Demand for historic houses not what it was

Tricia Thurm describes it as "a midlife crisis." Seriously, husband Arthur says, buying an 1841 fieldstone manor house in Upper Makefield nine years ago from the Heritage Conservancy in Doylestown satisfied a need "for a little more green space" and "room for the dogs."

The Thurms traded a house they built in Cherry Hill and lived in for 25 years for a long-vacant dwelling that needed work. They restored the exterior, redid the kitchen with high-end touches nine years ago, and carved a wine cellar from a well house.

But now they're looking to downsize from the five-acre property, which backs up to 160 acres of preserved farmland.

"We love the place," said Arthur Thurm, a dentist who commutes to his Collingswood office. "It's just gotten too much for us."

The list price: $2,395,000, not out of line with newer houses in the neighborhood, resale data show.

The house, however, is "antique," said Kevin Steiger, an agent with Kurfiss Sotheby International Realty in New Hope, who specializes in the genre. And today's buyers are not as enamored of historic houses as were those a generation or two ago.

These days, buyers want new houses or those in move-in condition, preferring a bigger mortgage to a large rehab budget, local agents said.

"History still means something, but to a smaller number of buyers," said Joanne Davidow, vice president of Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Fox & Roach Realtors in Philadelphia. "It used to be big."

In Philadelphia and some suburban areas, houses with asking prices above $2 million "eliminate even more of the buyer pool," Davidow said.

Whether a property is new or old, "the higher-end market has fewer buyers than 10 years ago," said John Duffy, owner of Duffy Real Estate on the Main Line, who sells many such homes.

There is a market for older homes "as long as they are updated and in good condition," Duffy said. Yet he said that if a property is "registered historic," most municipalities limit the changes that can be made and require prior official approval, which can scare off buyers.

Most sellers understand that buyers want the house to be updated or "they will either walk away or come in with a very low offer," he said.

Listing agents for such houses typically hear the same buyer complaints:

"It needs a new kitchen, new bathrooms, the floor plan is all wrong, and the stairs are too narrow," Davidow said.

"When I tell the seller about the kitchen," she said, "the response typically is, 'This is new. I put it in 25 years ago.' "

Buyer criticism often doesn't sit well with sellers, including Jo Ann Buller, who has had the 1815 Society Hill house she and her late husband, Carter, bought in 1965 on the market since April for $1,479,000.

"One woman complained that the second-floor bedroom was at the front of the house, requiring her to walk six feet to the back of the house, where she would put her spa," Buller said.

Another prospective buyer tried to get Buller to lower the price because the house needed a new soil line and all the floor joists needed replacing.

"I had a contractor look at it afterward," she said. "The soil line needed a coupling replaced, and there was nothing wrong with the joists. It was just an effort to get me to lower the price."

In Society Hill, the "historic" issue comes up often as those who bought shells and rehabbed them in the 1960s and 1970s are downsizing to smaller, single-floor living in condos or apartments.

Bucks County still has a "decent-sized market" for antique-house buyers because of its location - it attracts well-to-do buyers from New York, central New Jersey, and Philadelphia.

"For buyers from Manhattan who have a lot of money, it is an alternative to the more-expensive and crowded Hamptons," Kurfiss Sotheby International Realty's Steiger said.

These well-heeled buyers "appreciate these homes," he said, and have enough money to buy them and to fix them.

"They are more aware than the average buyer that there are no two houses alike and what they are buying is something unique," Steiger said.

Arthur Thurm readily acknowledged that his house will require "a special buyer," and that he must "be patient to find the right one."

Noting that July marked the 50th anniversary of the day she and her husband first saw their house, Buller, too, emphasized patience in her search for not just the right buyer, but someone to continue the stewardship of the property.

"It is a special place," she said, "and the right combination will appear."

215-854-2472@alheavens