House hunting in Burlington County & have a few town questions. (Edison: transplants, short sales)

[Ravinscribe]

For quite some time my signifigant other and I have been juggling 'dual residency'.

Let me explain - my primary residence is in Avenel (which is in the Edison vacinity) and I work in Clark. My guy lives in Cranbury (which is in the Princeton area) but his areas of work fluctuate wildly. He works IT and due to the horrid economy he's gone from having a permanent position to scrounging up contract work wherever and whenever he can. Also, his kids live in the same area (Hamilton). For OVER four years we've been flipflopping between either my place or his. Weekends are primarily spent down his way while weekdays are normally spent up my way.

We've been wanting to buy a home for some time now but have not been searching with serious intent to purchase until recently. We want not only to build equity but to be able to have a permanent base for our menagerie of his human and my fuzzy children would be great. Last time we looked into pre-approval was about a year ago and back then it was VERY low for Jersey standards (about $150,000). My credit has actually improved from the last time we looked into pre-approval so I'm hoping we can get a pre-approval of $150 grand or higher and with the housing market in a slump we're hoping to catch a great deal.

Our housing needs are VERY specific. Because of the age and sex of our human kids they must have their own bedrooms. So a three bedroom is a must. Because of the fuzzy sideshow going on we need a decent sized lot that can be completely fenced in. We are actually looking for a fixer upper and we're hpoing that will give us an advantage. We've been looking in Burlington County but have some questions in regards to safety, air noise, flooding, etc.

We've seen houses on nice large plots of land in the Southampton/Vincentown area but have heard horror stories about the flooding in that area. We've seen nice houses in the Browns Mills/Pemberton area that are in need of TLC but have been warned that the air noise from the base can be horrendous and that the towns are in some sort of downward spiral due to the restriction put in place by the base in regards to public traffic going through. There are some short sales we've seen in the Willingboro area where the owners need to sell or be forclosed on but we've heard that the property taxes in that area are insane. Then there are nice houses in Burlington City but I've heard that Burlington City is very unsafe due to an increasing influx of Trenton transplants and there's very conflicted feelings on things improving in the city. Is any of this information accurate?

Any help would be great. Thanx for anyone who actually managed to read the whole way through.

[MoorestownResident]

Southampton is the best option. The concern about flooding is valid - but only in some spots near Vincentown. About 10 years ago there was a major '100 year flood' along the Rancocas that ravaged parts of Lumberton, Medford Lakes and Southampton. It will also flood during heavy prolonged rain. You'll have to research the specific area in question to determine if it is an issue. Part of the flood was due to dam failures in Medford Lakes, it was later revealed they were not up to code. They have since been rebuilt and the likelihood of another catostrophic flood like that one is now very low.

Southampton is an agricultural-rooted town with generally good schools (Lenape district) and nice countryside. Some areas around Rt 206 are more seedy as a drive-by will reveal. There is a lot of truck traffic on 206. Vincentown has its Americana main street and a good location, close to Medford which is more upscale and expensive than Southampton.

Willingboro, Browns Mills and Burlington City are not desirable places to live IMO. I would say BC is better than the other two but it's not an area I'd move to for investment, growth or a fenced yard. Good luck.

[dhanu86]

I grew up in Burlington city and Browns Mills. My Browns Mills home I never heard traffic from Cargo planes so it depends, Browns Mills is a good family town consisting mostly of military but if you travel regularly from Princeton it can be a long drive with the traffic lights etc. The only sketchy streets in Burlington city are ones off E.Federal and Linden Ave apart from that it's a nice convenient clean place to live. Willingboro is African American and generally safe,friendly,quiet just don't send the kids to that school district - bad influence with philly transplants.

[SweepTheLeg]

What about Chesterfield? Or is that too expensive?

I don't get the 150,000 comment. That's your ceiling for what you want to buy?

[Ravinscribe]

Thank you to everyone for the responses. Yes, our max that we can pay for the house is the whopping sum of $150,000. We've gotten our search narrowed down to a handful of houses. There are two in the Vincentown/Southampton area. One is off of Main St. while the other is off of 206 (Vincentown Columbus Road) and not too far from Ewansville. The one off 206 is on a MUCH larger lot but a creek runs through the property and, again, we've heard those horror stories of flooding in the area. There is a house we looked at in the Mirror Lake area in Browns Mills but it seems closer to Bayberry Park than the lake and the base seems super close so that's why we were concerned about air noise. There is an old colonial off of High St. in Burlington City that I'm half in love with. It's on the outskirts of BC. It's VERY close to Springside. Seems far enough away from the shadier parts of town. Then our last house was actually pointed out to us by a friend. It's an old colonial in Riverton. I don't know much about Riverton other than that Palmyra is the next town over and that the taxes in Palmyra can be high. High taxes is why we veto'd getting a foreclosure home in Willingsboro. We'd love to find a nice three bedroom home and not have to pay more than $4000 a year in property taxes. I know we're in NJ so maybe we're hallucinating? Paying lower taxes is what prompted us to head further south. I mean, we both love the areas we currently live in but taxes up around my way are easily over $6,000 and taxes down his way are easily over $7,000. And those are if you buy something the size of a postage stamp! In fact we were so put off at one point by the property tax issue we were considering relocating to PA. As per SweepTheLeg's suggestion we pulled up some listings for Chesterfield and the cheapest three bedroom house is going for over $230,000. Any recommendations, comments, pearls of wisdom, etc.?