View previous topic :: View next topic |
Author |
Message |
Guestm Guest
|
Posted: Tue, Dec 18 2007, 3:55 pm EST Post subject: Seeking homes in Shady brook lane |
|
|
We are now thinking of moving into Cranbury, the feeling of a small and cozy town attracks us very much. Plus the school district is great. Especially we are interested in houses on the shady brrok lane (the woods at cranbury). The community is new and nice. Can somebody share any info in this community? do you know any one is thinking of selling? |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
Guest
|
Posted: Tue, Dec 18 2007, 6:24 pm EST Post subject: Re: Seeking homes in Shady brook lane |
|
|
Guestm wrote: | We are now thinking of moving into Cranbury, the feeling of a small and cozy town attracks us very much. Plus the school district is great. Especially we are interested in houses on the shady brrok lane (the woods at cranbury). The community is new and nice. Can somebody share any info in this community? do you know any one is thinking of selling? |
You might try to contact Rich Abrams (Century 21). He is a realtor who lives in Cranbury and works out of Plainsboro. I am not recommending him as an agent, but he used to own at leats 3 of the houses on Shady Brook and was selling them off one at a time as recently as earlier this year. He bought a bunch of them on spec when they were being built, rented some of them out and gradually has unloaded his invetory as prices started to drop from their peek. If he doesn't expressly still own any, he may know the status of other potential sellers. Again, this is not a commerical for him as an agent, just as a potential owner.
If you like the newer, larger home neighborhoods you might also try the Leidke homes, which are comparable in size (smaller lots) and walking distance to Main Street...
For the Shady Brook homes, the last sales were in in the lw $1.3M range, down from peeks of $1.5M. The homes sizes and lots vary and theese prices were for the largest models on the wooded lots in the back of the community. Prices have probably dropped since then.
Good luck. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
guestm Guest
|
Posted: Thu, Dec 20 2007, 11:38 am EST Post subject: Re: Seeking homes in Shady brook lane |
|
|
thanks very much for the inforamtion.
Quote: |
You might try to contact Rich Abrams (Century 21). He is a realtor who lives in Cranbury and works out of Plainsboro. I am not recommending him as an agent, but he used to own at leats 3 of the houses on Shady Brook and was selling them off one at a time as recently as earlier this year. He bought a bunch of them on spec when they were being built, rented some of them out and gradually has unloaded his invetory as prices started to drop from their peek. If he doesn't expressly still own any, he may know the status of other potential sellers. Again, this is not a commerical for him as an agent, just as a potential owner.
If you like the newer, larger home neighborhoods you might also try the Leidke homes, which are comparable in size (smaller lots) and walking distance to Main Street...
For the Shady Brook homes, the last sales were in in the lw $1.3M range, down from peeks of $1.5M. The homes sizes and lots vary and theese prices were for the largest models on the wooded lots in the back of the community. Prices have probably dropped since then.
Good luck. |
|
|
Back to top |
|
 |
Guest
|
Posted: Fri, Dec 21 2007, 10:14 am EST Post subject: Re: Seeking homes in Shady brook lane |
|
|
For me the Leidke homes look ugly. The Shady Brook homes look nice from the front, but some of them have tiny (relatively speaking) backyard (i guess this is the new "feature" of newer homes: big house, small backyard).
How about the homes on Petty Rd.? |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
Guest
|
Posted: Fri, Dec 21 2007, 1:37 pm EST Post subject: Re: Seeking homes in Shady brook lane |
|
|
Guest wrote: | For me the Leidke homes look ugly. The Shady Brook homes look nice from the front, but some of them have tiny (relatively speaking) backyard (i guess this is the new "feature" of newer homes: big house, small backyard).
How about the homes on Petty Rd.? |
I almost mentioned Petty when I posted about Leidke but didn't because the newer ones (the OP specifically requested newer) come up pretty infreqently and are in a higher price range so I didn't want to presume they were an option...
This debate about the attractiveness of the Leidke homes has come up before. They seem to generate polarized responses. I actually think they look good. To me the colorful siding appearance is more in the farm community character of Cranbury than the cliche brick-front colonial track home look that predominates around here (including with my own house), including on Shady Brook. But to each their own. I will say with confidence having been in both the Shady Brook and Leidke homes when they were being built and subsequently that the Leidke homes are better built. In fact, I think the Leidke homes are about the best built I have seen from any non-customer developer around here in a while. Very nice finishes and touches too. The Shady Brook ones are by one of the two largest developers in the Northeast and are cooke cutter; exact same models you can find all over the area. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
guestm Guest
|
Posted: Thu, Dec 27 2007, 9:46 am EST Post subject: Re: Seeking homes in Shady brook lane |
|
|
Thanks for all the informationm, though I was somewhat surprised to see that some shady brooks homes have a relatively small backyard. For the few homes I saw here, they all have decent lot sizes, around 1 to 1.4 acres. Will homes in the same community have much smaller lot?
Leidke homes are nice too, but a little far from the train station. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
Guest
|
Posted: Thu, Dec 27 2007, 11:42 am EST Post subject: Re: Seeking homes in Shady brook lane |
|
|
I was referring to the Leidke homes when I mentioned the small yards, not the Shady Brook ones. I think all the Shady Brook one's have decent land, technically, though in practical terms some are on very wooded slopes so the usable yard is pretty small.
Leidke is only about 2-4 minutes further to the train station during the commuting hours. I have done it from each. There is plenty to differentiate each neighborhood but I wouldn't make such a small difference a deciding factor. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
Guest
|
Posted: Thu, Dec 27 2007, 11:54 am EST Post subject: Re: Seeking homes in Shady brook lane |
|
|
About lot size, when I was looking to buy my first house in 2002, I saw an ad for a to-be-built house in Marlboro. The ad said the house has a 3+ acres lot and more than 3500 sq. ft. with a 12 course basement. The asking (base) price was about $550K. I thought it was a great deal and went to have a look.
It turns out that the lot is irregular; most of it is on the side of the house with trees and land that is preserved. The actual usable area is probably a little more than half an acre... |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
guestm Guest
|
Posted: Thu, Dec 27 2007, 1:26 pm EST Post subject: Re: Seeking homes in Shady brook lane |
|
|
Guest wrote: | About lot size, when I was looking to buy my first house in 2002, I saw an ad for a to-be-built house in Marlboro. The ad said the house has a 3+ acres lot and more than 3500 sq. ft. with a 12 course basement. The asking (base) price was about $550K. I thought it was a great deal and went to have a look.
It turns out that the lot is irregular; most of it is on the side of the house with trees and land that is preserved. The actual usable area is probably a little more than half an acre... |
Emmm... this reminds me of reading the post on this forum regarding the new construction on applegate ct, 26 acres while only 1 acre usable... |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
dinsdale Guest
|
Posted: Wed, Apr 9 2008, 10:55 am EDT Post subject: Re: Seeking homes in Shady brook lane |
|
|
Don't expect to buy into Cranbury unless you have at least a million dollars lying around. By the time you buy the house and pay the taxes..............you'll be broke. And forget about hiring anyone to do any repairs. The prices double once you cross into the town limits.
WELCOME! |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
Guest
|
Posted: Wed, Apr 9 2008, 11:58 am EDT Post subject: Re: Seeking homes in Shady brook lane |
|
|
dinsdale wrote: | Don't expect to buy into Cranbury unless you have at least a million dollars lying around. By the time you buy the house and pay the taxes..............you'll be broke. And forget about hiring anyone to do any repairs. The prices double once you cross into the town limits.
WELCOME! |
I don’t know what chip dinsdale has on his/her shoulder, but most of the statements are false. As anyone coming to this site can plainly see from checking out the list of homes here, there is a huge diversity of pricing. In fact, I’d say it is easily to get an affordable house (single family versus townhome or condo) here than in neighboring Plainsboro or West Windsor. And a vast majority of the listings are below $1 million (28, versus 5 above). And many of these homes have been on the market for a while and experienced numerous reductions so the market is pretty competitive for buyers right now, like everywhere else.
In terms of taxes, even after the painful reassessment a year ago, Cranbury still has the best tax rate in relation to both home value and household income in all of Middlesex County and a lower rate than the other communities in the area with comparably great schools (West Windsor, Plainsboro, Princeton). We moved from Plainsboro to Cranbury a couple years ago. Plainsboro has better taxes than West Windsor yet even after the reassessment we are paying the almost exactly the same in property taxes in Cranbury that we did in Plainsbor despite a home assessed for 30% higher value in Cranbury.
And in terms of it costing more in Cranbury, it is unclear if you are referring to the home values or the hired labor, but neither is true. Newer home communities in Plainsboro, with the same floor plans by the same builders, as the newer communities in Cranbury sell for almost the same. In the neighborhood we used to live in at Plainsboro, there have been sales within the last year and even last six months for $1.4M for homes that are no bigger and have no more land or upgrades and are actually a couple years older than the homes on Shady Brook selling for $1.3-4M.
In terms of labor, we spent years in Plainsboro trying to find good help without luck. Within weeks of moving to Cranbury our new neighbors had hooked us up with better, more reliable handymen, plumbers, painters, etc., who all cost less or at most the same as the generally poor, unreliable people we had used in Plainsboro.
I still consider Cranbury the best deal/secret in the area. It has many advantages and few downsides, if any, relative to its neighbors. Perhaps that is why so many people, like us, end up relocating here from those neighboring communities after a few years. I never hear of the reverse happening. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
guestmm Guest
|
Posted: Mon, Apr 28 2008, 9:31 pm EDT Post subject: Re: Seeking homes in Shady brook lane |
|
|
Better do more research before you make decision. The town doesn't have it's own high school. Once the population gets higher in next few years due to 427 affordable housing... Good luck. Guestm wrote: | We are now thinking of moving into Cranbury, the feeling of a small and cozy town attracks us very much. Plus the school district is great. Especially we are interested in houses on the shady brrok lane (the woods at cranbury). The community is new and nice. Can somebody share any info in this community? do you know any one is thinking of selling? |
|
|
Back to top |
|
 |
Guest
|
Posted: Mon, Apr 28 2008, 11:03 pm EDT Post subject: Re: Seeking homes in Shady brook lane |
|
|
guestmm wrote: | Better do more research before you make decision. The town doesn't have it's own high school. Once the population gets higher in next few years due to 427 affordable housing... Good luck. Guestm wrote: | We are now thinking of moving into Cranbury, the feeling of a small and cozy town attracks us very much. Plus the school district is great. Especially we are interested in houses on the shady brrok lane (the woods at cranbury). The community is new and nice. Can somebody share any info in this community? do you know any one is thinking of selling? |
|
Where did the Op suggest that they thought Cranbury had its own high school? I presume they knew they went to Princeton, which most people consider a plus...
Yeah, it would definitely suck if they added all those houses in the worst case outcome from the COAH proposal. But you're getting pretty ahead of yourseld to think that's how it will play out. This has come up a few times in the last few decades and has never played out that way. I'm will to put a bet down with you that it doesn't this time either. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
|