Town By Town: Houses go quickly here
One in a continuing series spotlighting real estate markets in the region's communities. Jane Wellbrock could have moved from Pennsbury Township after her husband died and her family moved away, but the place where she's lived for more than 30 years had too much of a hold on her.
One in a continuing series spotlighting real estate markets in the region's communities.
Jane Wellbrock could have moved from Pennsbury Township after her husband died and her family moved away, but the place where she's lived for more than 30 years had too much of a hold on her.
"It is a perfect location, with Longwood Gardens on one side and the Brandywine River Museum on the other," says Wellbrock, a Weichert Realtors agent. "What more could you ask for?"
More homes for sale in this Chester County community might be one thing on the wish list of young families looking to get a foothold in the prized Unionville-Chadds Ford School District.
There are just 39 active listings here, ranging from $118,000 for what Wellbrock describes as a "cabin" to $2.4 million for a new estate home.
The shortage of for-sale inventory is reflected in the number of sales in the last six months: just 35, she says.
"People who want the school district must be willing to pay in the mid-$600,000 range," Wellbrock says, adding that anything for sale below $1.2 million is, like her house, 30 years old.
Second-quarter numbers from Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Fox & Roach Realtors' HomExpert Market Report show that 22 of the 35 sales in the first six months of 2015 closed between April 1 and June 30, the all-important spring real estate market.
The median sale price (half the houses sold for more, half for less) was $475,000, down nearly 23 percent from $615,000 in second quarter 2014, although the average sale price for the quarter was $625,387, 2 percent higher than last year.
Houses in the surrounding townships - Pocopson, Birmingham, and East Marlborough, as well as Chadds Ford Township, Delaware County - fall into the same price range.
"There are no bargains here," Wellbrock says.
What is on the market sells very quickly, she notes.
"The last two houses I sold in my neighborhood went for $650,000 after multiple offers, and in an instant," says Wellbrock. She and her late husband paid $325,000 for theirs 30 years ago.
"If the kitchen is updated and there's a master bath, [a house] will sell like crazy," she says.
Many houses going on the market have a stuccoed exterior, and prospective sellers are removing it and replacing it with vinyl siding, Wellbrock says.
Real estate agents have been citing problems with stucco, and it is one problem that homeowners are attacking, along with roof replacement, before they put their houses on the market, she says.
"When they have done these things, if I don't have multiple offers in 48 hours, I'll eat my hat," Wellbrock promises.
There isn't much new construction here, she says, and Pennsbury's Board of Supervisors and residents are making a major push to preserve as much open space as they can.
Last year, the supervisors sent a questionnaire to residents, to gauge their feelings about open space. One called Pennsbury "a rural oasis between Kennett and Concord Townships," according to a newsletter.
In November, after a 10-year effort by residents, the supervisors voted to buy three properties totaling 23 acres, adjacent to the township building and park at Hickory Hill Road and Route 1, from a Toll Bros. subsidiary that had acquired the land by sheriff's sale.
The township's 54-acre park has tables and benches, as well as a "bark park" installed in 2010.
Pennsbury's approximately 3,600 residents live in a 10-square-mile area that "still is country, with no big developments," says Wellbrock.
The population grew slightly more than 32 percent between 1980 and 2000, while adjacent communities added 60 percent and more people, Pennsbury's website shows.
Wellbrock, and residents in general, like the rural feel here, which she summarized in a description of Brandywine Ace Hardware on Pocopson Road - "an old-fashioned place where they fix anything."
Wellbrock and her family moved from affluent Short Hills, N.J., when her husband got a job in Newtown Square, and she acknowledges that they were looking for a community without pretension.
"My husband thought I was crazy when I asked to stop at the elementary school to see what the kids were wearing," she said. "They were wearing Walmart."
They looked no further.
215-854-2472@alheavens
Town By Town: Pennsbury Township by the Numbers
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Population: 3,604 (2010)
Median household income: $124,896 (2013)
Area: 10 square miles
Settlements in the last three months: 22
Homes for sale: 39
Average days on market: 100
Median sale price: $475,000
Housing stock: 1,438 units, mostly 30 years old or more; some new and higher priced
School district: Unionville-Chadds Ford
SOURCES: U.S. Census Bureau; Pennsbury Township; Jane Wellbrock, Weichert Realtors, Chadds Ford; Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Fox & Roach Realtors HomExpert Market Report
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