Camden County, NJ
Buying City-Owned Land in Camden, New Jersey
Camden city is one of the New Jersey municipalities the state's 2019 Land Bank Law was written with specifically in mind. If you're looking at a vacant lot, a tax-foreclosed parcel, or a city-owned property inside Camden, the Camden Redevelopment Agency -- not a conventional real estate listing -- is the realistic starting point.
This page covers what's specific to Camden County. For the general explanation, see the national guide.
Who actually controls Camden city vacant land
The Camden Redevelopment Agency (CRA) is the city's primary vehicle for acquiring, holding, and disposing of vacant, tax-delinquent, and city-owned property, operating under New Jersey's state redevelopment statute, which grants the CRA authority to acquire real property in designated redevelopment areas, hold it, and ultimately sell or transfer it to developers or individual buyers. The CRA's own property inventory -- viewable through its Real Estate section -- lists vacant lots, tax-foreclosed structures, and surplus parcels the agency currently controls, spanning individual side yards and small residential lots up to larger scattered-site parcels the agency solicits through formal Requests for Proposals (RFPs) for redevelopment.
The City of Camden separately maintains its own "City Properties" listing and FAQ describing city-owned inventory outside the CRA's specific redevelopment holdings, so a thorough search for available land should check both the CRA's inventory and the city's own property listings rather than assuming one source is complete.
New Jersey's Land Bank Law and why it matters here
Governor Murphy signed New Jersey's Land Bank Law (P.L. 2019, c.159) in July 2019 specifically to give cities like Newark, Paterson, Trenton, and Camden a dedicated legal tool for assembling and reviving blighted or abandoned property. Under the law, a municipality designates a land bank entity -- which can be a redevelopment agency (like the CRA), a county improvement authority, or a municipal department -- and adopts a formal Land Bank Agreement spelling out that entity's powers and the conditions under which it can acquire, hold, and dispose of property on the municipality's behalf.
A designated land bank entity gets real acquisition tools beyond a conventional buyer's or even a conventional redevelopment agency's reach: it can obtain property at low or no cost through the tax foreclosure process, accept property by contribution, gift, grant, bequest, or purchase, act as the municipality's agent to purchase liens at a tax sale and carry out lien foreclosures, and, where independently authorized by other law, use eminent domain -- the 2019 law itself doesn't expand eminent domain authority beyond what already existed, but it does streamline how an entity that already has that authority can put it to use for land assembly. For a prospective buyer, this matters because it means a meaningful share of Camden's vacant and abandoned inventory can move through this land bank/tax-foreclosure pipeline before it's ever offered for a conventional sale -- getting on the CRA's radar early, rather than waiting for a property to surface through ordinary channels, is a real strategic difference here.
The actual process: who to call and what to submit
To inquire about purchasing a specific CRA-owned vacant lot, side yard, or other property, contact the CRA's Property Asset Manager directly by phone at (856) 757-6907 or by email, and be prepared to complete a Real Estate Asset Management Inquiry form -- available in person at the CRA's office on the 13th floor of Camden City Hall (520 Market Street, Camden, NJ 08101). For larger parcels the CRA is actively marketing for redevelopment, check the agency's current Request for Proposals listings directly on its own site, since these are typically awarded through a competitive, sealed-bid or proposal process rather than a simple purchase-and-sale negotiation.
Before committing time to a specific Camden city parcel, confirm directly with the CRA (and, separately, the City of Camden's own property office) whether the property sits in the CRA's redevelopment inventory, the city's general property listing, or neither -- and ask specifically whether it's subject to an active RFP process, a pending tax-foreclosure action, or a land bank designation, since each of those tracks carries a different acquisition process, timeline, and set of conditions (redevelopment covenants, in particular, are common on CRA-disposed parcels and can restrict future use). A conventional title search and survey remain essential regardless of which office controls the property -- redevelopment-agency and tax-foreclosure histories can carry lien and title complications a standard residential purchase wouldn't.
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- City of Camden Redevelopment Agency FAQ — City of Camden, NJ (accessed 2026-09)
- Camden Redevelopment Agency -- Property Inventory — Camden Redevelopment Agency (accessed 2026-09)
- Camden Redevelopment Agency -- RFPs / Bid Requests — Camden Redevelopment Agency (accessed 2026-09)
- City Properties -- The City of Camden — City of Camden, NJ (accessed 2026-09)
- Murphy signs 'land bank' bill allowing cities to assemble, revive blighted property — Real Estate NJ (accessed 2026-09)
- P.L. 2019, c.159 (S1214 2R) -- New Jersey Land Bank Law — New Jersey Legislature (accessed 2026-09)
- Land Banks in New Jersey 101 — Center for Community Progress (accessed 2026-09)
Last reviewed 2026-09