8. A Worked Example: What a $1.15 Million Paramus Home Costs to Own

$1,150,000 is the median price of a single-family home sold in Paramus in 2026 through October 2.⁴² The 40 homes that closed within 10 percent of that price since February 2025 were, typically, a four-bedroom colonial, split or bi-level with three full baths and about 2,600 square feet, built around 1966, on 0.28 acre.⁴³ This page adds up what that house costs to buy and to own, line by line, using the figures from the rest of this report. Where a line depends on the buyer (the mortgage rate, the insurance quote), the assumption is stated so you can substitute your own.

Assumptions: purchase price $1,150,000; 20 percent down ($230,000); a 30-year fixed mortgage of $920,000 at 7.28 percent, the Freddie Mac national average for the week of October 1, 2026 (an illustration, not a quote; substitute the rate you are offered);⁴⁴ family of four; 5/8-inch water meter; water use of 5,000 gallons a month; the house is not in a flood zone; no homestead rebate or senior program applied.

At the closing table

The second and third lines are the ones that changed. Until July 10, 2025 the buyer of a New Jersey home priced above $1 million paid a 1 percent fee at closing; on this house that was $11,500 out of the buyer's pocket. P.L. 2025, c.69 moved that fee to the seller and made it graduated: 1 percent of the whole price for sales above $1 million up to $2 million, 2 percent above $2 million up to $2.5 million, 2.5 percent up to $3 million, 3 percent up to $3.5 million, and 3.5 percent above that.⁴⁶ The seller also pays the ordinary Realty Transfer Fee, as before.⁴⁵

What this means for you
As a buyer at $1.15 million you no longer write an $11,500 check to the State. As a seller at this price you now pay $22,890 in State fees, about 2 percent of the price, before commission and attorney. And the step at $2 million is a cliff, not a slope: a sale at $2,000,000 carries a $20,000 graduated fee and a sale at $2,000,001 carries $40,000, because the percentage applies to the whole price. A fifth of Paramus single-family sales now close at $2 million or more (Section 3), so this is a live negotiating point on new construction. Sellers know it, and it shapes where they will and will not move on price.

Year one

Add a maintenance reserve. A common rule is 1 to 2 percent of value a year, which on this house is $11,500 to $23,000; that is a planning figure, not a bill, and Section 15 lists what it tends to get spent on in a 1960s house.

A larger household might use 25,000 gallons of water a quarter. At that use the Paramus water line is about $1,030 a year at the rates in effect before August 1, 2026 (Section 19), against $752 at the Board of Public Utilities' 5,000-gallon benchmark used above.

Year two and after: annual reassessment

Paramus has no single revaluation date on which the tax line jumps. The Borough reassesses every property every year, as of the prior October 1, under a program that runs through tax year 2029 (Section 9). So the tax line does not step once. It follows the market, and it follows your purchase price.

Here is what the record shows for recent buyers. At the time of sale, the assessment on the books was a median 80.5 percent of the price paid. One cycle later, homes bought in 2025 were assessed at a median 91.0 percent of what they sold for. The Borough-wide ratio certified by the State for 2026 is 93.30 percent.⁴⁷

All four rows use 2025 rates, because the 2026 rate had not been published as of October 3, 2026. The first three are arithmetic on Section 9's ratios; the fourth is the planning figure from Section 9 and is a projection, not a published number.

Two things drive the last row, and neither is a revaluation. First, the levy grows: the Borough's 2026 municipal and library levy rose 3.4 percent and the school levy for 2026-27 rose 4.9 percent (Section 9). Second, the share of the levy carried by houses grows, because every year's reassessment resets houses and commercial property to market, and houses have been appreciating faster. That is why the average Paramus homeowner's bill rose 8.0 percent from 2024 to 2025 in a year when the tax rate went down. If house prices stopped outrunning commercial values, that second effect would stop too; and if your house loses value, your assessment follows it down the next year without an appeal.

What the example says

The mortgage is four-fifths of the monthly subtotal, and at 7.28 percent it is the line that has moved most in the last year: the same loan at the 6.34 percent average of a year earlier would cost about $577 a month less.⁴⁴ Nothing in this report changes that number, but it is why the rate assumption is stated first.

The tax line is the second largest and the only other one that changes on a schedule. It rises by about $1,700 after your first reassessment and by about $800 more as it settles, then grows with the Borough's budget and with house prices. A buyer who budgets $1,165 a month for taxes in year one, $1,375 by year three and $1,540 by 2028 is not surprised. Even at the 2028 figure it is below what the same price costs in Ridgewood or Washington Township today (Section 6).

The Borough and utility lines, water, pool, electric and gas supply, come to about $3,800 a year, with sewer and garbage inside the tax bill and no lead-pipe liability on the house. Two costs are not yet in that number: gas delivery and insurance, each plausibly larger than the water bill, and a treatment surcharge for the Haworth water plant that Veolia has asked for and the State has deferred (Section 19).

The line Paramus adds that a train town does not is the one in the commuting rows: with no station, a rail commuter pays another town's non-resident parking price, $480 to $1,500 a year, on top of the fare.

What I tell my buyers: the lender qualifies you on principal, interest, taxes and insurance, and uses the seller's tax bill to do it. In Paramus that bill is about $2,500 a year below where yours will settle, and you will reach the higher number in two reassessments, not ten years. Put $16,500 in the spreadsheet on day one, grow it 5 to 8 percent a year, and the spreadsheet will be right. And if you are selling above $1 million, the 1 percent fee is yours now, so price it in before you counter.