Relocating to Philly...What's up with Elkins Park???? (Philadelphia, Plymouth: real estate, houses)

[adrihurley]

Please Help!

We are relocating to the Philadelphia area from Toronto, Canada. My husband works for Comcast. We have 3 children all of whom will be attending the elementary public school system and then moving on to the secondary public school system. At the moment my children attend a very multicultural school with favourable test scores.

We would like them to attend a multicultural school when we move to Philly and are not interested in schools that are 95% white.

We have been looking at the Greater Philadelphia area as we would like to live outside the city centre but within a reasonable commute. We've looked at towns along the Main Line and in the areas of Abington, Jenkintown, Penn Valley and Media/Swarthmore etc.


We hate the look of mcMansions and the massive and cheaply made side board homes that are found all over the suburbs. We love the old stone colonials that you find in Chestnut Hill and around the city but know the public schools are terrible there.

The place I can't figure out is Elkins Park. It keeps popping up on my radar. When I check Zillow I love the houses and Wikipedia says it's an affluent area. I keep reading that it's an awesome place. I am surprised you can get beautiful old stone colonials with central air and renovated for under 600,000. What is the deal with this pocket? Why is the housing so affordable? Are the schools TERRIBLE???? They are 5/10 and 6/10..not the highest but not the worst I've seen either. I would love a local person's opinion on Elkins Park and the Cheltenhem School District. Specifically Myers Elementary School and Cheltenhem High School.

Thank you!

[maf763]

Real estate taxes are inordinately high for the area. The schools are mostly good but there has been some chaos in the district over the last decade, from mold in schools, to temporary quarters, to some administrative blunders.

[NewtownBucks]

NW Philly (i.e. Chestnut Hill, Mt Airy, etc.) are knee jerk recommendations for some people on here, but I think that they may be places you want to explore. They are areas of the city that are still diverse but with a more suburban feel and non-cookie-cutter housing stock. Navigating the Philly school district can be a challenge, but it's possible.

[adrihurley]

Wow, Thank you! What area are you guys focusing on? We are looking at Havertown, Abington/Rydal, Media and the top of the Mainline -(Berywn and Wayne). It's really hard. We don't want to make a mistake.

[MKE8244]

Hopefully I can give some helpful information b/c we recently did an extensive house hunt in all the locations you mentioned and also were contending with schools for our two children.

I felt the same way about Elkins Park--I felt like I had found some secret it seems so amazing. BUT, like everyone is posting there were some major issues and we ended up buying elsewhere. The taxes were so high for mediocre (and apparently declining schools), and we were very concerned about resale. However, we really liked the proximity to the city, architecture and diversity.

We were moving from Mt Airy in Philadelphia, which is just an amazing place. Beautiful homes, decent prices (bc you are in Philly), diversity. Its also quite crunchy and liberal, which are qualities we liked. If we had the money we would have stayed and put our kids in private school, but we don't so we had to move.

We also looked at Abington, Media/Wallingford/Swarthmore, Lafayette Hill, and all up the main line until Malvern. All these locations have great schools so it was really about finding the right house. The Swarthmore area has very high taxes but in retrospect we wish we had looked there more b/c it might have been worth the quality of schools and community. Lafayette Hill and Plymouth Meeting are areas you have not mentioned that also might be worth considering. We ended up just past Berwyn on the Main Line and we liked it but its not perfect. There is not a ton of diversity and its pretty far from the city. However, we got the most house for our money, have low taxes, and a great neighborhood.

[mphilly]

I will just say that Cheltenham’s schools are more than fine and should be no reason for someone to not buy there. The property taxes are a different story.

[2e1m5a]

The home prices in Elkins Park are generally lower than you'd expect because the property taxes are some of the highest anywhere in the region.

[As8417]

Just curious where did you end up?

We were looking in the area and were originally dead set on an adjoining town, but after what I'd call borderline obsessive research and staying in the region for a while, we fell in love with Elkins Park, the people, the community, the parks and the architecture.

I hope you spoke to more people and spent more time exploring and didn't read too much into what the two negative commenters said, especially given your interest in a diverse town and schools and proximity to the city, something which EP is the perfect combination of. The home prices are low because the taxes are high and the taxes are high because it was historically a bedroom community with little commercial tax base, which is starting to change. The schools are still good and offer incredible resources, and to your point, are definitely not 95% white.