Quote:
Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown
I loathe that the defacto mega-developer in our region is Toll.
They build such crap. It boggles my mind that people buy million dollar suburban McMansions with carpeted rooms, vinyl windows, and think that's normal. They build million dollar homes with GE appliances.
Virtually every other major city has developers who build in scale much higher quality homes. It worries me that so many towns (many of them "nice") are ceding open space to "neighborhoods" that will age so poorly as a result.
I see it all the time in the region. People pay top dollar for a Toll home, then 5 years later sell at a loss. Why? Who wants a 5 year old home with carpet and builders grade everything else for $800K. It costs a ton of money to upgrade those homes because they weren't built well in the first place.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown
I get it at the $300K price point. But I absolutely don't get it at the $700k, $800K, $900K price point. If I see one more house come on the market for $850K in Garnet Valley or Chester Springs or Collegeville or Phoenixville with carpeting in every room except the hallway and dining room I'm gonna vomit.
So what. Your house is big. Literally nothing in the house is quality. You bought a $800K suburban box and you have $99 windows in the house and not even a sub-zero.
Philly has "custom" home builders like Pohlig and Bentley that build with the sort of finishes I'm talking about...but they tend to be very very big homes on very big lots. There is a huge market, for sure that is not being filled, for homes on smaller infill suburban lots with the same quality of finishes, closer to actual things you want to live near (like main streets and trees).
Every city of note (many of them of no note at all) have these sorts of builders in spades. Charlotte, Chicago, Atlanta, Nashville, Columbus, North Jersey, etc.
We have none that I know of. In fact, in many metros, these builders keep an inventory of teardowns on lots in good towns that they sell and develop custom homes for at will.
There are close in suburbs all over Philly with quality but dated housing that could be upgraded with this model. Have you ever been to DuPage County Illinois? Literally every single close in suburb has been replaced using this model. Elmhurst, Western Springs, La Grange, Glen Ellen. Do a google street view on virtually any block in Elmhurst. You're going to see beautiful brand new infill homes cheek to jowl with anonymous 1950 brick ranchers and capes. Elmhurst was never fantastically wealthy. It was a middle income suburb with a nice main street and good school on transit. How many suburbs can we describe in Philly with the same assets? 20? 30?
For sure, you could buy a $300K home in Haverford or Springfield or Abington or Plymouth or Whitemarsh and literally knock it down and replace it with a more relevant home with moden sensibility and top notch finishes that would sell for $700-$800K. The market is there. We don't have the product, so people can't even conceive of it.
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New member here
I've been a long time member of City Data (cpomp). I read skyscraper page all the time, with no account until now. But your above posts made me want to comment/clarify a few things.
First, I totally agree that Toll is generally crap, and not worth anywhere near their prices, but that is a product of price by demand/location, etc. and until the past few years (the age of hyperconnectitvity and social media), the issues surrounding Toll Brothers construction was not obvious to most home buyers, therefore they should not be shamed for buying a Toll house. Also, the KoP Town Center does feature a lot of Toll townhouses/apartments, but that development is still one of the best town centers I have come across, it is starting to feel like a little town, a shame its surrounded bu highways, so it can't expand beyond its confines.
Anyways, I will address your post in points, easier to follow (and how I usually do it in City Data).
1. Toll Brothers is the "de facto" builder in many regions, they are the nations largest home builders, along with Ryan, NVR, Pulte, etc. Every major metro area has their fair share of this, by no means is it a Philadelphia problem.
2. If anything, the Philadelphia region is one of the least affected by the mass construction of subpar mcmansions. The Philadelphia region is very old with dozens of housing styles/types from hundreds of years of development.
Many other American cities including - Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Tampa, Orlando, Charlotte, etc. were largely developed in sprawl fashion over the last 20-40 years. Those cities are chuck full of developers looking to construct a 400 house community using the cheapest materials possible, selling at high prices. Every home looks the same, all stuffed behind a brick wall or gate. Dallas is the worst offender.
The Philadelphia suburbs have a lot of open/protected land, one of the few benefits of extreme NIMBYism is how hard people in this region fight to keep open space, or at least limit the size of new communities. You certainly will not find that practice in any of the other major metros you described, except New York and Boston. Plus Phoenixville, Collegeville, etc. are 30 miles from Philadelphia, that is like comparing Alpharetta to Atlanta, the sprawl in communities far from the city core is a way of life/development for every region. At that point, it comes down to preferred housing style, not which houses are superior. (Personally, I would take the SEPA style of suburban homes over any other metro. I love the stone colonial/farmhouse design).
3. Your example of Elmhurst, Ill is a unique and selective example that is not representative of the Greater Chicago area. Plus, I can't think of 30 suburbs in any major metro that follow the model you described. Maybe LA, but that is not a model to follow. But, here is a nice example of that model in Haverford...
https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9921...7i16384!8i8192
Also, The Philadelphia suburbs are among the most lush/tree canopied in the nation, far more than metro Chicago. In many instances it is harder to spot teardowns or one off new construction homes of higher quality. But I can think of a few dozen examples in communities not on the Main Line where a small cape on a large plot was demo'd for a new higher quality large homes.
4. From my experience, the quality and variety of homes in metro Philadelphia are not surpassed by most regions for several reasons.
a. The age/variety of homes and communities developed over centuries.
b. The more stringent development guidelines in many SEPA municipalities, that are virtually non-existent in many other large metros (Houston,
Dallas, Tampa, etc.)
c. The varied use of materials, especially stone. The use of stucco is now largely banned/not used on new construction in SEPA, not the case for many other
regions.
5. I am very familiar with development/housing in many regions, and I am not aware of custom/quality builders "in spades", when compared to the Philadelphia region, which has its fair share of small/custom builders that focus tear-downs or small communities (1-5 homes).
6. Regarding Pohlig and Bentley, yes, they are home builders on the extreme upper end of the market, mostly around the Main Line and few other wealthy enclaves, and they are among the best I have seen (nationally). Bentley has extended their reach into a more upper middle class market, which is a smart move.
7. Lastly, I was coincidentally in Devon/Wayne this week for work, and I drove around for 2 hours after my meetings, and noticed a major uptick in renovations or tear downs along the Main Line. The single tear down market is not common in typical sprawl communities - Garnet Valley, (unless its for a subdivision), whereas near the regions walk-able boroughs, especially the affluent ones, its a more common practice. I can think of a few recent examples around downtown Media, (my hometown).
And one off tear-downs in a town like Springfield are for the most part not lucrative, hence why they are uncommon, but again, that is not specific the Philadelphia area. I would have to do some digging into municipality building records to get a better breakdown of the region comparing it say Chicago.
Anyways, to summarize my long winded post, yes Toll is meh, but beyond that, the Philadelphia region is not at a home building disadvantage compared to any other major metro areas, accept for the general push-back of denser development in our regions walk-able towns (Ardmore, Media, etc.) but that is a different issue.
(my background is in construction/development/architecture/currently a forensics engineer working on various projects plagued with schedule/cost/design issues).
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(If/when I move to the suburbs, it'll almost certainly be the Main Line.) Of course, if you have kids, how "boring" I think it is may not be such a concern.
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