A rich variety of pricey dream houses and other homes

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

For most people, the word Solebury means expensive.

It's true that this Bucks County township has within its borders some very high-priced houses.

Martin Millner, of Coldwell Banker Hearthside Real Estate in Yardley, says the average list price of the 165 houses on the market here today is a remarkable $1.293 million.

Forty-six percent of those 165 listings are priced at $1 million and above, Millner says.

Yet the million-dollar-plus market in this 27.2-square-mile community of 8,692 people next to trendy New Hope and the Delaware River is as sluggish as almost everywhere else since the housing bubble burst in 2007.

There is a 41-month supply of houses of $1 million or more here, Millner says, meaning that 1.83 sell each month.

"I have to emphasize right here that what I have just said about $1 million-plus houses is a little misleading," he notes, quickly adding that if these higher-end homes are priced correctly for the market, they will sell quickly - as such homes do in every range.

"Dream houses" typically fall into the million-dollar-and-above category, and that's what one of Millner's buyers was looking for about a year ago.

"What he bought for that price had views, setting, and location," Millner says. The buyer paid cash and then planned to spend $500,000 to update the house.

"When the buyer goes to sell it, whenever down the road that will be, the house, if properly updated, will sell for $3 million and more, depending on the market at the time," he says. "You can't say that about every place in Bucks County."

In all of 2015, when 129 homes sold, 85 percent of them went for under $1 million, he says.

In the first six months of 2016, there were 55 sales, Millner says. Forty sold in this year's second quarter, according to Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Fox & Roach Realtors HomExpert Report. The median price - half the houses sold for more, half for less - was $560,000, down 5.1 percent from $590,000 in the same period of 2015.

Countywide, only Upper Makefield, with a median price of $647,500 on 32 second-quarter sales, was higher than Solebury.

Listings here spend an average of 147 days on the market, according to HomExpert - more than twice the 66-day average for the county as a whole.

Despite its reputation, "Solebury has diversity in housing stock," Millner says, with older singles (some dripping with history), farmhouses still attached to farms, condos, and townhouses.

The township also has one of the lowest property-tax rates in Bucks County - even for houses costing $1 million and above - because Solebury and New Hope comprise one of the smallest school districts around.

"Not only is it highly sought-after, but because of its size, it is almost as if you were sending your kids to a private school," Millner says.

Both communities have a diverse tax base - which is obvious after spending 10 minutes wandering New Hope after crossing the Delaware River bridge from Lambertville, but even more so when you continue up Lower York Road into Solebury heading toward Lahaska.

"Being next to New Hope doesn't hurt, of course, and Peddler's Village in Lahaska is also a big draw for Solebury residents," he says.

Being convenient to the Route 202 pharmaceuticals corridor in New Jersey, as well as to Princeton, New York, and Philadelphia, doesn't hurt, either.

As happens in other towns on the Pennsylvania side of the river, a lot of Solebury buyers are from higher-tax (property and income) New Jersey and New York, with Big Apple buyers looking for weekend places that are less expensive and easier to get to than the Hamptons, Millner says.

There's a lot to choose from here: single-family homes in 20-year-old Peddlers View for $475,000 to $550,000, or in 16-year-old North Point for $498,000 to $600,000; urban-style townhouses starting at $1.3 million in Tom Scannapieco's Rabbit Creek Run; and 55-and-over housing in Fox Run Preserve for $550,000 to $675,000.

What about first-time buyers?

"Some are able to spend $700,000 for a custom house and a couple of acres," Millner says. For those who can't, "there are $200,000 condos and townhouses under $500,000."

aheavens@phillynews.com

215-854-2472@alheavens

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Population: 8,692 (2010)

Median household income: $114,547 (2014)

Area: 27.2 square miles

Settlements in the last three months: 40

Homes for sale: 165

Average days on market: 147

Median sale price: $560,000

Housing stock: 3,207 units: single homes; townhouses; and condos

School district: New Hope-Solebury

SOURCES: U.S. Census Bureau; Martin Millner, Coldwell Banker Hearthside Real Estate, Lahaska; Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Fox & Roach Realtors HomExpert Market ReportEndText