It's not unusual to see a Queen Anne with a wraparound porch next to a boxy 1970's-era house with vinyl siding next to a 1930's bungalow next to a 1950's Cape Cod, most of them neatly kept by their owners. The wide streets are lined with sidewalks and a hodgepodge of houses of varying architectural styles, most set on 50-by-100-foot lots. "It doesn't have the cheesy stuff you find in some Jersey Shore resorts." "Beach Haven is family-oriented," said John Napp, a transportation consultant from Millstone, N.J., who, with his wife, Melanie, bought the bottom half of a duplex with three bedrooms and two baths last December for $570,000. A long "don't" list follows, including warnings about sleeping overnight, disrobing, starting fires, bringing dogs or alcoholic beverages, forgetting to wear sunscreen or neglecting to "call your mom." "Welcome to Our Beach," one at Fifth Street reads. "Long Island is getting too expensive, and there's no place else to put their money." These buyers are paying $1.5 million to $3.5 million, he said.įamilies with young children pack Beach Haven's white-sand beaches, and signs at the entrances show someone in charge has a sense of humor. "This year, it's been high-income stockbrokers and investment bankers from New York," he said. Since last year, however, sales have been slower than usual in the $800,000-to-$1.2-million range, said John Koser, owner of Sunset Harbour Realty in Beach Haven, who defined a shopper in that range as a "middle buyer." The median price of a single-family home is $850,000, up from $349,000 in 2000 - an increase of more than 140 percent in five years. To no one's surprise, the real estate price boom that has hit most of the Jersey Shore has affected Beach Haven, too. Yet Beach Haven, slightly less than one mile square, has many of the conveniences of a larger town: a supermarket, a pharmacy a hardware store a variety of family-style restaurants, pizzerias and ice cream shops and several upscale restaurants.
BEACH HAVEN NJ PLUS
"Anything you could possibly want is within easy walking distance." It is also known as a place for families with young children, a plus for the DiFrancos, who have a 6-year-old son and a 4-year-old daughter.Įvery house in town is near the beach - this part of the island is only a quarter of a mile wide. "It's the kind of place where you park your car and don't get in it again until it's time to go back home," he said. DiFranco, a banker who lives in Newtown, Pa., and works in the Manhattan Financial District, and his wife, Jaclyn, tried out several Jersey Shore communities, they settled on Beach Haven, on the southern end of 18-mile-long Long Beach Island. Clouds occasionally spoil his favorite view of the bay: "I love looking at the sun shimmering on the water," he said. Traffic can back up on the bridge from the mainland. A few things are not perfect: sometimes his children's soccer and T-ball games are on Saturday or Sunday, keeping the family away from the beach. FOR Louis DiFranco, Beach Haven might as well be called Beach Heaven.
0 kommentar(er)
