Which Springfield you mean
If a search result or a data pull isn’t specific to Union County, it may be catching the wrong town. New Jersey alone has two Springfields – this one, and Springfield Township in Burlington County, over 80 miles south. Nationally, Springfield, Massachusetts, Springfield, Illinois, and Springfield, Missouri all outrank this Union County township in population and search volume. This Springfield borders Millburn, Summit, and Union Township, in ZIP code 07081.
Is Springfield NJ the same as the Springfield in Burlington County? No. They are separate municipalities roughly 80 miles apart; this guide covers Springfield Township in Union County, near Millburn and Summit.
What a home actually costs here right now
The median sale price in Springfield was $676,000 in November 2025, at $397 per square foot, up 2.8% year over year even as the overall median fell 12.8%. That contradiction is a sample-size artifact: only 12 homes sold in Springfield that month, so a few larger or smaller sales can swing the median without reflecting a real shift in value. Days on market fell from 30 to 16 over the same period, a tightening that matters more than any single month’s price for judging how competitive an offer needs to be.
A wider, county-level pull tells a steadier story: across Union County, single-family homes sold in a median 33 days in March 2026, at 104.4% of list price, with the year-to-date median at $649,000. Use Springfield’s own figure to gauge Springfield itself, and the county figure to sanity-check it when Springfield’s monthly sample is too thin to trust alone.
New Jersey’s effective property tax rate exists specifically so buyers can compare towns on equal footing, separate from the rate used to compute an individual bill. Springfield’s 2025 effective rate is 2.188%. Applied to the $676,000 median: $676,000 × 0.02188 ≈ $14,790 a year, before any homestead or veteran deductions. That is the number to budget against, not the percentage alone.
No town-specific “months of supply” figure for Springfield could be independently verified for this page. Days-on-market compression is used above as the available substitute, and a fresh MLS pull is listed as an open task in the SEO package below.
Springfield against the towns it actually competes with
| Town | Median sale price | Effective tax rate (2025) | Rail commute to NYC |
|---|---|---|---|
| Springfield | $676,000 | 2.188% | No in-town station; jitney to Short Hills, then Midtown Direct |
| Summit | $1.2M | 1.475% | In-town station, Midtown Direct, one-seat peak service |
| Westfield | $1,341,697 | 1.810% | In-town station, Raritan Valley Line – peak trains require a transfer at Newark Penn Station |
| Millburn | ≈$1,302,529 | 1.571% | In-town station (Millburn/Short Hills), Midtown Direct, one-seat peak service |
Westfield’s tax rate looks close to Millburn’s, but the two towns aren’t interchangeable on commute mechanics: Westfield sits on the Raritan Valley Line, where NJ Transit’s own routing information confirms peak-hour riders must change trains at Newark Penn Station, while Millburn, Summit, and Springfield’s jitney route all reach the Morris & Essex Line’s one-seat Midtown Direct service. A buyer comparing Westfield to Springfield on price alone is missing that the daily commute itself works differently.
Is Springfield NJ a good value compared to Millburn or Summit? On price, yes – the median runs roughly half of Millburn’s and close to half of Summit’s. On commute mechanics, Springfield reaches the same one-seat Midtown Direct service as Millburn and Summit, with an added jitney leg instead of a walk to a platform.
Getting to Manhattan without a station of your own
Springfield’s jitney runs from the Community Pool lot at 44 Morrison Road to the Short Hills station for $3 per ride or $50 a month, operated directly by the township. From Short Hills, Midtown Direct trains reach New York Penn Station in about 35 minutes during peak service and closer to 45 to 47 minutes off-peak, with peak departures roughly every 20 minutes between 5 and 9 a.m. and again from 4:30 to 7 p.m. Add the jitney leg and a realistic total door-to-platform time runs 40 to 60 minutes – longer than the 35 minutes quoted for Short Hills residents who walk straight to the platform.
How do I commute from Springfield to NYC without a local train station? Park at the Community Pool lot, ride the township jitney to Short Hills ($3 one-way or $50 monthly), then take a Midtown Direct train; several NJ Transit bus routes also serve Springfield directly for those who prefer not to drive to the lot.
Schools, plainly
Springfield’s K-12 pipeline runs through Walton, Caldwell, and Sandmeier elementary schools into Gaudineer Middle School and Jonathan Dayton High School. In March 2023, the district’s own board approved a $32.9 million bond referendum for HVAC, security, and facilities work, with the state covering $11.1 million of that cost – a real, funded infrastructure need behind a district that otherwise markets itself on ratings alone.
Where the risk actually sits: the Rahway River
A tributary of the Rahway River running through the northeastern part of Springfield, near Meisel Avenue Park, creates a floodplain that a county hazard-mitigation study classifies as low-velocity and shallow rather than severe. Even so, the same study recorded 322 National Flood Insurance Program claims in the township between 1978 and 2014, totaling $5,533,387, on 339 active flood policies as of 2014. Any offer on a property near that corridor should include a flood-zone lookup before waiving inspection contingencies, not after.
Are parts of Springfield NJ in a flood zone? Yes, in the northeastern section along a Rahway River tributary near Meisel Avenue Park; the risk is documented as shallow and low-velocity rather than severe, but flood insurance has historically been required there.
If you’re buying to hold as a rental
| Unit type | Median asking rent | Approx. gross yield vs. $676,000 median sale price |
|---|---|---|
| Studio | $1,593/month | ≈2.8% |
| One-bedroom | $2,350/month | ≈4.2% |
| Two-bedroom | $3,344/month | ≈5.9% |
These rents come from apartment-listing data, not single-family comparables, so the yield column is a rough cap-rate proxy rather than a same-asset calculation. Treat 4 to 6% gross as a working range for smaller units, and expect it to compress for anything resembling the median single-family price point.
One neighborhood worth naming
The area nearest Baltusrol Golf Club – Springfield’s one nationally recognized landmark, having hosted major PGA championships – is widely described by agents as carrying a price premium within town. No independently verifiable per-square-foot figure for that premium turned up in this round of research, so treat it as a directional pattern to confirm against comparables near the course rather than a fixed percentage to plan around.
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