It's the schools that draw home buyers here

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

You cannot have Birmingham Township without the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District.

"It isn't an inexpensive place to live in, but it is one that having one of the best school districts around makes very desirable," says Barbara M. Mastronardo, an agent with Weichert Realtors in Media, who sells in the Chester County township.

Make that the venerable Chester County township, site of the 1777 Battle of Brandywine during the American Revolution. We lost, and Philadelphia hosted the British for the next several months.

The school district, with 4,000 students, encompasses 77 square miles and seven towns. Unionville-Chadds Ford has the third-highest SAT scores in Pennsylvania - an average score of just under 1200 - with 100 percent of its students graduating high school and 96 percent of the Class of 2014 going on to college.

Real estate in the district's towns tends to be more expensive than in municipalities in nearby districts - notably West Chester Area and Garnet Valley, which also are highly rated, Mastronardo says.

"The main competition is Garnet Valley," she says, with Bethel and Concord Townships [in Delaware County] as the alternative for many buyers whose first choice is Unionville-Chadds Ford."

The median sale price in Birmingham Township is $539,950 (half the houses sold for more, half for less). That's up 35 percent from a year ago.

Neighboring Pocopson Township, also in the Unionville-Chadds Ford district, has a median sale price of $400,000, 2.8 percent lower than last year.

Bethel Township's median sale price is $385,000, up 13.2 percent from the same period of 2015.

"School districts are typically on the top of these buyers' lists," she says.

Because of Birmingham's proximity to Delaware, the township is a big draw for corporate executives and physicians in that state's medical centers, Mastronardo says.

"A lot of the highest-paid executives buy in Delaware's 'chateau country' around Greenville, northwest of Wilmington, and send their children to private schools," she says. But Birmingham "is a big market for relocating employees, since it is 40 minutes from Philadelphia International Airport and there are major roads close by."

There are 22 active listings in Birmingham, Mastronardo says, ranging from a four-bedroom, 11/2-bath, 146-year-old single-family house on Old Wilmington Pike going for $299,000, to a five-bedroom, 39-year-old Colonial-style single, with five full and two half-baths, on five acres for $1.99 million.

You need to be aware of deed restrictions when you buy a single house in Birmingham, many of which are on lots of five acres or more.

"If you put up a fence across your land, you will have to remove it when there are hunts," Mastronardo says. "This is horse country, after all."

If no one else listed a house for sale, Birmingham would sell out of active listings in 21/2 months.

Though the prices here look somewhat hefty for first-time buyers, "there are townhouses available for starter homes," she says.

Birmingham Hunt is a subdivision of townhouses and detached singles built by Southdown Homes in the late 1990s.

If you are looking for townhouses, "you are better off in Chadds Ford, where there are more of them," Mastronardo says.

Eleven sales are pending here, ranging in price from $389,000 to $1.99 million.

Of the 12 houses that sold in the three months ending March 30, eight were singles, and four were townhouses, says Mastronardo, who adds that she is "a great fan" of Birmingham Township.

There isn't much development here, which wasn't always the case, she says.

Until the 1970s, Birmingham was a small town of fewer than 500 people. But when Imperial Chemical Industries acquired Atlas Chemical Industries just over the line in Delaware in 1971, the township began to grow, says Mastronardo, who worked for ICI for several years.

Birmingham's population grew by 84 percent between 1970 and 1980, U.S. Census data show, and 90 percent in the following decade.

AstraZeneca grew out of Atlas, and its headquarters is on the same site, Mastronardo says.

"It is in a great location, right between West Chester and Wilmington," Mastronardo says.

aheavens@phillynews.com

215-854-2472 @alheavens