An idyllic New Jersey suburb dotted with enchanting historic mansions continues to lure wealthy buyers despite the town’s creepy history.
Westfield has a durable appeal, similar to commuter suburbs such as Maplewood and Montclair, and its home values and sales are holding steady even as the state’s market softens from pandemic-era heights.
“It’s the suburb you dream of,” agent Michele Beaulieu of Keller Williams Realty Premier Properties of Westfield tells Realtor.com®. “It has the charm, access to the city, restaurants and shopping, good schools, recreation, and nice parks. People don’t want to move out.”
One of the broker’s recent listings—a $1.92 million, 126-year-old, four-bedroom, 3.5-bath, meticulously maintained and upgraded Victorian Colonial—sold in just six days.
While Westfield’s $1.23 million median price tag is double that of New Jersey’s $554,500, it’s worth noting that the suburb’s sold median price is even higher at $1.4 million.
Beaulieu says bidding wars with over-ask final sales are common, though the market is slowing down slightly—the number of offers don’t go into the double digits as much as they did last year.
“It’s quintessentially Westfield,” she says of her quickly snapped-up listing at 626 Boulevard. “It has a big open porch on a broad street, the ceilings are tall, the rooms are spacious, the windows are big and bright, it’s never dark. And there’s a solid feel to it that you don’t get with a new house.
“I’m going to miss coming here.”
The darker side of Westfield
A two minute walk away from Beaulieu’s listing is a gorgeous Dutch Colonial that was the site of a terrifying mystery that inspired a Netflix miniseries.
In 2014, the family who lived there, Derek and Maria Broaddus and their three young children, made headlines when they tried moving out eight months after purchasing the dream home for $1.5 million.
The family wanted to flee due to a series of creepy, threatening letters sent by an unknown person signing them “The Watcher.”
The house finally sold in 2019, and the new residents have not been a target.
To this day, the culprit has not been identified. Interest in the story grew to a fervor when, in 2022, Netflix made an eight-part miniseries about the chilling events.
“It was kept somewhat confidential when it was happening,” says Beaulieu, who lived only a block away from the house at the time of the spookiness. “I didn’t know about it until the story broke.”
Even so, she’s not a fan of the series, calling it “way off” and “sensationalized.”
Then there’s the town’s most gruesome event—the John List murders. In November 1971, the out-of-work accountant shot to death his wife, mother, and three children in their 19-room Westfield mansion, Breeze Knoll on Hillside Ave. The murderer remained on the lam for nearly 18 years, even remarrying.
At the time, it was the biggest crime in the state since the 1932 kidnapping and death of Charles Lindbergh Jr. It happened near Hopewell, less than an hour’s drive away.
In 1989, List was apprehended as a result of being featured on the popular Fox television series “America’s Most Wanted.” He eventually confessed to his heinous crimes, blaming them on financial difficulties and religious paranoia.
The murder mansion no longer exists—it was deliberately burned down in 1972, though the arson case was never solved. A new brick Colonial sits on the property and is currently worth $3.2 million, according to Realtor.com estimates. The site continues to attract crime aficionados.
A picture of the house posted to the Facebook group Weird New Jersey in October 2025 drew a stream of comments.
“Westfield is wild for a quiet suburban town,” said one.
The popularity of Westfield
While the suburb has seen a 23.3% year-over-year decline in home values, Realtor.com senior economist Hannah Jones says the drop “likely reflects composition effects more than true price decline at that scale.”
In other words, median price might be down because there are more condos or smaller homes or older homes in poor condition that have sold in the past year, rather than because underlying values are declining.
Local brokers report that homes get snapped up almost as soon as they hit the market, and the data backs that up. Westfield homes sell in a median 16 days versus 32 statewide.
“That’s notable because it means Westfield hasn’t slowed at all despite the apparent price drop, which further supports the idea that the median decline is a mix shift rather than a softening market,” says Jones.
With only 35 for-sale listings, the neighborhood is “extraordinarily constrained,” says Jones. “New Jersey’s inventory recovery is happening largely outside of premium markets like Westfield.”
“Westfield tends to be the top choice for people in our area,” Maryalice Ryan of Coldwell Banker confirms to Realtor.com. “It’s kind of the gold standard.”
She says homes in the “sweet spot” between $1 million and $2 million tend to sell their first weekend on market.
With a vibrant downtown area full of retail and restaurants (including the Addams Tavern), walkability not common in a suburb, a New Jersey transit railroad station, and top-rated schools, Westfield remains popular with former city dwellers.
But Ryan says many of her clients are coming from within the area, “right sizing” to either smaller or larger homes, depending on their needs.
Rather than build an expensive addition, buyers are “biting the bullet” since interest rates have softened and stepping into the market.
The Addams Family
Some of the town’s “wildness” is more family friendly and considered an asset to the neighborhood.
The Addams Family creator, Charles Addams, was born and raised in Westfield. The town celebrates its famous son every year with AddamsFest, a monthlong festival in October with events such as Morticia and Gomez’s Masquerade Ball, Wednesday Night Crawlers, and Wicked Windows of Westfield.
Addams grew up in a home at 522 Elm Street but got his inspiration for his “altogether ooky” cartoon family from nearby 411 Elm Street, a stunning but spooky-looking 1869 Victorian currently worth an estimated $1.5 million.
Ryan calls the town’s “big deal” over the Addams family, “kind of a schtick. It’s something we all laugh about. A fun thing to do.”
As for The Watcher house, she says that after the Netflix series came out, she would see drivers slowing down to gawk at the famous abode, but hasn’t noticed that lately. In this picturesque suburb, it’s easy to let the dark memories fade.
