A boomtown, born in a mid-1990s building bonanza

One in a continuing series spotlighting real estate markets in the region's communities.

It's a visit someone from my household has made every 5,000 miles for the last six years. Because the ultimate destination is always one of the car dealerships on Route 130, just that part of Burlington Township gets regular scrutiny.

Of course, there's much more than Route 130 to this growing municipality, which was a big part of the building bonanza of the mid-1990s that turned huge swaths of northern Burlington County from farms into homes.

Those were the days of major population growth for Burlington Township, which, despite the recent look of much of its housing, has been around since the 1700s, when these parts were known as West Jersey.

Between the 1990 and 2000 censuses, the population of Burlington Township grew by nearly 8,000. Between 2000 and 2010, it rose by 2,300 people.

The 2015 population estimate was 22,826.

Twenty years ago, Burlington Township was booming. Nowhere was the explosive growth of northern Burlington County more evident in the summer of 1996 than on Route 656 in Burlington Township.

Around every bend in the road was a new development. Each was the product of a different developer: K. Hovnanian; Orleans Homebuilders; Calton Homes - the latter built the 600-home Steeplechase development. Most were close to being sold out, especially the three-bedroom homes.

In that summer, Burlington Township officials estimated, 3,000 houses were under construction.

The pivotal event in the transformation of northern Burlington County occurred on Dec. 22, 1994, when the 13.5-mile section of road linking I-295 to I-195 in Bordentown - the so-called Trenton Complex - was opened.

That reduced the commute from all northern Burlington communities to Princeton and Trenton from an hour to less than a half-hour.

The reduced commuting time - consider NJ Transit to New York from Trenton and Hamilton - helped lure home buyers from Mercer County, where houses in the second quarter of 1996 were selling for $124,000, compared with $119,000 in Burlington Township.

Today's average price in the township, $232,771, shows how well resales are doing.

Because of all that 1990s construction, and all of it since, Burlington Township "has a younger stock of homes" than a lot of places nearby, says Sandi Lichtman, of Lichtman Associates Real Estate in Cherry Hill. And as a result, she says, "they sell quickly."

Conversations Lichtman has had recently with other Burlington Township brokers indicate that the market here is "good."

"It remains the destination for a lot of younger buyers," Lichtman says.

Unlike many South Jersey communities, Burlington Township has its own K-12 school district, which many parents consider better than a regional arrangement in which two or three towns share a high school, realty agents say.

The average property-tax bill in the township was $6,545 in 2015, according to the state Department of Community Affairs, with $4,387 of that for the schools.

One sign of the health of a real estate market, especially in South Jersey, is the number of distressed houses sold in a year.

The foreclosure crisis hit Camden, Gloucester, and Burlington Counties hard, and prices in most municipalities are still struggling to recover from their post-bubble lows.

Only 431 of the more than 10,000 properties in the 08016 zip code, which also includes Burlington City, were in foreclosure at the start of 2016, data from real estate information services firm RealtyTrac show.

Data for Burlington Township alone show few short sales, in which a lender agrees to accept less than the mortgage balance. Lichtman considers that a good sign.

"Of the 192 sales of single-family detached houses over the last 12 months, there were just 14 short sales, while two of the 38 multifamily units were," she says.

Of the houses that sold here last year, "just a couple sold for below average - beaten-up townhouses for $30,000 and $50,000," Lichtman says.

Currently, 105 houses are on the market, with the average list price $208,892, she says.

aheavens@phillynews.com
215-854-2472
@alheavens