For sale in Fishtown, Moorestown, and Lansdowne | Real Estate Newsletter
And mansions for under $1 million.
Last month, the median home sale price in the Philly metro area hit a record for July — $420,000.
So what can a budget like that get you these days?
I compared three homes for sale with the same price tag in Fishtown, Moorestown, and Lansdowne. It’s part of a feature I’m doing every month or so in a series called The Price Point.
Read on for details and photos of these three very different homes for sale.
Keep scrolling for that story and more in this week’s edition:
Cost of a status symbol: See how the Philly region compares with other markets when it comes to the value of mansions.
Paying for new: Find out why newly built homes in Pennsylvania cost so much more than existing homes.
Art Alliance’s rebirth: Learn about the repairs planned for a historic former mansion on Rittenhouse Square that was seriously damaged in a fire.
Customized home: Peek inside a South Philly loft that used to be a carpenter’s workshop.
— Michaelle Bond
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A Victorian in Lansdowne. A rancher in Moorestown. A condo in Fishtown.
They’re different styles, come in different sizes, and are located in different neighborhoods, but they’re all listed for sale at the same price.
It’s time for the latest edition of The Price Point, the recurring feature I introduced last month.
This month, I looked at:
🥬 A Victorian twin with backyard vegetable beds and gardens in a historic district in Lansdowne.
🧑🏾🦽 A ranch home that a previous owner made wheelchair accessible in Moorestown.
😋 A newly built condo that’s close to the many amenities Fishtown has to offer.
Take a look for yourself and choose your favorite.
📮 Which would you pick and why? Share your thoughts.
Now, let’s turn to a topic we can all relate to: the cost of mansions these days.
There are more than 32,000 of these homes in and around Philly, according to Zillow.
We all might have different ideas of what a mansion is, but Zillow defines it as a home with at least 5,000 square feet of finished living space. Mansions remain a cultural “status symbol,” an economist told me.
Soaring home prices over the last few years mean buyers now are less likely to find a mansion that costs under $1 million.
But in our area, more than one in five mansions still falls into this category.
To see how mansion values in our region compare to values in other markets, keep reading.
The latest news to pay attention to
Pennsylvania is one of two states where the typical new home costs more than double the price of an existing one.
Repairs are underway at the historic Art Alliance building on Rittenhouse Square after a fire seriously damaged the former mansion.
This Pennsylvania furniture company created an iconic design style that changed the way American homes looked.
Neighbors say that a Fairmount property where a fire killed 12 people was left to become a neighborhood nuisance in the years since.
Frankford High’s grand Gothic Revival building, which was closed for years because of asbestos, has reopened after a $30 million refresh.
The city ruled that Lincoln High can put 900 students in trailers to relieve overcrowding over the objections of neighbors.
The Heritage West Community Archaeology Project is sharing the artifacts it recovered from the former Black Bottom neighborhood in West Philly.
A judge ordered Philly to stop taking parking spaces on Pine and Spruce Streets for bike-friendly loading zones.
House of the week: For $426,000 in Spring Garden, a condo built in 1717 that has original architectural details.
Howie Krakow and Deborah Fine‘s home was once a carpenter’s workshop. But the couple has transformed it into a customized loft.
The space still has 14-foot ceilings and some exposed brick, but that’s about all that remains from the original design. Even the home’s poured concrete floor is new.
Krakow said everything was custom built, including:
a concrete double sink in the primary bathroom
a stainless steel kitchen island with recessed sink
a marble-walled wet room that includes a dual-headed shower, large bathtub, and sauna
My favorite change the owners made was taking out a piece of the roof from the center of the building to create an interior courtyard full of plants. The space fills the house with light, so the home doesn’t feel like a dark warehouse, Krakow said.
Inside, the homeowners prioritized creating an open floor plan on the first floor, which has hardly any interior walls.
Take a peek inside the home.
📷 Photo quiz
Do you know the location this photo shows?
📮 If you think you do, email me back. You and your memories at this spot might be featured in the newsletter.
Shout-out to Margaret D., who knew that last week’s photo quiz showed rowers under the Strawberry Mansion Bridge.
“Two of my older sisters were rowers for Nazareth and the Mount, and Vesper during club season, in the early 2000s and I remember going to their races as a young kid with my family,” she told me.
Enjoy the rest of your week.
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