Unnecessary Noise About Mortgage Rates?

Today's Wall Street Journal includes a story about "surging" mortgage rates. The 30-year mortgage rate climbed to 5.44% on Thursday, the highest level since early February. Goodness, 5.44% is still an excellent rate, so I think we should give two thumbs down to this rather alarmist story.

Our own Karen Nicolini from our Philadelphia real estate office sent along this piece of good news: Home buyers who qualify can apply the entire $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit directly to their purchase costs. This enriches an already attractive incentive. Read the entire story from Reuters here. And if you're a qualifying home buyer (either a first time buyer or someone who has not owned a primary residence for the past three years) and you want to search for properties, search our web site or call our offices for personal guidance from an associate.

Over the Hills and Far Away

This week the marketing team at Kurfiss Sotheby's International Realty took a road trip to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area. This is definitely outside our business zone, but a property owner requested our help with a special listing AND we just happen to have an agent, Jim Pearsall, who is from the area and knows it well. So off we went up the Northeast Extension to a secluded country home on 500 acres of woodland and meadow adjacent to Ricketts Glen State Park.

This property has been in the same family for four or five generations and has served as a retreat rather than a full-time residence. It is a rather upscale house, yet it is very comfortable, just the sort of place where friends and family can relax with a variety of pursuits. The present owner uses to the property for hunting and fishing and even has his own butcher shop on the property to process his quarry. He also grows apples and has a cider house, taps maple trees and processes the sap in a sugar shack on the property, keeps a vegetable garden and has quite an astounding collection of rhododendron. We look forward to listing the property and promoting it in more detail in the next few weeks. Listing agents are Jim Pearsall, Ericka Kirkpatrick and Melanie Stecura.

Unhappy Time for One Philadelphia Condo Developer

There are many new condominium projects on the market in Philadelphia. Many have been quite successful, others are struggling as the market tries to absorb all the new units. And then there are some buildings where "bad" isn't a strong enough word to describe the situation. Check out this article about a Northern Liberties building from Philadelphia Inquirer real estate columnist Alan Heavens to learn more.

And if that's not enough, Mr. Heavens wrote a piece for today's Philadelphia Inquirer on another troubled building involving the same developer. Shame about both of these projects which brought some very cool architecture to the Northern Liberties and Old City areas. Even sadder are the number of people -- buyers, contractors, banks -- affected by this debacle.

Luxury Homes in the Lehigh Valley

I grew up in Allentown, Pa., so I'm quite familiar with the area and its housing stock. Recently agents from Kurfiss SIR secured several listings there that are really quite special. One is a superbly designed and built luxury home in Salisbury Township just a minute or so away from the entrance to Lehigh Parkway (a beautiful, expansive public park.) What makes this home particularly noteworthy is that it is in a neighborhood with excellent supporting real estate. At times when we've listed other high-end homes in the LV, the surrounding homes often have been quite modest. One rule of thumb to remember is that a lot of wealthy people want to live around people like themselves, so the multi-million-dollar home next to the post-War bungalows is sometimes a nearly impossible sale. In any case, the $4.9M home is really well designed and built, and I am honored that the owners have chosen our brokerage to list it. Michael Richardson and Ed McGahan have the listing.

The next LV property that is well worth a look is in Bethlehem. The Villas at Saucon Valley are brand-new condominiums that are maybe five minutes from Saucon Valley Country Club, the
Promenade Shops and I-78. They have very high quality finishes -- I have to admit I never expected them to be so nice. Most condos aren't this well designed. The kitchens and baths are all very well done, as is the flooring, the exterior materials, the windows, etc. They are a good option for the buyer who wants a home that offers fine living but who does not want to worry about maintenance. Monthly fees are very low. See for yourself -- the model is open every Sunday from 1:00 - 4:00 pm at 1918 Carriage Knoll Drive #24 in Bethlehem. Prices start in the mid-$500s. They are listed by Ericka Kirkpatrick.

Mystery Houses

Sometimes we have houses listed that don't sell despite being well maintained, attractive and in excellent locations. Perhaps the price is too high, perhaps there is too much inventory on the market in a similar price range or perhaps....well, in truth, sometimes it's impossible to know why a house isn't finding a buyer.

We have a few like this in our current inventory that I'd like to highlight here. All are priced quite well, having come down from where they were listed initially.

Pin Oak Drive, Buckingham, PA: This home has many positive features: a terrific location in a small cul-de-sac off of a very scenic road, so no through-traffic at all; good supporting real estate; very good floor plan with lots of patios and a balcony overlooking the grounds; all en-suite bedrooms; very large master suite; updated kitchen and master bath; extras including a beautiful landscaping, a garage with space above that could be finished for guest or in-law quarters and a small pond. It has a couple of places where the wallpaper might not suit the next owner's taste, but it's a tiny portion of the house. Really, it's a home in move-in condition. Now, if we could just find someone to make an offer and move in...

Old Carversville Road, Carversville, PA: Situated on 6.75 acres off of yet another very scenic road in Central Bucks, this home is quite spacious with a wonderful custom kitchen, five fireplaces, a lovely family room with a custom wet bar and a really cozy spa room with walls of windows overlooking the property. It also has a six-bay garage and a small, heated bank barn, so there's plenty of room for someone who collects cars, needs hobby space or just wants storage. It's yet another one of our "mystery" listings that just needs the right buyer.

Curly Hill Road, Doylestown, PA: This house has been on the market for a while, first with another brokerage and now with us. I'm highlighting it here because it is a rarity: It's an affordable stone farmhouse with bank barn that is set back a long driveway. It's been updated, and even more unusual than being set far off the road, it has a really good floor plan for a family. A lot of stone farmhouses don't work for the the way people live today with big family rooms, individual bedrooms for each child, etc., but this one has all of that and more, plus lots of room for kids to roam. I don't know why someone hasn't decided to jump on this one. Stone farmhouses are plentiful in our area, but to find one set back a long driveway with views and a barn for less than $1,000,000 in a desirable school district five minutes or so from central Doylestown is, to say the least, quite unusual.

To see our full range of inventory, visit Kurfiss Sotheby's International Realty's web site, or phone our New Hope office at 215.794.3227 or our Philadelphia office at 215.735.2225.

A Real "Wow" Listing in Philadelphia

As I say goodbye to my current favorite listing in Center City Philadelphia, an almost-sold penthouse at 2100 Delancey with the absolute best rooftop deck (photo at left), I am pleased to announce that our Center City Philadelphia real estate office has secured a truly impressive listing in The Barclay. This is one of Rittenhouse Square's premier doorman buildings, an architectural classic directly on Rittenhouse Square. And this home, at more than 5,500 square feet of exquisitely renovated living space, is more like a suburban estate home but with the convenience of city living steps from the front door. Check out these preliminary photos snapped by our own Michael Colavita. The price tag is $5,575,000, steep by Philadelphia standards, but not at all out of line for the quality and size of this Rittenhouse Square condominium.

Suddenly, Modernism Sells in Bucks County

There may be no other area of the United States with as much historic, stone architecture as Bucks County, Pennsylvania. That's what people usually move here for: to experience the richness of life in an antique, fieldstone house. Or not. An agent in our New Hope real estate office, Kevin Steiger, recently made a sage observation: Contemporary homes have been some of the best sellers thus far in 2009.

Kurfiss SIR started the trend in late 2008, selling Chill Hill in Solebury Township, one of the area's finest midcentury homes. Then, Hellen Cannon in our New Hope office arranged a deal for a hilltop contemporary home above Fleecydale Road (one of the area's most scenic roads) in Solebury. Next, a Prudential office put another modernist masterpiece in Solebury underagreement. All of these were priced between $1.4 million and $1.9 million. This is noteworthy in part because there simply are not that many midcentury or contemporary homes in our area.

We're not sure if this trend has legs, but we're happy to report we recently have listed some Dwell magazine-worthy clean-lined houses, including this one set way off the road in Stockton, N.J., and this one in Point Pleasant, Pa. high above the Delaware River.

Bargain Real Estate, Great Food

We here at Kurfiss Sotheby's International Realty already are fans of Philadelphia, long ago realizing that there are many attractive neighborhoods with truly affordable housing. Now, many of those same neighborhoods are filling up with terrific eateries, according to restaurant critic Craig LaBan's piece in the May 10 Philadelphia Inquirer. While the city has long been known as a top restaurant town, most of the highly regarded dining spots were in the chi-chi Rittenhouse Square neighborhood. No more, says Mr. LaBan. Chef-owned, innovative eateries are popping up all over. Even traditionally Italian South Philly is getting a bit more variety. With so much good food, we're lucky the City of Brotherly Love is a walkable/bikable town!