By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
An emerging trend among Sea Isle City’s homeowners is to renovate rather than to raze.
For the second year in a row, major renovation projects kept Sea Isle’s housing market humming, although new home construction cooled off somewhat in 2022, according to construction and demolition figures compiled by the city.
The figures indicate that more and more homeowners are choosing to renovate and update their houses that were built about 40 years ago during Sea Isle’s first wave of new development and have begun showing their age.
“The older houses from the ’80s are getting a major makeover. It’s the modernization of the 1980s homes to today’s standards. People want to update them,” said Neil Byrne, Sea Isle’s construction official.
Byrne said renovations are in favor now because owners realize they can save money by updating their older houses or duplexes instead of tearing them down and building brand new homes in Sea Isle’s increasingly upscale real estate market.
“It’s more economical to do renovations,” he pointed out in an interview.
The renovation trend isn’t limited to single-family homes from the 1980s. Duplexes that are about 20 to 25 years old are also getting a facelift, Byrne noted.
Figures released by Byrne’s office show that a total of 34 new housing units were built in 2022 compared to 56 in 2021. Although there was a year-over-year decline in the number of new housing units, renovation projects allowed the real estate market to maintain a solid pace, Byrne said.
“We’re off a bit, but it’s not crazy. Maybe it’s a little bit slower,” he said of the dip in new home construction. “We’re doing bigger renovations instead of tearing down buildings and doing new.”
In the new construction category, the ever-popular duplexes continued to dominate the market in 2022. Altogether, 28 duplex units were built in 2022. Six single-family homes rounded out the rest of the new construction in 2022, the figures show.
In 2021, a total of 56 housing units were constructed, including 48 duplex units and eight single-family homes. There were 52 duplex units and 12 single-family homes built in 2020.
For 2022, a total of 34 housing units were demolished, nearly identical to the 35 that were torn down in 2021. Overall, 52 housing units were demolished in 2020.
With only a scarce amount of developable land available in the beach resort, new construction is often being done on property where old homes were demolished.
Most of the time, demolished single-family homes are replaced with duplexes. But Byrne said a number of houses were torn down in 2022 to create room for construction of new single-family homes.
“We’re getting more single-family homes. But we’re still building the two-family homes, too,” he said of the duplexes.
In recent years, Sea Isle has been evolving into a more upscale resort town featuring multimillion-dollar vacation homes lining the beachfront and bays.
A housing boom fueled by low mortgage rates and the shore being seen as a safe haven from the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed the median sales price for homes in Sea Isle well above $1 million.
“We’ve had good appreciation, both with the older and newer homes,” Byrne said. “It’s a testament that people want to live in Sea Isle.”
Avoiding any wild swings up or down, the city’s housing market has maintained pretty much of a steady pace over the past 10 years, Byrne said.
“People think that Sea Isle is a good place to raise their family – first homeowners, second homeowners and retirees,” he said.
Byrne said homeowners find Sea Isle attractive because of its oceanfront location, relatively low property taxes and a stable local government headed by Mayor Leonard Desiderio, who has been in office since 1993, and City Council.
He also cited Sea Isle’s array of family-friendly attractions, including plans for a $20 million community center, the Dealy Field athletic and recreation complex and the city’s new fishing pier and kayak launch facility built in 2021 on the bayfront.
“These things are all drawing people here,” he said. “People are excited for Sea Isle.”
