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Town By Town: In Wenonah, 'a special little town'

One in a continuing series spotlighting real estate markets in the region's communities. To real estate agent Patricia Settar, Wenonah is a "Norman Rockwell kind of place."

On South East Avenue. In Gloucester County, only Harrison and South Harrison Townships had higher median prices in the second quarter. ( DAVID M WARREN / Staff Photographer )
On South East Avenue. In Gloucester County, only Harrison and South Harrison Townships had higher median prices in the second quarter. ( DAVID M WARREN / Staff Photographer )Read more

One in a continuing series spotlighting real estate markets in the region's communities.

To real estate agent Patricia Settar, Wenonah is a "Norman Rockwell kind of place."

To agent Mark Honabach, the one-square-mile borough is "the Haddonfield of Gloucester County."

Add close-knit and family-oriented, throw in a beautiful lake, ponds, hiking trails, a teahouse, a restored train station, and 800 houses of almost every size and style, and you've got Wenonah.

Or at least a good idea of what you'll see here.

Even if you don't plan to buy a house, the borough is worth a visit - five minutes to I-295 and two to Route 55, which puts it about 45 minutes from the Shore, says Honabach, an agent at Weichert Realtors.

"It's a special little town," Angus Lamb of Keller Williams Realty says, with its Fourth of July Parade and celebration at Comey's Lake Teahouse, Halloween in the Park, the Wenonah Swim Club, and the Christmas tree lighting.

Wenonah's problem, and Honabach's as well, is there just isn't enough for sale to meet demand. In this fall's market, that's the reverse of what agents in other parts of the region are saying.

"I've been through just about every house in the borough at one time or another, and I know how they should be priced for the market," he says, so if they aren't moving, the price is not correct.

For-sale inventory shortages are chronic here.

For a year and a half, Lamb says, "I had been working with a buyer who had been looking for the right house in Wenonah. . . . We found the right house and made an offer and were outbid in 24 hours."

The prospective buyer ended up with a place in Collingswood, he says.

Housing stock in this community on Mantua Creek - which had its start in 1870 as a resort for wealthy Philadelphians - ranges from 100-year-old-plus Victorians and Arts and Crafts bungalows to 60-year-old ranchers on small lots.

Prices here can be as low as $185,000 for a mid-20th-century house in need of some work, or as high as $1.1 million - that's what the 12,000-square-foot Comey House and cottage, with six acres, sold for in April.

"The cottage, which were originally servants' quarters, accounted for $200,000 of the sale price," says Honabach, noting that the mansion, built by Robert A. Comey between 1901 and 1905, is one-of-a-kind in Wenonah.

"I had a buyer for it at a higher price, but it kept the appraisers scratching their heads because there were no comparable sales," he says.

That $1.1 million is the highest price of 2014, which has seen the largest number of property transactions since the early days of the housing downturn in 2008, Honabach says.

"So far this year, there have been 33 sales, compared with 23 in 2008," he says.

Settar, an agent at Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Fox & Roach Realtors, says the number of sales and the number of active listings, 31, are very close, which indicates a good market.

You can buy an updated house with four bedrooms and 1 1/2 baths for $300,000, she says.

"Let's just say $320,000 will get you a nice house in Wenonah," which typically has higher sale prices than most surrounding towns.

The median sale price here in the second quarter was $265,900, while Gloucester County's overall median was $185,000. Only Harrison and South Harrison Townships, centers of new-home construction, had higher median prices than Wenonah.

With the exception of some teardowns and infill construction, the last building boom here occurred 20 years ago, when the Woods of Wenonah was built - 20 houses, with the largest about 5,000 square feet, Honabach says.

"I sold that in 2008 for $825,000," he says.

One house now for sale and listed at $459,000 is nearly 4,000 square feet.

Taxes are high here, as is the case in much of the South Jersey market, especially "since it has its own school system to Grade 6 and its own police department," Lamb says. "That leads to its charm and its higher real estate taxes."

The 2013 tax bill for that current Woods of Wenonah listing was $21,330. (The county's assessed value for the house is $675,000.)

Wenonah "is an older, established town where people tend to stay on, so there isn't much turnover," Settar says.

Honabach calls it a community "where several generations of the same family live, and I often find myself selling houses to people who have grown up here."

The higher-end houses "attract a lot of county officials," Settar says, recalling that she once showed one to a judge.

Unique houses abound here, not only mansions from the Victorian era but also what Honabach describes as being "tucked away in the woods" on South Stockton Street, "one that overlooks the lake looking for a unique buyer."

If you want to start from scratch, he says, there are still a few lots for sale, including one at a bargain $69,000.

Recent buyers of Honabach's listings have come from Camden County, Sicklerville, and Philadelphia.

The Comey House buyer was from Princeton. Lamb had a buyer who settled at the end of October into a Craftsman bungalow, downsizing from a much larger house in Mullica Hill.

"Homes are constantly being updated and renovated," Lamb says. "Sellers can get good deals because Wenonah holds its value better than other towns and is always in demand."

Despite the high taxes, as a resident once told him, "Wenonah is a lifestyle."

"Not everyone gets it or gets in," Lamb says.

Wenonah By the Numbers

Population: 2,278 (2010).

Median income: $103,403 (2010).

Area: 629 acres.

Settlements in the last three months: 7.

Homes for sale: 31.

Days on market: 105.

Median price: $265,900.

Housing stock: About 800 units of about every style from the last 150 years.

School district: Wenonah K-6; Gateway Regional.

SOURCES: U.S. Census Bureau; City-Data.com; Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Fox & Roach HomExpert Market Report; Realtors interviewed

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