North Jersey’s residential real estate market continues to sink into its first slump since the mid-1990s, with foreclosure action soaring and property sales plummeting. The foreclosure map shows which communities have the highest and lowest rates of homeowners in default on their mortgages. The property sales map shows how much the number of sales has dropped across the region. Click on any town on the maps to get more details about foreclosure actions, property sales and median prices.

Foreclosure actions in northern New Jersey nearly tripled in the first five months of 2008 over the same period in 2007, according to a report in the Record.

The report said the volume of housing sales has plummeted this year and prices are down. Median home prices declined 2.3 percent in Bergen County and 8.2 percent in Passaic County in the first half of this year, compared with the same period in 2007, according to an analysis of public property records.