentals,” Vallese said.

Colleen Johnston of Long and Foster Real Estate’s Beach Homes Team said the current buyer, who she represented, is a developer who plans to use the condo primarily for his own family. The next highest Wildwoods condo sale price she said she could find was a unit at the Grand at Diamond Beach, which sold for $2.2 million in 2015.

The current buyer and seller of the Wildwood Crest condo didn’t want to be identified.

Both Vallese and Johnston think prices will continue to rise in the Wildwoods, a Cape May County area whose communities include North Wildwood, Wildwood, and Wildwood Crest..

“It’s gone up so high that property six and seven blocks from the beach can get $700,000, $800,000 for new construction,” Vallese said.

Some of that, he said, is the perceived stability of real estate as an investment.

“People are pulling money out of the stock market, and they’re buying real estate,” Vallese said. “They want something that’s not going to disappear before their eyes.”

Johnston said some buyers who once would have sought Shore towns like Cape May, Stone Harbor, Sea Isle City, and Avalon are increasingly looking to the Wildwoods.

“I think the Wildwoods was kind of like the best-kept secret for working families for a long time,” Johnston said, “but as people have been pushed out of other markets price-wise, the Wildwoods secret has really gotten out.”

And the Wildwoods certainly has its own charms.

Said Vallese: “We have the nicest beaches, I think, in all of South Jersey.”