Loveladies & Harvey Cedars NJ Real Estate 2026

Updated June 20, 2026

Let me be direct about the Loveladies NJ real estate market before anything else: there is no clean single number for it, and any agent who hands you one is selling you confidence they don't have. Loveladies and neighboring Harvey Cedars sit at the very top of Long Beach Island's ultra-luxury tier, but both are tiny markets that often see only one to three sales in a given month. Below I'll show you the few defensible numbers, explain why the headline medians swing wildly, and give you the island-wide figures that actually matter when you're pricing a multimillion-dollar oceanfront purchase.

The Loveladies & Harvey Cedars market at a glance

These are Long Beach Island's two most exclusive enclaves: large lots, low density, and oceanfront-to-bayfront luxury. Loveladies is an unincorporated section of Long Beach Township (no standalone tax rate or municipal data), while Harvey Cedars is its own borough. Both are thin markets, so I anchor pricing to the reliable island-wide numbers, not volatile monthly enclave medians.

• Island-wide backbone (2025): 290 single-family sales, average sale price above $2.4M, median $2.25M
• Loveladies waterfront: 7 homes for sale at a median LIST price of $5.1M (Redfin)
• Harvey Cedars list prices: roughly $2.05M-$2.77M, around $1,250-$1,318 per square foot
• Taxes: Long Beach Township (Loveladies) ~0.83% effective; Harvey Cedars ~0.98% (as of 2025/early 2026)
• Flood: all of LBI is a FEMA Special Flood Hazard Area; oceanfront is predominantly V/VE

Why is there no single "Loveladies median home price"?

Because Loveladies is not a municipality and it almost never closes enough sales in a month to produce a stable median. Redfin tracks it as a neighborhood, not a town, and the data sources openly disagree. The right answer is a range plus a caveat, not a point estimate.

Here's the disagreement in black and white. As of late 2025, Redfin reported a Loveladies median sale price around $3.1M (down 13.2% year over year), while the brokerage site lbilocals showed a median SALE of roughly $1.9M for the same enclave. That is not a real disagreement about value — it is what happens when a "median" is calculated on one or two transactions. In months where a single large oceanfront home closes, one Redfin snapshot even showed an average sale spiking to $8.09M. None of those are market levels. They are arithmetic accidents of small sample size.

So when a buyer asks me "what's the median in Loveladies," what I tell them is this: treat any single-month enclave median as noise, and price off the island-wide trend plus the specific lot, exposure, and condition of the home in front of you.

What numbers in Loveladies are actually defensible?

The list side is steadier than the sold side simply because there are more active listings than monthly closings. As of recent Redfin data, Loveladies waterfront showed 7 homes for sale at a median LIST price of $5.1M. That is an asking figure, not a sold price — an important distinction at this tier, where negotiation and condition swing final numbers hard.

Active inventory itself varies by how you filter it. Zillow's waterfront filter for Loveladies showed 15 homes; other filters land lower. Across sources you'll see anywhere from roughly a dozen to a few dozen active Loveladies listings depending on the geography and price cut applied. That is normal for an enclave this small — the count is sensitive to a handful of homes coming on or going under contract.

One more figure gets misread constantly: Redfin notes that most homes for sale in Loveladies stay on the market about 113 days. That is the median AGE of current unsold listings — slow-moving, ultra-high-end inventory — not how fast homes actually go under contract. Island-wide, time-to-pending for closed sales ran far quicker (about 64 days in 2025, and as low as 27 days in March 2026). Don't confuse a 113-day listing-age figure with sale velocity.

The 100x100 lot: the real Loveladies value driver

If you want to understand Loveladies and adjacent North Beach pricing, stop looking at price-per-square-foot and start looking at the dirt. Most lots here are legally 100x100 — double the frontage of most LBI towns — which is the structural reason this corridor reads as "the Hamptons of the Jersey Shore": large lots, low density, privacy.

There's a catch every buyer should know before they fall in love with a teardown. While the lots are legally 100x100, roughly 15-20 feet is typically dedicated to an easement, leaving you about 80x100 of buildable land, and setbacks shrink the envelope further. In the corridor I track, that easement-and-setback math is exactly what separates a lot that can carry a true compound from one that can't — and it's why land value, not the existing structure, drives so many transactions up here.

What does Harvey Cedars cost, and how is it different from Loveladies?

Harvey Cedars carries a per-square-foot premium over the island norm and, unlike Loveladies, it is its own borough with its own government and tax rate. Recent listing data put Harvey Cedars asking prices roughly in the $2.05M-$2.77M range at about $1,250-$1,318 per square foot — a clear premium over the island's ~$2.25M median.

The structural contrast matters. Harvey Cedars is an independent borough, incorporated by the New Jersey Legislature on December 15, 1894, governed under the Walsh Act by a three-member Board of Commissioners. It spans just 1.19 square miles (more than half of that is water), fronting both the Atlantic and Barnegat Bay, with a 2020 census population of 391 year-round residents that swells to roughly 12,000 in summer. Property there was assessed at over $1.28 billion as of 2019. Loveladies, by contrast, has none of its own — no borough hall, no separate tax rate, no municipal market report.

On Harvey Cedars days-on-market, ignore any single headline. It has read as low as 29 days (April 2026) and as high as 89-102 days in older snapshots — again, the swing is small-sample volatility, not a trend. And one figure you may see online — a "median sale down 52.6%" in late 2025 — is pure noise from a two-sale month. I will not quote it as a market move, and neither should anyone advising you.

The numbers I actually anchor to: island-wide LBI

When the enclave data is too thin to trust, the 18-mile island gives you a reliable backbone. Long Beach Island recorded 290 single-family sales in 2025 at an average above $2.4M and a median of $2,250,000, with a sale-to-list ratio around 97.8% and roughly 6.5% year-over-year price growth — the slowest in five years.

The longer arc tells the real story: 290 sales in 2025 is down from 330 in 2024 and 496 back in 2019 — a contraction of more than 41% in six years. That is a scarcity story, not a weakness story. In early 2026, about 53% of Q1 single-family closings were all-cash (24 of 45), March 2026 posted a ~$2.20M median sale at just 27 days on market, and active inventory built from around 100 in 2025 toward the 120s by mid-April 2026. For the full island picture, see my Long Beach Island market guide.

What about property taxes in Loveladies and Harvey Cedars?

This is where Loveladies' lack of municipal status actually works in a buyer's favor. Because Loveladies is governed by Long Beach Township, it inherits one of Ocean County's lowest effective tax rates — about 0.83%, with a median tax bill around $8,047 on a ~$982,100 median home value (Ownwell). High oceanfront ratables keep the rate down even on multimillion-dollar homes.

Harvey Cedars runs a touch higher: an effective rate around 0.98%, a 2025 general tax rate of 1.112 per $100, and a median tax bill near $9,687 on a ~$997,150 median value (Ownwell, as of April 2026). One critical caveat: Harvey Cedars is undergoing a county-ordered revaluation, so those assessed values and that 1.112 rate are pre-revaluation figures that will change. Treat them as "as of 2025/early 2026" and confirm the current numbers with the borough before you budget. The same goes for beach-badge fees — verify the current-year figure directly with each town.

How serious is flood risk, and what does it mean for insurance?

It is universal here, and it is the single biggest line item buyers underestimate. All of Long Beach Island — including every Loveladies and Harvey Cedars parcel — sits within a FEMA Special Flood Hazard Area. The question is not whether you carry flood insurance, but which zone you're buying into.

Oceanfront and near-oceanfront homes are predominantly Zone V/VE — coastal high-hazard, exposed to storm-wave action, with mandatory flood insurance, elevated construction requirements, and the highest premiums on the island. Bayfront and interior parcels are mostly AE. New construction built to current elevated code can meaningfully lower premiums, which is one more reason teardown-and-rebuild economics dominate up here. Any new construction footprint or significant improvement also goes through NJ CAFRA (Coastal Area Facility Review Act) coastal permitting. Before you write an offer, get a zone-specific premium quote — the spread between an AE bayfront and a VE oceanfront is large. I walk buyers through the math in my Ocean County flood-insurance cost guide.

Schools, access, and the Loveladies arts anchor

Both towns feed the LBI Consolidated School District (PreK-6, with the grade school in Surf City) and then Southern Regional School District (grades 7-12, in Manahawkin). Southern Regional High School holds a Niche B+ grade and ranks #5 among Ocean County public high schools (2026 Niche) — strong for a barrier-island district.

On access, there is exactly one road on and off the 18-mile island: Route 72 over the Manahawkin Bay Causeway, connecting to Garden State Parkway Exit 63 in Stafford. It is the single commute artery and a known summer bottleneck — factor it into any year-round-living calculus.

Culturally, Loveladies has something no other LBI enclave can claim. Its name traces to Thomas Lovelady, who owned a roughly 10-acre bay island near an 1871 U.S. Life-Saving Service station; the community was officially named "Loveladies" in 1952. Today the Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts & Sciences (LBIF) is the enclave's cultural anchor — a draw that reinforces why buyers describe this stretch as the island's most exclusive, affluent end.

How do Loveladies and Harvey Cedars compare to the rest of LBI?

They sit at the top of the ladder. Loveladies and adjacent North Beach are widely described by brokers as the most exclusive, affluent end of Long Beach Island, defined by those large lots, low density, and privacy. Harvey Cedars carries a per-square-foot premium (~$1,250-$1,318) over the island's ~$2.25M median.

Within each town, the pattern holds: oceanfront V/VE parcels command the ceiling, while bayfront and interior homes generally trade below. The ultra-luxury supply is real and active — recent weekly market reports noted luxury homes between $3M and $5.7M coming to market across Brant Beach, Loveladies, and Harvey Cedars. Just remember that any specific mansion range you see quoted is a point-in-time inventory snapshot, not a fixed market boundary — it shifts every time a home lists or sells.

The bottom line

The honest read on the Loveladies NJ real estate market is that it is too small to price by headline median — anchor to the island-wide LBI numbers (290 sales in 2025, average above $2.4M, median $2.25M, tight ~98% sale-to-list, shrinking inventory) and then adjust for the specific lot, flood zone, and oceanfront exposure of the home you want. Loveladies offers 100x100 lots and Long Beach Township's ~0.83% tax rate; Harvey Cedars offers borough independence and a per-square-foot premium. Both demand a buyer who reads the dirt and the flood map, not the monthly noise.

If you're weighing a purchase up here, I'll run the comps that actually apply to your target block and exposure. Start by browsing current Loveladies and Harvey Cedars listings, or if you already own on the island, get a grounded home valuation that accounts for lot size, zone, and the real island trend — not a thin-market headline.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the median home price in Loveladies, NJ?

There's no reliable single figure. Loveladies sees only one to three sales a month, so medians swing wildly: Redfin showed roughly $3.1M in late 2025, while lbilocals showed about $1.9M for the same enclave. Anchor instead to the island-wide LBI median of $2.25M (2025).

Is Loveladies its own town?

No. Loveladies is an unincorporated section of Long Beach Township, not a municipality. It has no standalone tax rate or official market data and is tracked by Redfin and Zillow only as a neighborhood. Harvey Cedars, by contrast, is an independent borough with its own government and tax rate.

What are property taxes like in Loveladies and Harvey Cedars?

Loveladies inherits Long Beach Township's effective rate of about 0.83% — among the lowest in Ocean County — with a median bill near $8,047. Harvey Cedars runs about 0.98% (1.112 per $100, 2025). Note Harvey Cedars is mid-revaluation, so verify current figures before budgeting.

Why are Loveladies lots considered so valuable?

Most Loveladies and North Beach lots are legally 100x100 — double the frontage of most LBI towns — driving the area's large-lot, low-density character. Roughly 15-20 feet is usually easement, leaving about 80x100 buildable, with setbacks reducing it further. That land value underpins teardown and new-construction pricing.

What flood zone are Loveladies and Harvey Cedars in?

All of Long Beach Island, including both towns, sits in a FEMA Special Flood Hazard Area. Oceanfront parcels are predominantly Zone V/VE (coastal high-hazard, highest premiums, elevated construction); bayfront and interior parcels are mostly AE. New construction to current code can lower premiums; NJ CAFRA governs coastal permitting.

How fast do homes sell in Loveladies?

Slower at the top end. Redfin notes most Loveladies listings sit about 113 days — but that's the age of unsold active inventory, not sale velocity. Island-wide, closed sales went pending in roughly 64 days in 2025 and as fast as 27 days in March 2026.

How does Harvey Cedars compare to the rest of LBI on price?

Harvey Cedars carries a per-square-foot premium — roughly $1,250-$1,318 — over the island's ~$2.25M median, with list prices around $2.05M-$2.77M. Along with Loveladies and North Beach, it anchors the island's most exclusive, highest-priced tier, with oceanfront V/VE parcels commanding the ceiling.