Subdivisions in Dover (real estate, apartment complex, foreclosures)

[Vin100]

Hi,

I am looking to buy a house in Dover and would like your suggestions on few sub-divisions/ communities.
Kindly suggest regarding neighborhood, crime, value retaining power aka resalaebility/ ability to rent out after 2-3 years. I am mainly looking at Independence village, Four Seasons (near Walker Rd), areas near Schutte park/ Village of Westover, areas near Mayfair Park. Does the resale value or ability to rent out the house differs if the house in 1 mile vs 5 miles away from DAFB considering most of the rentals are military personnel? Also, are ranches equally popular to colonials in this part of country?

Shall appreciate any suggestions on these or any other communities.
Thanks

[JPT]

Originally Posted by Vin100

Hi,

I am looking to buy a house in Dover and would like your suggestions on few sub-divisions/ communities.
Kindly suggest regarding neighborhood, crime, value retaining power aka resalaebility/ ability to rent out after 2-3 years. I am mainly looking at Independence village, Four Seasons (near Walker Rd), areas near Schutte park/ Village of Westover, areas near Mayfair Park. Does the resale value or ability to rent out the house differs if the house in 1 mile vs 5 miles away from DAFB considering most of the rentals are military personnel? Also, are ranches equally popular to colonials in this part of country?

Shall appreciate any suggestions on these or any other communities.
Thanks

Hi there,

I have lived in several different areas of Dover since 2005. Here are my thoughts:

If you are looking for some of the nicest areas in town, I would go with Fox Hall or Downtown Dover. Downtown Dover has nice properties, some of which carry a historic designation. You mentioned an interest in Colonial-style homes, so you may want to look here. There are nice properties that are near Silver Lake park, such as the houses in the vicinity of State Street. A word of caution: there are a few blocks (New Street, Queen Street) that are centered right around Wesley College that are high crime and drug areas that should probably be avoided.

Fox Hall is a pricier and more upscale neighborhood with large, well maintained homes here. From what I have seen for these two neighborhoods, they have good resale value in general. Fox Hall is a 14 minute drive to the base.

Independence Village is so-so. These are mostly ranch-style homes with fenced in back yards. I actually live right next to this neighborhood now. This part of town has easy access to Rt. 13 and it is right off of a Rt. 1 southbound exit ramp and northbound onramp, so easy access to get on the highway and get where you need to go fast. It is about a 10 minute drive to the base from here.

Mayfair is a decent neighborhood. The homes are older but well maintained. It's a 10 minute drive to the base and it's really close to Rt. 13, so convenient location.

Four Seasons, I'm not familiar with, but it is located near Walker road. There are some areas of Walker Road that you may want to avoid due to crime problems.

Village of Westover, while I haven't read or heard anything overly negative about this neighborhood, I would say look elsewhere. I have driven through it many times. It is a mixture of single family homes, townhouses, and also an apartment complex nestled within it. It is on the west end of town, so it's going to be a longer drive to the base (14 minutes), and by the look of many homes, it doesn't look like the properties here are as well maintained compared to the other neighborhoods mentioned here.

You also asked about 1 mile versus 5 miles from base making a difference? I guess that depends on how much people care about their commute. If you live within city limits, at most, your commute might be 20 minutes. If you live within 1-5 miles of the base, your commute is going to probably be 10 minutes max.

As far as the ability to rent out to military people? Honestly, I've seen military people who live all over town. Are they concentrated closer to base? This is likely, but remember that Dover is a pretty small town, so again, anywhere within city limits is not that far of a drive, in my opinion. In my neighborhood near Independence Village, I have seen 5 military families or individuals so far who own their homes, one of whom just sold their house since they are moving to Germany. I think it sold within a week or two after it went on the market.

As far as the homes maintaining their value? When I was looking to buy my first home in 2016, I remember driving all over town to just about every neighborhood. There were many foreclosures back then. I think the market was just starting to recover. So back then, you could've gotten a lot of these forecloses for half their value. In my part of town, the values are definitely going up. Properties in my neighborhood (near Independence Village) have gone up by $20-30K since 2016. I'm sure that's likely not too far off for other parts of town.

From what I can see, it looks like ranch-style homes are more plentiful than colonial-style in Dover, but I'm not sure that this would have much of an effect on resale value. Is one more popular than the other? I would say ranch-style probably wins out because of volume, but this is going to come down to personal preference.

Final word: In my opinion, I would go with either Mayfair or Independence Village. Independence Village is closer, but I think Mayfair is a little bit nicer overall, so you may have better resale values in the end.

Hope this helps you and good luck.

[Vin100]

Thanks JPT for such an extensive detailed explanation.

I am not a military personnel who is interested in living closer to base. I am a physician relocating to Dover and would like to live closer to Kent hospital. The reason I asked about DAFB was because if I plan to move out of Dover after 3 years, then I would either have to sell the house that I buy or rent it out, and hence want to know about resale/ rental potentials too, besides wanting to live in a decent area without crime.

I currently live in a colonial, but of late I am getting interested in ranch because I feel that may be more easy living considering I shall be living alone and visiting my family on the weekends in DC or occasionally they may come over on my call weekends. Not a deal breaker between ranch or colonial.
Surprisingly, all the real estate agents that I came across say that ranches are hard to find since they infrequently come on the market. I am looking for a smaller place, easy to manage due to my busy schedule.

I was interested in the downtown area, but most realtors and people discouraged me due to crime. I know New street and Queen Street are high crime areas, but what about their neighboring streets.. the crime may spill over since its difficult to categorically demarcate.

Any thoughts about N. West Street or Periwinkle Drive ? What sort of neighborhood are they ? Neighborhoods like bicentennial have larger homes. Fox hall seems nice neighborhood however, I am trying to avoid larger homes and want a smaller place to live comfortably with less hassles.

I looked at Independence village and one of the realtors told me she knows somebody who lives there and is very happy. However other realtor was not sure about the neighborhood.
I asked about Mayfair because I am seeing that houses get sold very fast in that area or easily go on rental, though on driving through that area I was not sure if it was that well kept.
Also looking at Tidbury Crossing, but its a little further down south and with ever continuing construction of new homes in that area, home prices will never rise. Thats what I thought?

Another thought was of renting a place for 3 yrs, but I feel that renting for 3 years will be a total waste of money. However, I was surprised to see the closing costs of buying a house in Delaware and not sure if buying is a good idea unless I plan to keep for at least 5 years though I am committed to the area for about 3 yrs. Buying can be a better financial decision only if I anticipate price escalations..again which is difficult to predict in this uncertain economy.

Any suggestions for short term rentals since I may need to rent out for a couple of months till my home purchase fructifies.