Sean Ryan is associate editor of Real Estate New Jersey last Friday

"The bulk of the tenants in Eastern Monmouth County service the contracts of the government," says Suzanne Macnow, senior associate at CB Richard Ellis in its East Brunswick office. "Over 70% of the Avenue of Commons tenants in Shrewsbury service the government. If the fort closed, and all that business went away, it would be devastating to the Eastern Monmouth market."

Fort Monmouth is the largest of the military bases affected in New Jersey. The possible shuttering will take 620 military jobs and 4,652 civilian jobs out of the area. Other bases are picking up jobs, including Fort Dix and McGuire Air Force Base for military jobs and the Picatinny Arsenal for civilian positions. Even with these, New Jersey will have a net loss of 3,713 civilian jobs and 47 military positions if the current closings and realignments are approved.

"It's a pretty serious impact on a fragile market. The market has just begun to pick up, and just begun to begin looking like good things. And this'll be disastrous," Gross adds. "I would think the housing market would be even worse. Several of the service people on the base have houses off the base, in addition to the civilians servicing the base."