Urban neighborhoods / suburban, city adjacent areas $650K budget (Philadelphia, Avalon: transplants, real estate)

[PHL10]

Originally Posted by T. Damon

We live in a compact historic house with a nice garden just a 5 minute walk to great restaurants and neighborhood bars and a half hour walk to downtown. We hang out with most of our neighbors socially and are very connected to the neighborhood and city with season tickets to baseball, hockey, ballet and theater and weekly walks to galleries and neighborhood festivals.

Wow, that's sounds fantastic. What's the motive to move?

[kyb01]

Originally Posted by 2e1m5a

Most rowhomes in Philly are SFH and many have small yards in the back-some also have a front porch and/or front yard too.


I'd recommend Fitler Square which is in Center City but is mostly small rowhomes with tiny backyards compared to Rittenhouse Square which has many high rise buildings and brownstone style homes---3-5 stories- often subdivided, although some remain as the original huge SFH. Also I'd look at homes near the Art Museum and Fairmount neighborhoods, which are just outside Center City and mostly SFH. Another idea is University City Area--Spruce Hill/Clark Park. These are some of the first "streetcar suburbs" in the country with many trolley lines still operating (they go underground near Clark Park into Center City). Many of the homes here are large 3 story Victorian twins with more yard---you could buy a Multi-unit to cut your expenses if that much home isn't needed.

They are probably priced out of Fairmount/Art Museum nowadays unless, as you mention, they are okay with a multi-unit place.

[JacksonPanther]

Originally Posted by kyb01

They are probably priced out of Fairmount/Art Museum nowadays unless, as you mention, they are okay with a multi-unit place.

What budget is required to get into a Fairmount home?

What about Fitler Square?

[PHL10]

Originally Posted by JacksonPanther

What budget is required to get into a Fairmount home?

What about Fitler Square?

Provided that you don't need to be in the choicest areas of Fairmount, there are plenty of options in Fairmount for $650k. Example:
https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sal...34_rect/15_zm/
Shoot, If you are ok being closer to Poplar and don't need alot of space, you can get into 2-story row for $350k.


In Fitler, it would be tougher but might work for something on the smaller side. Example:
https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sal...52_rect/15_zm/

[kyb01]

Originally Posted by JacksonPanther

What budget is required to get into a Fairmount home?

What about Fitler Square?

There's an article on philly curbed for a 3 story house on N 20th St. in Fairmount. Asking price over 700K. Depending on the condition that price is probably not atypical nowadays.

The condo at 1709 Green St in Spring Garden, that was brought up on another thread, is over 300K.

[kyb01]

Originally Posted by PHL10

Provided that you don't need to be in the choicest areas of Fairmount, there are plenty of options in Fairmount for $650k. Example:
https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sal...34_rect/15_zm/
Shoot, If you are ok being closer to Poplar and don't need alot of space, you can get into 2-story row for $350k.


In Fitler, it would be tougher but might work for something on the smaller side. Example:
https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sal...52_rect/15_zm/

Technically Uber St is in Francisville because it's north of Fairmount Ave. In any case there are better and newer options right on Uber as there are on Poplar. But are any of them on the market right now? Probably not.

[T. Damon]

Originally Posted by PHL10

Wow, that's sounds fantastic. What's the motive to move?

Honestly, it is, and moving is only yet one possibility of retirement. We may very well stay here, the beautiful little house is paid for and the neighborhood and city are generally-(traffic, drought and wildfires take its toll) only getting better. We feel very lucky to have bought at the right time and in the neighborhood that transformed probably more than any other in the city (dumb luck). But we’ve been here for 30 years (city, house for 22) and may yearn for something more drastic of a change than just more frequent travel to denser, urban cities with four seasons.

We also have a whole crew of friends and relatives from my husband’s upbringing in Gloucester, Mass that we are very close to especially our grand nephews and nieces growing up. We’ve been together for going on 33 years so the niece that was three when I first met her and taught how to flick bottle caps is now a new mother along with her sisters, their husbands and beautiful kids.

I don’t think we would move just for that but if the city and area is an intense draw for us it and ticks most of our other boxes it certainly would be frosting on the cake.

Just for now all the advice and recommendations from everyone are very appreciated and more than enough for us to dig down a little bit on our own. We can keep an eye on the market and the types of housing products out there to better gauge as to the viability of this as a plan. We definitely will be visiting again soon and scope out some of these areas more closely. Maybe we start out renting, using income from renting out our house for a year or two to see if it really a city for us.

But for now, this is the only city that has piqued our interest enough to seriously consider moving from our sweet slice of coastal California.

Thanks again for all the info!

When you come out this way or are thinking of it be sure to look me up and I’ll gladly point you to some good destinations and corners that you would enjoy.

Cheers!

[Avalon08]

I am always so excited when I hear that someone loves my hometown! So I'm from the Philly suburbs and have also lived in Huntington Beach and am now in Florida. I don't have direct Center-City-living experience, but that's where I would want to be. I'm not that familiar with all the neighborhoods but of course I love the Rittenhouse Square area. My dentist (and I still fly up from Florida to see her) is at 15th and Locust and I just love the energy and vibrancy of being in the city.

Of course, my primary caution to you is going to be the weather. I know you're already aware of the winters, which really are not all that bad -- 40s day/30s night except for occasional colder snaps. Snow is all over the map -- sometimes it's a lot, sometimes hardly any. The summer heat/humidity can be brutal, though, and it can last a long time. I actually find it more oppressive than where I am in Florida, but maybe that's because I'm near the water. So I was in HEAVEN when I lived in Southern CA. They would complain sometimes about humidity and I would laughhhh! I know it's gotten hotter since I lived there almost 20 years ago, but still.

The other thing I notice when I go home now is that it's grayer and more dreary, I guess because I'm so used now to year-round lush tropical vegetation, palm trees, turquoise water and sunshine. You would have the same thing, coming from San Diego.

OK, so that's the only drawbacks I can think of for you! I think Philly is the most wonderful city in the country -- it's a big city but not TOO big, so it still has a strong community spirit. Good luck in your decision!

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by kyb01

Also look at Philly Curbed.

*ahem*

I know a lot of the houses I feature skew upmarket and more suburban from where T. Damon and his partner want to be, but I also feature houses in the city in their price range.

And I think the Neighborhood Guides I post on alternate Thursdays (when I get an agent to comment on one) offer decent overviews of the various neighborhoods in this city.

To the OP: If this hasn't been said before, if you want a detached single-family house with a yard, your pickings will be very slim within the city limits and nonexistent within walking distance of Center City. Rowhouses make up a larger share of the total housing stock (north of 60 percent) in Philadelphia than they do in any other city in the country (only Baltimore comes close), and much of the rest consists of semi-detached twins. Most rowhouses lack yards in front, and many in the closer-in neighborhoods have rear patios the size of postage stamps. Builders of newer houses, and rehabbers of some older ones, compensate for the lack of outdoor space with roof decks and balconies.

There is one in-city neighborhood that offers lots of grass and trees and mostly semi-detached houses along with a very charming main shopping street with a number of very good restaurants, an outpost of a popular regional brewpub chain and a French bistro with live jazz downstairs courtesy its co-owners, the most accomplished African-American restaurateurs in the city. That neighborhood, however, lies at the city's far northwest corner, so walking to the heart of the city is out, but two Regional Rail lines and a heavily used bus line that connects to the Broad Street Subway provide good service into the city center. Chestnut Hill also happens to be the second-wealthiest neighborhood in the city after Society Hill, and it has house prices to match, but you can find houses in your price range on its less expensive east side (a phrase that applies to all three of the Northwest Philly neighborhoods located in the pre-consolidation Germantown Township). Given the quality and extensiveness of our mass transit system (yes, the locals love to b **** about it, and SEPTA management gives them plenty of grounds for complaint, but it really is one of the better systems in the country on those scores), you might want to put some of those outlying neighborhoods on your house-hunting list. I live in the least affluent of the three Germantown Township neighborhoods, and you can even find lots of cool old twins with loads of charm on tree-lined streets here that you can definitely afford. Community spirit runs high here too.

Where on the West Coast do you live, T. Damon? Should I find myself out that way, I'll definitely look you up. And if you want someone engaging who knows his way around this city to show off some of its neighborhoods to you, please do the same with me.

[Avalon08]

Originally Posted by MarketStEl

*ahem*

Where on the West Coast do you live, T. Damon? Should I find myself out that way, I'll definitely look you up. And if you want someone engaging who knows his way around this city to show off some of its neighborhoods to you, please do the same with me.

Wouldn't we assume "South Park, San Diego", since that's what his Location says?