How old is the market behind the annual property tax on a Cliffside Park listing? Older than most buyers assume. The bill is the home's assessed value multiplied by the borough's general tax rate. New Jersey's own figures show that Cliffside Park's assessments have fallen further behind real sale prices every year since at least 2023. Bergen County has also put Cliffside Park on its list of towns scheduled for a revaluation or reassessment in 2027. A buyer who budgets around today's tax figure is planning on a number with a known reset date.
The Tax Figure on a Listing Comes From an Assessment, Not Today's Price
Each year the New Jersey Division of Taxation measures how closely a town's assessments track actual sale prices. It publishes the result as the average ratio of assessed value to true value. In the 2026 Table of Equalized Valuations, dated October 1, 2026, Cliffside Park's average ratio is 60.06%. In plain terms, the borough's assessments total about 60 cents for every dollar of market value.
Here is how that works on a hypothetical home assessed at $400,000. At the 2025 general tax rate of 2.836 per $100 of assessed value, the bill comes to about $11,344. At the borough's average ratio, a $400,000 assessment matches a market value of roughly $666,000.
The key word is average. A borough-wide ratio of 60% can include some homes assessed at 50% of their market value and others closer to 70%. The tax bill on any single listing shows where that particular property happened to land.
The Gap Has Grown Every Year
The ratio has been falling for years. Here is Cliffside Park's average ratio in each of the last four state tables:
| Table of Equalized Valuations | Cliffside Park average ratio |
|---|---|
| Tax year 2023, amended | 72.11% |
| Tax year 2024, amended | 68.46% |
| Tax year 2025, amended | 63.94% |
| Tax year 2026, promulgated Oct. 1, 2026 | 60.06% |
That's a drop of about 12 points across four tables. The ratio falls when sale prices rise faster than assessments, and assessments stay mostly fixed until a town revalues. Every year of drift adds more room for the tax burden to shift once values are reset.
That's why Cliffside Park's spot on the county's 2027 list matters. The list is dated January 7, 2026, and the county says it is subject to change at any time. As of that date, Cliffside Park is in the 2027 group, along with Fort Lee, Englewood, Tenafly and about twenty other Bergen County towns.
Why Comparing Tax Rates Across Towns Misleads
Buyers often put Cliffside Park side by side with Edgewater and Fort Lee. Cliffside Park's general rate looks high next to Edgewater's, but the general rate only means something together with the ratio behind it. The Division of Taxation describes the general rate as the multiplier for an actual tax bill. It describes the effective rate as a statistic for comparing towns, not a rate for figuring an individual bill.
| Town | 2025 general rate | 2025 effective rate | 2026 average ratio | County revaluation group |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cliffside Park | 2.836 | 1.920 | 60.06% | 2027 |
| Fort Lee | 2.700 | 1.839 | 60.88% | 2027 |
| Edgewater | 1.645 | 1.545 | 91.93% | 2026 |
| Leonia | 3.609 | 2.199 | 100.16% | 2026 |
The 2025 rates are the latest the state has posted.
Leonia shows why the general rate alone misleads. It has the highest general rate in the table, 3.609, but its assessments sit right at market value. On the comparison measure, its 2025 effective rate of 2.199 is not far from Cliffside Park's 1.920.
The table also shows a timing gap. Edgewater and Leonia both appear on the Division of Taxation's 2026 Approved Revaluations and Reassessments list, updated May 13, 2026, and their ratios now sit at 91.93% and 100.16%. Appraisal Systems lists Leonia's 2026 reassessment as complete. Cliffside Park and Fort Lee are both near 60% and both scheduled for 2027. A buyer choosing between Edgewater and Cliffside Park is comparing a town whose assessments were recently brought up to date with one whose assessments are still due for a reset.
A Revaluation Shifts the Burden Between Owners
A revaluation doesn't automatically raise every bill. The borough still needs to raise the same budget. The difference is how that total gets divided among properties once every assessment is reset to current market value.
Leonia went through this in 2026, and its mayor described it to residents before the new values went out. In a February 18, 2026 update on the Borough of Leonia's website, Mayor Bill Ziegler wrote:
"At its core, a re-assessment is a redistribution of the tax burden based on current property values."
In the same update, he said Leonia's previous reassessment had been completed in 2014. He also reported projections from the preliminary results by Appraisal Systems, Inc.:
- About 51.4% of properties were projected to see lower taxes, and about 45.3% higher, compared with 2025 taxes.
- The northeast corner of town, which he called the "old golf course" area, saw consistently strong value increases, so most homeowners there were likely to pay a larger share.
- Commercial values rose faster than residential ones, so the share of taxes paid by homeowners was projected to drop from about 93% to 86%.
These were projections at the time, but they show how a revaluation works. The result depends on how a property's value changed compared with every other property in town. Rising values across the town are not enough to predict any one owner's new bill. Ziegler also noted that owners who declined an interior inspection were assessed from neighborhood comparables at what he called the property's "highest potential value."
For Cliffside Park, the same logic applies to a borough with high-rise condominiums along the ridge, older houses and two-family homes on the side streets, and commercial property on Anderson Avenue. Each type of property has moved at its own pace since the current assessments were set. A revaluation would rebalance all of them at once, and the listing's current tax figure shows none of it.
Dates That Matter for a Cliffside Park Purchase
These are the published rules and figures a buyer or owner may want to have in hand before the 2027 cycle:
- October 1, 2026. The state set Cliffside Park's average ratio at 60.06% for 2027 tax appeals. That ratio produces a "common level range" of 51.05% to 69.07%. The Division of Taxation defines that range as plus or minus 15% of the town's average ratio. It uses the range to judge whether an assessment is out of line.
- The 2027 revaluation group. The county's list puts Cliffside Park in it but notes the schedule can change. The borough's Tax Assessor's office is the local office responsible for valuation.
- April 1 and May 1. According to the Division of Taxation, tax appeals to the county board or the State Tax Court must be filed and received by April 1. When a town has undertaken a revaluation or reassessment, the deadline moves to May 1.
The same Division page says an owner who appeals must prove the assessment is unreasonable compared with a market-value standard. This is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Anyone thinking about an appeal, or budgeting a purchase around a future tax bill, should check their own situation with a tax attorney, accountant or the assessor's office.
For a buyer, the practical takeaway is simple. Treat the tax figure on a Cliffside Park listing as a starting point for questions about the property's assessment. For a seller, the borough's 60.06% average ratio is the same figure a buyer's advisor will use to estimate how the property's assessment might move in a reset.
If you're weighing a Cliffside Park condo or house against an Edgewater or Fort Lee option and want to understand what each tax bill is based on before you make an offer, The Selleck Group can go through the assessment numbers with you, building by building, in a calm, no-pressure strategy session. Schedule a Consultation.
